When South Surrey’s Elija Sorensen went to Denmark last year to study filmmaking at the European Film College, he found he was well prepared, something he attributes to having taken a one-week intensive filmmaking course at the Gulf Islands Film and Television School (GIFTS) as a teenager.
Now he wants to give other young aspiring filmmakers a similar leg up by offering an affordable, five-day basic filmmaking course for teens.
Sorensen and two other recent film school grads – Kim Groth and Leah Webster – are starting their own film school.
Youth Film School is offering a five-day summer course for teenagers aged 14 to 18 from August 19 to 23.
It’s intended as a cheaper alternative to the courses already offered through the Vancouver Film School (VFS) and GIFTS. The VFS limits its summer intensive courses to students 17 or older, and GIFTS requires travelling to Galiano Island.
“The age group that we’re targeting, [the school] gives people the foundation so that they can know whether they want to go into it,” said Sorensen.
“The Gulf Islands Film and Television School is a residential program. It’s one to two weeks’ investment in time. This is going to be a few hours a day for one week. It’s going to be cheaper and easier.”
Sorensen and his partners are treating the upcoming course as a pilot and are hoping to turn it into a year-round after-school program that would be mobile and able to travel and set up in various communities.
Although B.C. has seen a drop in traditional Hollywood film production, new opportunities have opened in other areas, like television production. There is also a growing demand for short-format online video.
“A couple of my students work in newspapers,” said GIFTS director George Harris.
“They shoot video. Everybody now needs video. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling Kleenex or a car rental – you need a media presence.”
GIFTS offers 16 courses, from film basics to documentary filmmaking and computer game design.
That is often enough for would-be filmmakers to get a foot in the door of the film and TV business, Harris said.
“You don’t need to go study film for four years, unless you want to be a high school teacher and teach film, then you have to have a degree. If you want to become a filmmaker, you need to go volunteer or [do] an internship. A lot of the companies in Vancouver offer internships.”
One new genre to open up is web TV, which is typically short episodic series for YouTube and Vimeo.
“There’s some really interesting stuff going on in the YouTube community and Vimeo community with shorter form, 10- or 15-minute programs that are arranged like traditional TV but produced in a shorter form,” Sorensen said.
Technology giving independent filmmakers access to new markets
The cost of high-quality cameras and film editing software have dropped so dramatically in recent years that even high school students can now afford to shoot decent-looking films.
“I’ve seen great-looking little horrors for $100,000,” said J. Joly, founder of CineCoup Media Inc., an accelerator for independent filmmakers.
Joly said there are still plenty of jobs to be had in the traditional film industry, but thinks the real opportunities for the new crop of filmmakers are in independent filmmaking.
“Not to unglamourize it, but the movie business is really the moving business,” Joly said. “It’s basically factory work. If that’s your thing, just to get your hands dirty and get some experience, those things will always be around.
“If you want to be creative, I believe there’s never been a better time to be an independent filmmaker. In terms of the barriers to entry, it’s very low. We believe this is the age of filmmaker as entrepreneur.”
CineCoup was formed to help aspiring filmmakers get their projects in front of investors and audiences.
It treats feature film projects like high-tech startups and helps “de-risk” investment by providing a platform that builds a fan base before the movie even gets made and guarantees screen-time in Cineplex Inc. (TSX:CGX) theatres for finished projects.
A Regina film project called WolfCop – one of the 10 to participate in CineCoup’s first cohort – just recently won $1 million in investments and a guaranteed release in Cineplex Theatres.
CineCoup will be starting its second cohort in September.
