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Film School spotlights surge in scholarships

Vancouver Film School has $200,000 in scholarships -- twice the amount it had last year -- available for students from Western Canada.  School recruiters are currently on the B.C. leg of their search for eager, talented students. They saw 23 potential students in Prince George Tuesday, 45 in Kelowna Wednesday, and will visit Victoria today and Vancouver Friday. They then travel to Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary and Edmonton for sessions in early April.  Scholarships range from $1,000 to $10,000, based on three criteria.  Source.

BC's hot sectors

Current and emerging industry sectors facing labour shortages. Please click here for summaries of some of BC’s Hot Sectors: Agriculture, Aquaculture, Call Centers, Arts & Culture,  Construction, Education, Health, Finance Insurance and Real Estate, Forestry, Mining, Oil and Gas, Policing, Professional Services, Technology, Tourism, Trades, Transportation, and Trucking. 

Source: BC Career Management Association

Film Industry

The growth in the B.C. film industry has made an imprint on the festival in a number of ways. Article.

Thriving Film Industry

A deep talent pool of artists, a thriving film industry and the chance to save up to 40 per cent of labour costs is making Vancouver attractive to American post-production houses.

Giant Killer Robots (GKR), a San Francisco visual effects studio, whose credits include Fantastic Four, World Trade Center and The Matrix movies, will sign a lease on a Vancouver property within the next few weeks. The company plans to hire between 60 and 150 employees.

Full article here.

BC's busiest film studio

Kirk Shaw is happy to be a singles hitter. His Vancouver company, Insight Film Studios Ltd., turns out more productions than any other B.C.-based company, all of them modestly budgeted, and most of them returning small revenues, which Insight puts toward purchasing more equipment and funding more projects.  Full article here.

VFS to hand out $1Million in Scholarships

Next year, Vancouver Film School celebrates its 20th anniversary. To mark the occasion the school will hand out $1 million in scholarships for the 2007 academic year.  VFS offers programs in visual art and design, 3D animation and visual effects, acting, all forms of animation, digital design, film production, game design, entertainment business management, sound design, writing, makeup design and Houdini certification.  Full article here.

Film production revenue on the rise

Film production in the province is catching up to that in Ontario and Quebec, with Canadian producers headquartered in B.C. earning $268 million in 2004, up 29.4% from 2001.  Total production revenues in Canada slipped (-10.6%) from $1.7 billion to $1.5 billion between 2001 and 2004.  Other than B.C., Saskatchewan was the only region to record an increase in revenue (+67.2% from $9 million to $15 million).  Source: Statistics Canada.  Source. 

New Zealand plays role of BC

We're used to seeing Vancouver and other British Columbia locations stand in for New York, Seattle, Oregon state and other foreign places in the movies.

But a new film coming out on DVD later this month reverses the trend. Mee-Shee the Water Giant, a family movie based on our province's sea monster legend, Ogopogo, was shot entirely in New Zealand and England, which pretend to be British Columbia.

Full article here.

Films

Link: Lionsgate gets pumped up with Element Films deal.

A three-year deal with Element Films will expand Lionsgate's release slate by three movies a year. Under the agreement, Lionsgate, with offices in Santa Monica and Vancouver, will distribute within North America nine movies made by Los Angeles-based Element Films, which will select six of the nine films, and develop, finance and produce them all. Element Films International will handle foreign sales of all nine films in the agreement. Lionsgate will hold home video/DVD rights to all nine pictures. The two companies teamed up for last year's restaurant comedy Waiting, a low-budget film (made for less than $3 million US) which starred Vancouver actor Ryan Reynolds. Waiting took in $16 million at the North American box office, and has shipped more than 2.5 million units on DVD for Lionsgate. They also teamed together on the thriller Five Fingers, starring Laurence Fishburne and Ryan Phillippe, which is scheduled for a fall theatrical release.

Hollywood North sees huge leap in production

Link: Hollywood North sees huge leap in production.

Film and television production in B.C. increased 50 per cent last year despite a soaring Canadian dollar, as the industry rebounded with the help of higher provincial tax credits, the minister of tourism, sport and the arts said Monday. Olga Ilich announced that film and television production contributed $1.2 billion to the B.C. economy in 2005, showing a major turnaround from the previous year. "I think we have great people, we've got great talent, we've got great venues, we've got lots of locations. Our after-production is very good and I think the tax credits have a role to play as well," Ilich said following a speech for the Vancouver Board of Trade. "We've spent $50 million in tax credits last year to attract the industry." The rising Canadian dollar hit the industry hard in 2004, prompting producers to seek alternate locations. Production revenues fell to $801 million from a record $1.4 billion in 2003.