VanArts Acting for Film & Television Graduate Everett Shea is currently on stage in a local production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, running until July 28 at Coast Capital Playhouse in White Rock.  The stage production is directed by Wendy Bollard, who also teaches in our full-time Acting for Film & Television program.

Of Everett's performance in the role of Christopher Wren, reviewer Alex Browne for Peace Arch News says, "Shea's performance as Wren is quite delightful, easily winning over the audience with Christopher's delicate sensibilities, ardent aestheticism and macabre sense of humour – as well as revealing his underlying agitation – without ever resorting to caricature."

Read the full review here >>

Director Wendy Bollard is a singer, actor, producer and director with over 25 years of vocal experience. After graduating from Anthony Holland's Vancouver Film and Theatre School she moved to England where she studied at The Actor's Centre in London and performed at various venues throughout London and Dublin. As a trained singer with a critically-acclaimed jazz CD, Wendy has performed at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, the West Coast Music Festival, and was the featured vocalist with the Dal Richard's Orchestra. Wendy sits on the Culture Committee for the City of White Rock, is a board member for Peninsula Productions and recently started her own production company 16th Ave Productions.

Thanks to the gracious invitation of our Broadcasting Department, VanArts was pleased to have a visit and guest speaker presentation today by Rebecca Bollwitt, better known as "Miss 604" and one of Canada's social media pioneers.

Rebecca has been blogging about life in BC since 2004 on Miss604.com, and working professional in online media for the last 11 years. She co-founded sixty4media, a WordPress website development firm, and has co-authored the book, Blogging to Drive Business.

Rebecca spoke to our students & staff today about 'Social Media for Personal and Business Use'.  Thanks to Rebecca for the great presentation, and to Co-Head of Broadcasting AJ Junop for arranging it! 

On Friday, June 1st, 2012, VanArts hosted the graduation ceremony for our latest group of students who have completed our 9-month Acting for Film & Television program.

Department Head Chilton Crane and her dedicated instructional staff of professional actors all had great things to say about our grads and the hard work they did through the program. We were very glad to have so many friends, family & past grads in attendance to celebrate their achievements.

Congratulations to you all, and we look forward to watching you!

The senior students in our full-time Acting for Film & Television program have been in the final stages of rehearsal for their performance of James McLure's The Day They Shot John Lennon, directed by our program founder William B. Davis. Known to many as "Cancer Man" on the The X-Files, William Davis has directed over 100 professional productions at major theatres in Britain and Canada. 

The performance was at the Havana Theatre in Vancouver May 10th -12th, along with another one-act play North of Providence, directed by Chilton Crane.

VanArts would love to invite you to check out our exhibition of brilliant work from our senior Digital Photography students, opening April 29 - May 8.

Click here for more details on our event page >>

This weekend was Vancouver's very first Fan Expo convention, which attracted over 15,000 guests into a sold-out attraction at Vancouver Convention Centre. Fan Expo, based out of Toronto, is Canada's largest fan convention for comics, movies, TV and games, and VanArts was excited to be on the floor as an exhibitor to share information about our programs.

Even more exciting was seeing the variety of successful graduates from our full-time programs who were there to greet fans and show their work.

Aaron Douglas, known to many as Chief Galen Tyrol on Battlestar Galactica and Frank Leo on The Bridge, is a graduate of our Acting for Film & TV program at the William Davis Centre for Actors' Study at VanArts.  Aaron is among the cast of the upcoming thriller Death Do Us Part, which was being promoted at the Expo.

Georgie Daburas, another graduate of our Acting Department, is currently receiving accolades for his lead role on Hitman 101, a locally-produced web series.

Danielle Anathema, a graduate of our Digital Photography program, has launched her own business for her horror-themed photography, and had her own booth at Fan Expo to showcase her art.

Dan Schoening and Nina Matsumoto are graduates of our 2D Character Animation program, who have both made a big name for themselves in the comics industry. Dan has produced art for a number of clients and created a series of Ghostbusters comics, and Nina has won an Eisner award for her work on The Simpsons comics.

It's great to see the Force is with our star grads who are pursuing their dreams and getting to meet their fans.  Be sure to look for us at the Calgary Comic Expo this weekend and Toronto's Fan Expo in August! 

Read more about our grads in these previous blog stories:
Aaron Douglas
Georgie Daburas
Dan Schoening
Nina Matsumoto

Congratulations to our Spring 2012 class of graduates from our full-time programs in Visual Effects, Game Art & Design, Digital Photography and Character Animation!  Their official ceremony was held at Simon Fraser University's Goldcorps Centre for the Arts on Thursday, March 15th.  

We wish our grads all the best and look forward to seeing their names in lights! 

Photos by Jen Piper

During a recent building demolition at Granville and Robson Street in downtown Vancouver, a fascinating piece of film history saw the light of day for the first time in 90 years. A "ghost sign" (common term for a sign that represents a dead business) pointing to the now-gone Capitol Theatre, where the silent comedy Grandma's Boy starring screen legend Harold Llloyd was scheduled to begin playing on October 2, 1922.  This sign was covered up shortly afterwards by another building, hidden from sight until just a few days ago.  

Our animation history instructor at VanArts, Charles Phillips (pictured above with two of his students), has a great passion and extensive knowledge of silent film comedians, particularly his hero Harold Lloyd. He has often shown the film Grandma's Boy to our animation students in his history course, and spoken about the influence of the silent film era on the early days of animation. 

We went with Charles down to the site of the ghost sign downtown to record him talking about this amazing piece of our city's history, and just one day after we shot this video, the sign was demolished. 

Click on the link at the end of this video to continue into a more extensive history lesson by Charles about the history of Harold Lloyd's film Grandma's Boy in context with the silent film era and other artists like Charlie Chaplin. 

Shown here is also a movie review and advertisement from the Vancouver Sun from the original run of Grandma's Boy. 

For more information on the uncovering of this sign, read this article from the Vancouver Sun >>

Read another article on the final demolition of the sign here >>

Click here for more Vancouver Sun newspaper ads for the film from 1922 >>

Thanks Charles for sharing your vast knowledge with us about this historic find!

UPDATE: Charles was invited to introduce a screening of the film Grandma's Boy at the VanCity Theatre on Wed March 14th

Linked articles © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

VanArts was proud to be an exhibitor and participant at the 2nd Annual Indian Comic Con in Dilli Haat, New Delhi, from February 17-19, 2012.  Representing our school was Shweta Mendhekar, our admissions advsior for India. Comic fans and artists were able to visit our booth, ask questions about our programs, and pose for photo opps in their costumes. 

For more pictures from the event, click here >>

For more information on admissions for Indian students, visit our ADMISSIONS INDIA page and feel free to contact us! 

VanArts is looking forward to Canada's largest Comic Convention FAN EXPO (based from Toronto) coming for the first time to Vancouver on April 21-22, where we will be on the floor as exhibitors, at BOOTH #426!

Even more exciting is watching the guest list grow and witness the various connections the event has to VanArts. 

Most recently added is Aaron Douglas, a graduate of the William Davis Centre for Actors' Study at VanArts. He is best known for his starring roles in Battlestar Galactica and The Bridge, and most recently the upcoming film Death Do Us Part.  Aaron is one of our celebrated graduates who has often come back to offer his guidance and advice to our current acting students.

Another very recent addition is our Acting graduate Georgie Daburas, who is currently the lead actor in the local web series Hitman 101. 

Click here for the full story on Hitman 101 >>

Also among the various exhibitors and guests our own Steve Rolston, who teaches our part-time course in Comic Book Production, and two of our animation graduates who have made it big in the comics industry: Nina Matsumoto (VanArts Grad 2003) and Dan Schoening (VanArts Grad 2000).

Another interesting distant connection to VanArts at Fan Expo Vancouver is the guest appearance of Troy Nixey, who took our part-time course for Intro to Stop-Motion Animation with Ken Priebe back in 2001.  At that time, Troy was an up-and-coming comic artist, and more recently was hired by Guillermo del Toro to direct the feature film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, based on the strength of his short film Latchkey's Lament.

It's always neat to see where our various VanArts students land! 

On top of all of these VanArts stars being present at Fan Expo is the full guest list of celebrities, which includes none other than the original 1960s Batman & Robin, Adam West and Burt Ward.  (The distant connection here is that the animated titles to the Batman series were created by our founding program director for the VanArts animation program, the late Lee Mishkin.)

Hope to see you at Fan Expo Vancouver!  Tickets are now available at www.fanexpovancouver.com so be sure to drop by our booth and talk to us.  You never know who you will run into!