VFS Students and their Hijinx

The Vancouver Film School is a legendary institution of film-making here in Hollywood North. To give a brief yet recent example, the 2009 summer blockbuster, District 9 had a strong crew of VFS alums including its Director, Neill Blomkamp, co-writer Terri Tatchell, and Visual Effects Executive Producer Shawn Walsh. 40 other members from District 9′s visual effects team were also VFS alums.

Darren Barefoot recently pointed me in the direction of the VFS blog where students have been making their way across Vancouver, leaving an imaginary path of destruction. The blog post “VFS Students Wreaking Havoc” features a Google map of Vancouver mashed up of VFX reels. “It’s a funny thing about the Visual Effects specialization in 3D Animation & Visual Effects: since visual effects are all about combining real footage with CG creations, our students regularly blow up, knock down, or otherwise destroy Vancouver, from the landmarks to the back alleys.”

Here are a few samples of their work, which is pretty cool stuff:

John and I often play “Guess Where Vancouver” when watching a series filmed locally however it’s even more fun (or challenging) when you have visual effects to work with. Our city is often masked as Seattle in movies (or you know, the Bronx) but it’s kind of neat to see it as itself in these clips… even though it is being banged up a bit.