Faculty

Colin Giles

Head of Department

Colin has over 17 years' experience as a Character Animator, Animation Director, and Designer, with credits in traditional and computer animation. His credits include work for Cartoon Network, Disney Interactive, and HBO.

Craig Shiells

Pipeline Supervisor

Casey Kwan

Creative Director

Casey has devoted himself to the computer animation industry for 20 years. For the last five years at VFS, he has focused his experience as a Production Designer, CG Supervisor, and Art Director, to shape VFS's industry-focused curriculum.

Keith Blackmore

Instructor

For his entire life, Keith Blackmore has been a passionate voice, a cheerleader, an advocate, for visual effects and all things animated in Vancouver.

As an active member of the local SIGGRAPH chapter and the Conference Chairman for the SPARK Animation and SPARK FWD festivals, he has presented, interviewed and moderated at many conferences and studios in Vancouver. Keith has taught animation and VFX history at the Vancouver Film School for 20 years. When he's not teaching about animation, you’ll find him watching it while eating his morning cereal.

Myriam Casper

Instructor - Editing

Myriam Casper is a documentary filmmaker, editor, and photographer. Since 2003 she has mentored 3000+ student short films & animations at Vancouver Film School.

In 2007, Myriam was a Producer for Channel M television and Cinematographer & Editor on Mosaico TV, a series of documentaries about Portuguese colonies.
 
Extremely passionate about photography, traveling, meeting people and their cultures, Myriam brings back these experiences to share with students in her photography class.
 
Myriam has studied New Media at VFS and photography in Stamford, England.

Francois Van Eeden

Instructor

Jamal Knight

Senior Instructor - VFX

Kristine Baz

Instructor

Brett Vanderkist

Instructor

Ethan Lee

Teaching Assistant

Jimmy Huang

Teaching Assistant

Sernur Sancay

Program Manager

After working as an Administrative Director back in Turkey for 11 years, Sernur moved to Canada with her family in 2021. She enjoys helping students with responding to their needs and requests and working in coordination with her co-workers. Outside work, she enjoys spending time with her family and travelling out of the town.

Curtis Amaral

Instructor

Jeff Merritt

Teaching Assistant

Arthur Gonzales

Instructor

Arthur is a CG generalist from London, Ontario. He co-founded VRcadia.ca, a VR venue, and ExarStudios.com, which is dedicated to VR/AR development and film production. He has taught 3D software for 7 years, and hosted London’s 1st VR film festival.

Lawrence Wong

Senior Instructor

Andrew McDermott

Instructor

Andrew is the past President and a senior member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. Upon college graduation in Graphic Design and Illustration, he studied and further refined his own unique style, winning top awards in both Canada, China and the US. Andrew teaches life and figure drawing.

Airi Beltran

Mentor

Airi has been an animator for the past 10 years working on shows from The Addams Family to Monsters at Work. She's been a Lead Animator for the past 6 years and comes from a software background that has proven an invaluable asset to her career.

Bradley Kotris

Instructor

Liviu Antonescu

Mentor

Manuel Armonio

Mentor

Manuel is a modeler and texture artist with experience ranging from video games to films. He maintains a generalist skillset for modeling and surfacing.

Marcelo De Castro

Mentor

Marcelo has spent the last 22 years contributing environment assets to a wide range of projects spanning TV, film, and advertising, including set design, pre-production, 3D Environments, and Matte Painting. He currently works at DNEG as an Environment Generalist.

Juan Franzius

Instructor

Juan is the Head of 3D Animation at Bardel Entertainment, and has been fortunate enough to work alongside many talented artists leading and helping them develop their animations skills. He has been teaching at VFS for 3 years.

Adrew Hudec

Instructor

Andrew is a graduate of the VFS Foundation and 3D programs. He was a member of the Oscar and Annie winning team which created "Spiderman Into the Spider-Verse" He is currently working as an Animation Director at ICON Creative Studio where he uses his 21 years of feature and television animation experience to lead the team. Utilizing his 7 years of feature film animation experience has given him the understanding needed to elevate each student to greater potential. While directing animation has become his new passion, his love for animating has not changed and he animate sequences in all his episodes to fulfil that creative craving.

Elias Issa

Instructor

Todd Leblanc

Sound Designer

Vanessa Marshall

Instructor

Vanessa has worked in HR, recruitment, production management, and social media. She's looking forward to collaborating with you on your job search & networking strategy!

Marc Mason

Instructor

Marc is a VFX Producer based out of FuseFX's Vancouver office. With nearly a decade of experience in visual effects, his work expands an array of feature films, television shows, and commercials. Marc has worked at some of Vancouver's most prestigious visual effects companies, including MPC, Digital Domain, Prime Focus, Zoic Studios, and DNEG.

Troy Nemeth

Mentor

Miguel Ortiz Rivera

Mentor

Dave Ritchey

Mentor

Dave Ritchey is the Animation Director at Atomic Cartoons. He has experience in both 3D and 2D animation, and as a mentor offers shot feedback and career advice.

Matthew Thomas

Sound Supervisor

Simon Unger

Instructor

Victoria Wong

Instructor

Victoria has over 10 years of experience in career development, HR, and recruiting; most of which in the VFX and Animation industry. Her experience includes managing and coaching Digital Artists in the fields of Concept Art, Animation, and Layout, as well as technical staff in R&D and Production Technology.

Ryan Abueg

Instructor

Ryan has been in the animation industry since 2013 and is currently an Animation Supervisor and Animation Director at Atomic Cartoons. He's looks forward to teaching students clean, efficient TV animation workflow in CG!

Aidan Langdon

Program Co-Ordinator

Aidan Langdon is the Program Coordinator for Vancouver Film School's three animation programs: 3D Animation & VFX, Animation Concept Art, and Classical Animation. He is a Concept Artist and Illustrator, and greatly enjoys the art of storytelling through environments.

Marv Newland

Instructor

Marv has been making animated motion pictures since 1969. He founded the animation production company International Rocketship Limited in Vancouver in 1975. He continues to make animated pictures and has made films for the NFB and directed television product for companies in Canada, the USA and Holland. He has no pets, tattoos, or legitimate opinions.

Anne Kopriva

Teaching Assistant

Anne is a Canadian theatre artist and animator. After graduating from University of Victoria's Theatre program they pursued their lifelong dream of becoming a classical animator at VFS. These days Anne can be found wandering the halls of VFS like a friendly ghost and coming up with new ideas to make people laugh.

David Convery

Instructor

A VFS classical animation alumni, David is an animator and production artist specializing in digital character animation and TV animation production.

Kayla Ziegler

Instructor

Kayla has been part of the local 2D animation industry in Vancouver since 2016. They have worked as a character animator and animation revisionist at Atomic Cartoons, and WildBrain Studios. They are proud to have worked on shows such as The Legend of the Three Caballeros, Molly of Denali, Max and Ruby, and The Snoopy Show. Kayla hopes to encourage students to pursue high quality animation in ToonBoom Harmony.

Zongguang Zhao

Instructor

Omari Newton

Head of Department

Omari is an award-winning professional actor, writer, director, producer, and TedX speaker. Omari’s most-recent credits include a recurring role as Black Panther in various Marvel animated projects and as Corvus in Netflix’s The Dragon Prince.

Jennifer Clement

Senior Instructor

Jen has acted in over 100 theatre, film and TV projects in the course of her professional career. She has been teaching for ten years, sharing her years of experience and passion for acting with her students.

Alison James

Senior Instructor

Alison has been acting, directing, and teaching for over 11 years. She played the coveted role of “Nurse Tiffany” in New Zealand's primetime clinical drama Shortland Street, which is still shown in over 70 countries.

Bill Marchant

Creative Specialist

Bill's feature film Everyone won Best Canadian Film at the Montreal World Film Festival and was nominated for four Leo Awards. Along with numerous roles in Canadian television, Bill has written and directed short films and plays.

Kim Tough

Program Manager

Omari Newton

Head of Department

Omari is an award-winning professional actor, writer, director, producer, and TedX speaker. Omari’s most-recent credits include a recurring role as Black Panther in various Marvel animated projects and as Corvus in Netflix’s The Dragon Prince.

Jennifer Clement

Senior Instructor

Jen has acted in over 100 theatre, film and TV projects in the course of her professional career. She has been teaching for ten years, sharing her years of experience and passion for acting with her students.

Bill Marchant

Creative Specialist

Bill's feature film Everyone won Best Canadian Film at the Montreal World Film Festival and was nominated for four Leo Awards. Along with numerous roles in Canadian television, Bill has written and directed short films and plays.

Nancy Sivak

Instructor

Nancy has been a professional actor in Vancouver for over 25 years. She has worked on the stage, as well as in television and film. Her involvement in the world of independent film has taken her to film festivals around the world.

Alison James

Senior Instructor

Alison has been acting, directing, and teaching for over 11 years. She played the coveted role of “Nurse Tiffany” in New Zealand's primetime clinical drama Shortland Street, which is still shown in over 70 countries.

Kim Tough

Program Manager

Matt Fentiman

Instructor

With more than 15 years of experience in the entertainment industry, Matt is a proud member of Vancouver's film and theatre community and has appeared in dozens of locally produced feature films, short films, TV episodes and plays.

Kurt Evans

Instructor

Kurt has appeared in dozens of TV shows, commercials and films including, X-Files, Ties that Bind, Arrow, and Tomorrow People, and had recurring roles in iZombie, Supernatural, Battlestar Galactica, Level Up, Sanctuary, and Exe’s and Oh’s. His stage credits include the Jesse Award-winning The Best Restaurant in the World… Ever and Burn This. He is a writer and director for works including the award-winning short film Hula and Back to One, and has been an acting coach and teacher for more than 15 years.

Colin Giles

Head of Department

Colin has over 17 years' experience as a Character Animator, Animation Director, and Designer, with credits in traditional and computer animation. His credits include work for Cartoon Network, Disney Interactive, and HBO.

Keith Blackmore

Instructor

For his entire life, Keith Blackmore has been a passionate voice, a cheerleader, an advocate, for visual effects and all things animated in Vancouver.

As an active member of the local SIGGRAPH chapter and the Conference Chairman for the SPARK Animation and SPARK FWD festivals, he has presented, interviewed and moderated at many conferences and studios in Vancouver. Keith has taught animation and VFX history at the Vancouver Film School for 20 years. When he's not teaching about animation, you’ll find him watching it while eating his morning cereal.

Colin Giles

Head of Department

Colin has over 17 years' experience as a Character Animator, Animation Director, and Designer, with credits in traditional and computer animation. His credits include work for Cartoon Network, Disney Interactive, and HBO.

Dieter Mueller

Instructor

Dieter launched his career as a freelance animator at International Rocketship, and over his 20+ years there, he directed numerous commercials and won awards. His short film The Butterfly was nominated for a Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Jim Inkster

Instructor - Digital Ink & Paint

Jim began his career as a cell painter in 1995 on Gary Larson's Tales From the Far Side II. He moved to Mercury Filmworks as Paint Supervisor and Composite Supervisor on a variety of children's series.

Keith Blackmore

Instructor

For his entire life, Keith Blackmore has been a passionate voice, a cheerleader, an advocate, for visual effects and all things animated in Vancouver.

As an active member of the local SIGGRAPH chapter and the Conference Chairman for the SPARK Animation and SPARK FWD festivals, he has presented, interviewed and moderated at many conferences and studios in Vancouver. Keith has taught animation and VFX history at the Vancouver Film School for 20 years. When he's not teaching about animation, you’ll find him watching it while eating his morning cereal.

Adam Rogers

Instructor - Life Drawing / Colour Theory

Adam has five solo and seven group exhibitions to his credit. His honours include the Society of Illustrators 43rd Annual Exhibition, Ozzie Awards for Magazine Design Excellence, and a Graphex Award for Editorial Illustration.

Marv Newland

Instructor - Story Concept/Film/Film Final Concept

Marv began his career in animated features with the creation of his 1969 short, Bambi Meets Godzilla. He designed, directed, and created animation for TV commercials, and has been honoured with numerous award wins and nominations.

Mark Pudleiner

Senior Instructor

Mark Pudleiner has worked in animation for over 35 years as a character animator and story artist at major studios including Nelvana, Don Bluth Studios, Dreamworks, and Walt Disney Animation Studios. His film credits include An American Tail, The Land Before Time, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000, The Emperor’s New Groove, Shrek 2, Meet the Robinsons, and many more.

Calina Franz-Hernandez

Head of Department

Calina is a results-driven design expert with a Master’s degree in Digital Media, bringing 10 years of product design experience working in industries ranging from VR game design, finance, and education technology for various local and national companies.

Nida Fatima

Senior Instructor/Industry Relations Lead

Nida Fatima is a storyteller, motion graphics artist, and educator. She received her Bachelors in Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and now works in Vancouver. Nida has worked on motion and interactive projects for major brands that include Science World, Air Canada, Telus, BC Children's Hospital, Parks Canada and Vancouver Aquarium.

Jadyn Aguilar

Industry Mentor

Joe T

Industry Mentor

Keiron Simons

Instructor - Team Building

With a background as a counsellor and a lawyer, Keiron Simons has worked as a mediator and trainer for more than 20 years.  His mediation practice focuses on (re)building work teams and other relationships – both in the workplace, community, and within families.  As a trainer, Keiron works with organizations ranging from not-for-profits and civil societies to corporations and government.  In addition, Keiron is the conflict resolution and harassment advisor for Capilano University.

Bradley Smith

Industry Mentor

Bradley is a senior interaction designer at Habanero Consulting Group, working with clients and project teams to create visually appealing, easy-to-use portals and applications. He works with the rest of the UX team to develop and analyze requirements, create wireframes and interaction design flows, gather inspiration, produce mockups, prototype, craft content strategy, and conduct usability testing. Beyond UX, Bradley is a referee and a lover of technology, food, wine, tea, cycling, soccer, and nature.

Robert Woolsey

Head of Department

Rodrigo Rocha-Campos

Senior Instructor - Cinematography

Rodrigo has been teaching cinematography for over 12 years, nine of them at VFS. His thesis film, The Resurrectionist, from Florida State University received the 2005 Heritage Award for its outstanding cinematography from the American Society of Cinematographers. To date, he has shot numerous short films as Director of Photography, however, he’s currently developing a new career path of producing and directing projects in experimental screen dance.

Jayme Pfahl

Senior Instructor - Producing

Jayme has been involved in the film industry for almost 25 years. With a background in economics, theatre marketing and publicity, he is a versatile and skillful manager of both people and money, as well as having a keen creative eye. Jayme has extensive producer credits ranging from TV comedy, drama, feature films and documentary to reality-based television and game shows, as well as major event planning and app development.

Andrew McEvoy

Instructor - Writing

A graduate of the University of Victoria Creative Writing program, Andrew McEvoy has written fifteen feature films, three complete series bibles, and holds producer credits in film, episodic television, and video games. His script, The Pixelated Man, was the winner of the Slamdance Screenplay Competition and was subsequently developed through James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment. He has worked as a story editor, has twice been a Praxis Fellow, as well as a Praxis Story Editor Intern, and also spent a decade in the camera department working on various features, MOWs, and TV series as a member of IATSE 669.

Arlein Perez Garcia

Instructor - Post Production

Hailing from Mexico City, Arlein Perez Garcia has spent more than ten years in the television and film industry. Holding positions in post production and editing, her resume includes a wide variety of genres, cinematography styles, and other such fundamentals in film. Inspired by storytelling, Arlein’s creativity thrives through various media side projects as well as feature productions.
“Keep your memories in your heart and let them speak.”

Paul Jensen

Instructor - Film Theory

A six-time Instructor of the Year and Best Course winner, Paul’s committed passion for cinema has labeled him a "walking encyclopedia." His experience as 2nd AD and assistant editor on the feature-length film, Sweet Amerika and his work as story editor has helped him pursue his own writing and directing career.
Visit his website for more on Paul's thoughts, or watch his web series The Two Pauls, and interview on film and video games on Arcademia.

Kevin Lee

Instructor - Sound, Cinematography, Editing

Kevin has been the owner of an independent video production and post-production studio since 1981, and has produced, shot, or edited hundreds of corporate, documentary, and educational productions. He has experience working in all forms of motion media from 1-inch videotape to the latest digital formats and codecs. Kevin has a solid academic and technical background as an electronics graduate of BCIT, and has been a part of the evolution of video and television production utilizing everything from Betacam to RED. Kevin is an experienced colourist and is currently instructing in Post Production as well as Production Sound.

Keiron Simons

Instructor - Team Building

With a background as a counsellor and a lawyer, Keiron has worked as a mediator and trainer for more than twenty years. His mediation practice focuses on (re)building work teams and other relationships – both in the workplace, community, and within families.  As a trainer, Keiron works with organizations ranging from not-for-profits and civil society, to corporations and government.  In addition, Keiron is the conflict resolution and harassment advisor for Capilano University.

Connor Gaston

Senior Instructor, Directing

Will Meadows

Senior Instructor, Post Production

Will has been involved in the entertainment industry for over 30 years. He's an accomplished professional in production and postproduction, expert audio artist, published author, composer, editor, producer, and engineer. He won Best Music Video at the New York Tri-State International Film Festival, Continental Film Festival, and Studio 7 Film Festival, in 2021, for a COVID-inspired song parody.

Thomas Billingsley

Instructor, Cinematography

Kate Gray

Instructor, Assistant Directing

Karina Gusmao Villela

Instructor, Post Production

With a decade of film industry experience, Karina Villela is a Brazilian film producer and project manager. With a knack for creative problem solving, she has Producer credits on a number of feature films, shorts, and music videos. For the past two years Karina has forged a career in the competitive field of Post-Production Project Management and has earned such credits on films for Netflix, Hallmark and many other platforms.

Fredy Mendoza

Instructor, Production Design

Fredy Mendoza is a Colombian Canadian Production Designer and Art Director, currently based in Vancouver, Canada. Originally born in Cartagena, Fredy's passion for the visual arts ignited at an early age. He pursued his film production education at VFS, specializing in Production Design and Cinematography. Additionally, he studied Graphic Design, Media Design, and Photography at UJTL and honed his Business Management skills in film through BCIT. With a decade of experience in the film industry, Fredy has become a seasoned professional. His expertise spans various genres, including feature films, short films, television series, and commercials.

Catherine Green

Instructor, Production Design

Arun Fryer

Instructor, Producing

Arun Fryer is an award-winning filmmaker and media producer from Vancouver, BC. His narrative films and documentaries have played in numerous global festivals, and his online releases have cumulated millions of views and impressions.

Chad Costen

Instructor

Chad's background is in illustration and props production. His talent — in costume design, creature effects, and puppetry — is also evident in his storytelling, from his feature film, The Coming (2009), to his web series, GAIA (2013-14).

Jay Senetchko

Instructor

Jay apprenticed with Gideon Flitt and Odd Nerdrum. He received an honourable mention in the 2013 Kingston Portrait Competition, was shortlisted for the Kurt Beers 100 Painters of Tomorrow, and was published in The Nerdrum School.

Dylan Moore

Instructor

Dylan started working as a freelance cartoonist in high school and began animating soon after. In Vancouver studios he’s done everything from effects on animated commercials to lead animation on various TV shows.  Independently, he’s animated music videos, promos, and animated segments in live features and under his banner, Outhouse Cartoons, wrote and directed the feature-length animated film, The Case of the Midnight Murderer, and writes and draws the web comic, Cowman.

Leigh Badgley

Instructor

John Meadows

Instructor

John premiered his first feature film, Wisegirls (starring Mira Sorvino and Mariah Carey), at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and has worked extensively as a screenwriter and story editor in Canada, Australia, England, and the US. John has also written for video games, including Avatar and Lost.

Kelsey Kirvan

Instructor

Kelsey is a long time veteran of the media industry, having worked in radio, television, advertising, film and animation. He has served in a wide variety of capacities including writer, director, technical director and producer. His work has been featured on numerous outlets, including the Comedy Network, CTV, City TV, and MTV Canada.

Chris Mitchell

Head of School of Creative Technologies

Chris is an educator and industry veteran with more than 10 years' experience as an award-winning writer and game designer. He is one of the first people in the game industry to receive a nomination from the Writers Guild of America.

Glen Hamilton

Instructor - Project Management

Glen has managed more than 20 titles on a wide range of gaming platforms, from first-gen Super Nintendo and Xbox 360/PS3 to mobile. He worked at Hothead Games as a producer on the DeathSpank series, which was awarded the IGN Editors' Choice Award and Top 3 Action-RPGs on PS3.

Derek Tam

Senior Instructor

Derek is a designer with a long history as a designer and lead designer at many companies including Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Gree working on things as varied as Marvel properties like the Hulk to mobile games.

Steven Kearney

Instructor – Level Design

Steven is an Unreal and Unity engine expert that has worked at Capcom, Truly Social Games as well as founding his own software company working on PC titles. Steven endlessly works to improve the level design content at VFS and ensure that students are capable level designers, no matter what engine.

Quin Henshaw

Instructor - Unity

Quin is a respected Unity expert who has been programming for 12 years. He has spent eight of those working in Unity on indie projects and as a founder of Whitebox Interactive, where he worked on the Warhammer 40K franchise. Quin is proficient in both Unity and Unreal and works hard to achieve parity in instruction between students.

Jeff Plamondon

Art Instructor

Jeff is a VFS graduate who worked with companies like Electronic Arts and Capcom as a senior environmental artist, lead weapons & vehicles artist, and character artist on a variety of games before returning to VFS to helm the art stream at Game Design. Jeff excels at art production and the pipelines that get this type of content into the games.

Stan Edmonds

Head of Department

Stan has been a motion picture makeup artist for more than 30 years. He worked with Clint Eastwood on his Academy Award-winning film, Unforgiven, and has served as head of department on films like I, Robot, and The Butterfly Effect.

Elissa Frittaion

Senior Instructor

A member of IATSE 891 since 1996, Elissa has been a make-up artist for over 20 years. As a long time staff member she has helped shape the program and as an Instructor, she has helped guide more than seven hundred students through to graduation.

Charlie Grant

Instructor - Prosthetic Construction Techniques

Charlie has worked on more than 70 film and television productions, and has enjoyed every one. He is currently in three departments at IATSE (Makeup, Props, and SPFX), as well as a puppeteer in UBCP. Charlie's credits include Jumanji, The X-Files, and The Fly 2.

Anya Ursula Ellis

Instructor - Makeup Technique

Anya has enjoyed a freelance career as a makeup artist and hairstylist for more than 25 years in Canada, the US, and Europe. She's worked in fashion, film, television, and commercials, with artists from Isabella Rossellini to Aerosmith.

Amy Van Wormer

Instructor

Since completing her makeup diploma program in 2003, Amy has had a steady career. After starting out on small theatre productions, she began working in film and television in 2005, with credits including Fear The Walking Dead, Star Trek Beyond, Arrow, Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters, and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Amy’s experience on both big and low-budget productions has given her an approach to makeup artistry that is based on collaboration, improvisation, and an overall love of the craft on and off the set.

Crissy Renaud

Instructor

Crissy is a graduate of the VFS Make-up Design Program from 2007! Since then she has worked steadily within the industry combining her artistic and technical talents on a wide variety of projects in local FX shops. Some of her credits include; Tron: Legacy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes , Tomorrow Land and Star Trek; Beyond. When not working in the FX shop, Crissy is now bringing her experience and expertise to our students.

Her credits: Tron: Legacy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes , Tomorrow Land, Star Trek Beyond, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events - tv,  The Flash –tv, Bates Motel –tv, X- Files -  film/ tv 2009, 2015, 2017

Christopher Mitchell

Head of School of Creative Technologies

Chris is an educator and industry veteran with more than 10 years' experience as an award-winning writer and game designer. He is one of the first people in the game industry to receive a nomination from the Writers Guild of America.

Scott Henshaw

Senior Instructor

Scott has been in the software industry for almost 25 years.  After 12 years as a producer/director on a number of award-winning new titles for Electronic Arts, he branched off to run his own development company, producing HTML5 games before coming to VFS.

Quin Henshaw

Instructor - Unity

Quin is a respected Unity expert who has been programming for 12 years. He has spent eight of those working in Unity on indie projects and as a founder of Whitebox Interactive, where he worked on the Warhammer 40K franchise. Quin is proficient in both Unity and Unreal and works hard to achieve parity in instruction between students.

Jeff Plamondon

Art Instructor

Jeff is a VFS graduate who worked with companies like Electronic Arts and Capcom as a senior environmental artist, lead weapons & vehicles artist, and character artist on a variety of games before returning to VFS to helm the art stream at Game Design. Jeff excels at art production and the pipelines that get this type of content into the games.

Shane Rees

Head of Department

Prior to VFS, Shane served as head engineer at Western Post Production. Shane has been recognized with a Leo Award for his film work, and three nominations for his work in television. He has worked on many of the TV shows produced in Vancouver, including Smallville, The Dead Zone, and Jake 2.0.

Brad Hillman

Senior Instructor - Post-Production Sound

Brad has worked in every aspect of film sound and has mixed nearly 1,000 hours of film and TV productions. His honours include a Gemini Award, three Gemini nominations, Genie Award nominations, and a Cinema Audio Society Award.

Curtis Wright

Instructor

Curtis has worked out of several studios with film and TV in town, including Sharpe Sound, Dick and Rogers, NGX Interactive, and Sound Kitchen. He recently completed all sound design elements for an interactive piece featured in Manitoba Museum.

Rob Hunter

Instructor

Rob has more than 20 years of audio post-recording, music recording and mixing experience. He has a long list of credits in film and television on projects, such as Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations, Just Friends, City of Ember, Summerhood, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Storm Hawks, League of Super Evil, Robson Arms, Terminal City, Kink, and the documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. His awards include a Genie nomination and a Leo Award for Best Sound Editing for The Snow Walker, and Leo nominations for Dragon Boys, The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess, Murder Unveiled and Drawing out the Demons: A Film About the Artist Attila Richard Lukacs.

Calina Franz-Hernandez

Head of Department

Calina is a results-driven design expert with a Master’s degree in Digital Media, bringing 10 years of product design experience working in industries ranging from VR game design, finance, and education technology for various local and national companies.

Shane Nilsson

Instructor

Shane Nilsson is an award-winning developer specializing in spatial computing. He co-founded Coal Car Studio in 2015 with the vision of making VR more social. Shane has worked with HTC, Rogers, UBC, and BCIT on crafting immersive experiences. He has experience in both entertainment and enterprise. His projects range from an arcade-scale multiplayer experience to a safety training pilot for WorksafeBC.

Erik Ross

Instructor

Erik Roystan Ross is a programmer, designer, educator, and technical writer. His design experience includes video games, practical VR applications, and websites. He has developed code for a wide variety of topics including physics, graphics, and network programming. He also maintains a Unity tutorial website and teaches post-secondary part-time. He is currently working on Davigo, a VR vs PC video game.

Kat Wielgus

Instructor

Kat Wielgus is an art and design generalist with over a decade of experience in the gaming and VR industries. She is dividing her time between projects ranging from developing AAA games and supporting young indie teams, to mentorship and education. Having shipped over 12 titles for various platforms, she has extensive knowledge about the development process and how to convert an idea into a released product. Kat is a graduate of the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology with a Bachelor of Arts (Video Games).

Peter Kao

Instructor

Peter Kao is an award-winning entrepreneur with over 13 years of experience in starting and running tech start-ups. He is the CEO of Metanaut, a VR studio focused on developing fun and engaging VR experiences that are exceptional in design. He has worked with multi-billion-dollar tech companies that have won some of the world's largest VR/AR competitions, grants, and awards. His current project is a VR puzzle game called Gadgeteer, which was listed as one of the most anticipated games of 2019 by PC Gamer and was chosen to receive the world’s largest AR grant from Magic Leap. In 2020, Gadgeteer made Forbes’ Top 50 VR Games of 2019.

Pushkar Patange

Instructor

Pushkar Patange thinks of himself as a creator and connoisseur of unique experiences. He is currently a User Experience & Interface Designer at Archiact VR Game Studio. His goal is to create the most engaging, immersive user experiences in augmented & virtual reality. He comes from a long career in design and advertising, working with some of the world’s leading design studios and ad agencies in Asia, the Middle East, and North America. Pushkar has led teams that designed products, games, communication and medium-agnostic experiences for multinational clients such as General Motors, Pepsi Foods, Bayer, and more. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design & Communication and a Master’s degree in Digital Media.

Kat Montagu

Head of Department

Kat Montagu is a writer, producer, script analyst, story editor, and teacher, with a BFA and an MFA in Creative Writing. She has won multiple awards and development funding grants. Previously, she wrote for the television series Alienated and is currently a writing partner on a time travel novel-to-TV series adaption with Sara B Cooper. A full-time senior faculty member at Vancouver Film School and the senior story editor for Crazy 8s short filmmaking competition, Kat loves helping other writers find their own voices.

Rodger Cove

Senior Instructor - Feature Script / Character Essentials

Rodger has been teaching screenwriting for 15 years. His own work includes Hair of the Sasquatch (Calgary International Film Festival, 2008), and The Patio, (the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival, 2014).

Keith Shaw

Instructor - Writing for Film

As head of the writing department at Odyssey Media, Keith developed, wrote, or story edited over 25 productions for the likes of Universal and Disney. In 2004, he won the Banff Television Festival's HD Doc Competition.

John Meadows

Instructor — Writing for Film/Pitch/Adaptation

John premiered his first feature film, Wisegirls (starring Mira Sorvino and Mariah Carey), at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and has worked extensively as a screenwriter and story editor in Canada, Australia, England, and the US. John has also written for video games, including Avatar and Lost.

Kelsey Kirvan

Instructor

Kelsey is a long time veteran of the media industry, having worked in radio, television, advertising, film and animation. He has served in a wide variety of capacities including writer, director, technical director and producer. His work has been featured on numerous outlets, including the Comedy Network, CTV, City TV, and MTV Canada.

Paul Jensen

Instructor

A six-time Instructor of the Year and Best Course winner, Paul’s committed passion for cinema has labeled him a "walking encyclopedia." His experience as 2nd AD and assistant editor on the feature-length film, Sweet Amerika and his work as story editor has helped him pursue his own writing and directing career.
Visit his website for more on Paul's thoughts, or watch his web series The Two Pauls, and interview on film and video games on Arcademia.

Tihemme Gagnon

Instructor

Tihemme is a screenwriter, story editor, and creative producer of scripted and unscripted television series. Her credits include Chaos & Courage, Queen of the Oil Patch, and Love It or List It: Vancouver. She is also the writer and an executive producer of the feature documentary re-ken-si-le-a-shen, which showcases global approaches to collective healing post-atrocity. She has been a faculty member at VFS since 2009.

Brian Casilio

Instructor

Brian has worked in script development in the film industry for the past 25 years as an independent screenwriter, story editor, script analyst, and screenwriting instructor.  He has contributed his expertise to such films as Hanna, Wrecked, and A Simple Curve, and he has provided script coverage on more than 1,000 projects for clients like Telefilm Canada, BC Film, and Superchannel.

Eduardo Basile

Instructor

Eduardo Basile is a writer, producer and director born in Brazil in 1982. Eduardo started working with theatre companies, live performances, and art installations, but his love of the motion pictures naturally took him to the production department of the Brazilian film industry, where he took part in several major TV series and feature films for many years. In 2018, Eduardo went through VFS’s Writing for Film, Television & Games Program, so he could master the craft and create new and unique stories.

Laura Doyle

Instructor

Laura has worked in both Canada and the US as a television screenwriter on CTV's Neon Rider, Global's Madison, MTV's Undressed and CBS' Early Ediiton. She is also a singer/songwriter with 2 albums released and over 20 placements for her songs in film and TV. In 2003, she was double nominated for a Genie award for Best Original Song in a Movie.

Rick Drew

Instructor

Rick began his career working on such films as Altman's Buffalo Bill and the Indians, Malik's Days of Heaven, and Superman (1977). As a writer/producer, Rick has written five movies and over one hundred hours of television for such series as the original MacGyver, Goosebumps, Twilight Zone, The Haunting Hour, PSI Factor, Lonesome Dove. His Road To Avonlea, episode, "Incident at Vernon River" won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program. He's currently developing an animated series.

Lauren Martin

Instructor

Lauren has written and performed sketch comedy in festivals across Canada. She auditioned for the VFS Sketch Company in 2006 and has been teaching and directing the course since 2018.

Michael Deo

Program Coordinator

Michael is an award-winning comedy filmmaker and a pretty neat dude. His credits include "Roomhates," Family Business, and Working From Home.

Ariadna Martinez

Instructor

Stolen away from the film and television industry, where her storytelling journey first began, Ari Martinez was forged as a game writer and narrative designer in AAA franchises such as Capcom's Dead Rising and Guerrilla Games' Horizon series. As a narrative director, she's helped create new AAA IPs at start ups like Postcard Games Studio and you can currently find her typing away at Sucker Punch, best known for the Infamous and Ghost of Tsushima franchises.

Shannon Blakeman

Program Manager

Shannon was the long-term Production Coordinator at VFS Film Production before joining VFS Writing for Film, Television & Games as our Program Manager in 2022.

Paul Birkett

Instructor

Paul has worked as a screenwriter since the '90s, penning dozens of feature scripts and teleplays for producers on both sides of the border. His many credits include the airborne horror film Altitude (2010), the war-on-terror drama Drone (2017), and TV movies for SyFy Channel and Lifetime Network.

Ita Margalit

Instructor

Ita has been a fixture on the Vancouver screenwriting scene for many years. Known for "The Homestead" (2010), Off-Centre Television (2006) and "Cross Words" (2008), most recently Ita wrote "Murphy's Law" (2020).

Jessica Bradford

Instructor

Jessica Bradford is an award-winning writer and director based in Vancouver, Canada. Her films include "When I Was Seven," "The Telescope," and "She Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven." Jessica has an MA in Film and is a Crazy 8s story editor.

Sim Sahin

A former architect, Sim used her enthusiasm about video games to become an Environment Artist. She is currently working at SkyBox Labs as a 3D Environment Artist on Halo Infinite Forge and teaches the "Environmental Storytelling for Games" class at VFS.

Jonathan Lloyd Walker

Instructor

A successful TV writer, showrunner, and actor who grew up in the UK, Jonathan made his acting debut in school plays directed by Jenny Bale (Christian Bale's mother). He eventually made guest appearances on all three of the longest running North American science fiction series. Recently, Jonathan was the showrunner for the series Van Helsing and acted in Snowpiercer.

Ken Kabatoff

Instructor

Ken is an accomplished writer, producer, and director with over a decade of experience in film and TV, including the critically acclaimed sci-fi series Travelers, where he started as a writer, became a co-producer, and was nominated for a WGC Best Drama award for his final episode.