Vancouver Film School — Local services in Vancouver

A small disclaimer before I begin... There are probably many former students that have provided testimonials and thoughts on the program, and have focused on the knowlege they gained from the course materials in the Digital Design program at VFS. My testimonial differs slightly. I'm going to tell you about the life lessons I learned at VFS.

Make no doubt about it, the Digital Design program at VFS is very challenging.

The curriculum comes fast and hard, and requires a keen mind and disciplined approach to catch it all. In my opinion, the true challenge is that, as a student, VFS really forces you to look at what you want to do with your life and design career after graduation.

Here's why; when I attended VFS, there were two specializations: Interaction Design and Motion Design. Both were very appealing and taught by engaging and extremely knowledgeable instructors. So from the outset, you are confronted with that classic fork-in-the-road decision.

I had great difficulty choosing which stream to commit to. On the one hand, I was naturally inclined to do well in Motion, but on the other, learning about Interaction Design was exciting and challenging as it was completely new to me.

I knew that the choice would dictate what I would learn over the next 12 months, but I also had to remember that these would be the first few steps towards a life and career that I wanted to be rewarding and fulfilling. It was a choice that I couldn't take lightly as it not only affected me but also my young family.

I took a long hard look at myself. I asked, what did I truly enjoy in life? What things really irked me about the current state of the world? What personal strengths do I have that will make me a more objective designer? What professional strengths can I leverage to help me get a job once I graduate? And of course... what topics did we discuss that will get me up in the morning and keep me up at night?

So what did I choose? For me, it was Interaction Design, and I couldn't be happier. Why? Because I took the time to really question what I wanted out of that year, and what I wanted in the years to follow. I took the time to do the heavy lifting in the beginning, to make the rest less difficult. I made the right decision for me, based on the tough questions I asked myself.

If you are a prospective VFS student, your story might be different. You might know exactly what you want to do, and that's great! However, I'm hoping that my insights help shine a light on the less talked about aspects of student life like: personal growth, life assessment and self reflection. You'll need to do that for your entire career after VFS, so thinking that way in advance is a good habit to get into.

My opinions on VFS?

Yes, you will learn from some of the industry's best. Yes, you will learn to become an amazing designer, and look at the world with a new set of eyes. Yes, you will make life long friends and make memories that will last a lifetime... and Yes I do highly recommend this school if you are thinking of becoming a Digital Designer.

Just know that the knowledge you will gain here does not begin and end with your scheduled classes. It happens at all moments... in the interactions you have with your classmates, the life lessons you gain from your instructors, and even the random moments on your way to school or on the way home.

Always have an eye and ear open, be a good person, and try to leave things a little better than when you got there.

You do that, and I'm sure you'll do great at VFS... and everywhere...

FUTURE GAME DESIGNERS: SPEAK WITH ADMISSIONS AND ATTEND THE WEBINAR!

As a prospective student of the Game Design program, it behooves me to comment on VFS' hospitality, transparency and assistance when it comes to the admissions process, tuition, and program specifics.

ADMISSIONS

If you're like me, you probably took for granted this first point-of-contact with schools and/or businesses. Gija Williams, the Director of Admissions, went above and beyond to address my inquiries and concerns. She was direct about the program's rigour, reassuring when personal insecurities came up, and surprisingly blunt about the school's current challenges in creating the best ROI for students. Also, Gija is under no illusion that this is a pricey school in an expensive city. She was genuinely interested in exploring payment options with me to make the school for more affordable and flexible in its payment schedule. I felt like I was given information and options tailor-made for me, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all solution read from a script. She's an empathetic listener who's willing to get personal -- that's a rare skill and an even rarer disposition in our post-COVID world, where more and more institutions and businesses have become a lot more greedy and a lot less transparent.

GAME DESIGN WEBINAR

The program overview webinar was hosted by Chris Mitchell, the head of the Game Design program -- and it was, hands down, the best one I've ever attended. It helps that Chris is super down to earth, funny, transparent and passionate about the craft and industry. Actually, "overview" is a misnomer -- you can get much of that off the site, and Chris knows it. Instead, he fills in the blanks and answers the questions you'd likely have after seeing the site and speaking with admissions. What are the employment numbers and which companies? What's the percentage of VFS grads at some of these companies? He goes further: the household brands founded by VFS grads, the capstone projects that have won awards and been featured in Unreal's Student Showcase. One highlight included VFS training students in service ops after several founders conveyed a desperate need for employees with that experience. The webinar was just the right length, with ample time to ask questions. Got follow up questions? Just email him. You're visiting campus? He makes a point of meeting every prospective student.

To those who'd object to all this by saying "well, it's a business...they'll do the song and dance for your money" -- fair! But that song and dance doesn't get you the reputation they have. Look up "Game Designer VFS" on LinkedIn, and see how many grads there are working at triple AAA companies.

VFS' Game Design faculty and staff took all the right lessons from COVID -- they lean into the need for empathy and clarity, and seek to cultivate it. Stay in touch with them after that initial call, and you'll see...

I have a few criticisms to make as someone who graduated from the acting program. VFS is a program that is set up in such a way that basically anyone who was already poised to successfully make it in the industry before graduating will be the ones who actually make a career in acting. As someone who was in the acting department I feel as though there probably wasn't enough criticism on people's acting abilities so people who maybe needed it wouldn't grow in the ways they need to. It's structured in a way where everyone is a loving family and when you're there you'll feel like everyone is your best friend but In the cutthroat competitive world of acting this "everyone loves eachother and is best friends" mentality isn't how people get roles. There isn't really much collaboration with other departments aside from film production and the projects you work on when you collaborate with them are not used as demo reel footage when you graduate. There's also virtually no collaboration with the animation department which I feel like would be detrimental in learning about the world of voice acting and again that doesn't go into your demo reel either. Instead your demo reel is a cut of you standing against a black wall re enacting scenes from movies and tv shows and your voice acting demo reel is comprised of you writing a character to act and reading off of material that already exists and already has a voice actor so again you're not really bringing anything unique to your demo reel. Having certain classes and teachers be on your resume certainly is helpful when contacting agents but I feel like there's not enough collaboration that can be used to showcase your growth and ability as an actor and I hope VFS can recognize this and adjust their curriculum to not just "encourage" collaboration (and by encourage I mean sort of off handedly saying "oh yeah animation students sometimes need voice actors for projects you can do that I guess") it would be significantly better if these collaboration were baked into the learning experience and were part of the curriculum so that 1- you can learn about networking in a way that allows you to actually learn about what collaboration with different people on projects is like and 2- you could then use that project as a part of your demo reel. I feel like if this were adjusted and we didn't spend so much time on making other students read a monologue about other students traumas in front of them we might see a higher rate of successful actors who graduate from...