On Wednesday, January 25th, VanArts was excited to welcome Recruiter Maggie Lee and Recruiting Supervisor Joe Caggiano from Rhythm & Hues Studios to give a presentation to our students & staff.  The award-winning studio from Los Angeles has opened a branch in Vancouver and is busy gearing up for full production.  Maggie and Joe showed us production reels from their feature films, talked about how to apply to their studio, and took many great questions from our students in Character Animation, Game Art & Design and Visual Effects.

A big thanks to Rhythm & Hues for taking the time to spend with us here at VanArts!

If your New Year's Resolution for 2012 is to learn some new skills or explore the arts, VanArts presents its annual part-time courses throughout the year which typically meet once a week in evenings or weekends. 

For a list of courses, click on any of the following links by category: 

Digital Photography

Acting

Art & Animation

Click on any course to learn dates, times and costs.  We hope to welcome you into our part-time courses in 2012!

Questions?  Contact us at 604-682-2787 x104

VanArts is proud to share our most recent survey of graduate and placement statistics, with very promising results for our grads finding work relevant to their field of study.  Surveys were conducted six months after our last two graduating classes, and the average job placement rate was 88%! 

According to school president Alan Phillips, "This high placement data speaks volumes about what a great job VanArts is doing at offering first class, industry-relevant education." 

 The Vancouver Sun has published a news story about the growth of our local Visual Effects industry in our city, including a short video highlighting Zoic Studios, where several VanArts grads are currently working. 

According to VFX grad Maddy McAllan (from Scotland), "You can see me and my mate, Chris Lucas in a video included in this Vancouver Sun article about Zoic Studios BC.

You can see us 1 minute into the video, I'm wearing a white Canucks cap working on a green screen shot of a guy's head :). Keeping the school pride going with my VanArts water bottle a permanent feature at my desk.

Chris is to my left.

I was so focused on my work, I didn't even know they were filming behind me!!"

Read the entire article and watch the video here!  

At VanArts, our mission, newly displayed in our front lobby, is "to contribute to the development of the individual student's artistic and career potential by bringing together world-class instructors to teach, inspire, motivate and pass their knowledge on to students and support the development of their talents and realization of their dreams in the visual, media and performing arts."

As fulfillment of this mission, we have recently received some encouraging comments from students and graduates in our full-time programs.

Britton Nosbisch, currently studying in our Visual Effects program, says, “While living in Nashville, I spent 18 months doing research on schools for Visual Effects. As part of this research, I flew out to Los Angeles twice and applied to another school in Vancouver.  The schools I investigated in downtown Hollywood (not a very glamorous place) were in the area of $80,000 in tuition and the facilities were comical at that price compared to the Vancouver schools I looked at.

After deciding upon Vancouver and being accepted to a major school there, I discovered some testimonies by many of their graduates who had been very frustrated with the large numbers of students & intakes being held every few months.  It began sounding more like a big-name factory pushing people through to collect their tuition. After staying up all night reading these comments, I took another look at VanArts, which had only two intakes a year and more reasonable class sizes.  I sent them an e-mail and got a call from their Director of Admissions within 10 minutes. She thoroughly listened to my dilemma, explained what they have to offer, and asked if I'd like to speak with the Head of the Visual Effects Department.  It was great being able to do this so quickly, and I was impressed by his knowledge of the industry, of Maya software across both gaming and film platforms, and the fact that all of the instructors are working professionals from the major studios. 

Overall, I was simply encouraged by VanArts to make the best decision for myself and what I was looking for in my search for a school, and after 8 months of the program here, I can assure you I've become more confident in my investment every day. The one-on-one time I get with professionals that are excited to help me succeed is simply unmatched!”

As for our graduates, the stories speak for themselves.  A graduate from our 2D Character Animation program wrote us saying, "As a current intern with a high profile studio in Hollywood, I realized how much I learned about Story in just one year at VanArts.  I am better prepared than most of the others who attended four-year programs at other schools.  Go VanArts!" 

Click here to read the latest stories about our graduates who have gone forth to realize their dream careers!

...and contact us today to get started on your own! 

Rohan Oka, a graduate from our Game Art & Design program in 2009, has since been working for Dreamworks Animation, currently at their studio in Bangalore, India. Most recently, he has sent us a career update telling us about his work on the new animated feature now in theaters, Puss in Boots. He also sent us these great photos from the film's premiere at the Urvashi Theatre in Bangalore.

Rohan tells us, "My awesome team and I worked on a few sequences in the surfacing aspect of the film.  Here every little pixel of texture is scrutinized and tweaked over and over, which is the reason we get a good-looking polished output.  Personally, it was a great experience to work on something this grand, and even better being credited with my first feature film, Puss in Boots!"  

Rohan also says, "The efforts put in by my instructors at VANARTS to mold us into complete artists paid off. In everything I do here now at Dreamworks Animation, I am always reminded and guided by the knowledge they gave us. Being a big fan of Shrek & Madagascar, working at Dreamworks is a treat... and I am enjoying every moment of it."

VanArts was proud to be a participant and exhibitor in the annual CREATIVEMIX Conference again this year, on November 3rd at the Roundhouse Community Centre.

CREATIVEMIX is a professional development conference for both emerging and established creative professionals, entrepreneurs and artists of all kinds, bringing them together in an atmosphere of creativity and collaboration.  A big thanks to coordinators Corwin Hiebert and Eileen Rothe for putting on another inspiring event! 

(Above Conference Photos: Jeremy Lim)

At the VanArts booth, guests were invited to get their photo taken in front of our green-screen, later to be composited into our army of VanBots!  Photos were entered into a contest and our selected winners are featured below for best group, couple and single photos.

Check out all the photos at  Facebook and  Flickr

Check out our blog post here from last year's CREATIVEMIX 2010.

For more information on the conference, visit creativemix.ca.

Here is a random blog post of news and updates from this week at VanArts!

We have heard through the grapevine this week about several of our Visual Effects graduates getting hired by major studios.  Congratulations to Eleonor Lindvall from Sweden, just hired by Double Negative Studios in London, UK...and to Maddy McAllan (from Scotland) and Chris Lucas (from Calgary, AB) just hired by Zoic Studios here in Vancouver!

Speaking of Vancouver studios, the Vancouver Sun posted an article today recognizing the first local production by Pixar Canada, just blocks away in the Gastown district. We're excited to have this story bringing attention to our local industry, so check it out RIGHT HERE.

(Photo © Copyright The Vancouver Sun)

If you follow our video galleries in Vimeo or YouTube you may notice lots of activity these days as we continue to update them with brand new samples of work from our most recent graduates. Check out our updated montage showcases for Character Animation and Visual Effects below, and keep following us for more videos being added to our website in the weeks to come...

Character Animation

Visual Effects for Film & Television

Jyoti Deshpande, from India, is a graduate from our Game Art & Design Diploma Program.  In this new video, she shares some comments about her experiences at VanArts.

VanArts is very proud of the number of students and successful graduates who have come from India over the years.  Currently, our student body from India has the second highest population, just under students from Canada.

Visit our Admissions India page for more details. Seats are now open for full-time start dates in March and September 2012!