Surrey film academy students awarded film school training
A group of Surrey film academy students has been awarded training from two of B.C.’s premiere arts schools, following the completion of their video work during the summer.
Nine ‘Oscar’ winners from this summer’s film academy were awarded free program admissions from the Vancouver Academy of Dramatic Arts (VADA) and Vancouver Film School (VFS).
The awards were a follow-up to a new part of the summer program that saw several post-secondary schools present to students on various aspects of acting, media production and more.
According to program facilitator Adam Drake, the idea of awarding courses to the program’s ‘Oscar’ winners stemmed from a discussion with Simon Longmore, the founder of VADA.
“He came in to speak with the students and said he’d like to offer some courses for the winners of the acting awards,” said Drake.
Following this discussion, Drake said VFS also offered courses to the remaining seven filmmaking award winners.
“That was incredible, it blew me away,” said Drake, adding this is the first time they’ve had anything like this for the film academy students.
Grade 12 Semiahmoo Secondary student Sean Shannon was one of the lucky students to receive an award, with VADA offering him admission to a two-week intensive acting program in August.
“I was taught by Simon Longmore and the course was a beginner course for acting to camera," recalled Sean. “He taught me a lot about body positioning, how to create a character and how to audition for roles.”
He said Longmore’s knowledge and expertise provided valuable insight on the nuance that goes into acting on film and helped him appreciate the finer points of the craft.
“During the course, Simon would give us scripts and then we would have a little bit of time to go over them before we had to act them to the camera recording us,” he said. “After that, Simon would play it back and give us advice on how to improve the scene overall by making little adjustments.
“It might not sound like a lot, but Simon's knowledge and experience was very useful and when we acted out the scenes for a second time the improvement was obvious. The experience was wonderful, and I learned a lot from it.”
Sean said both the film academy and the VADA course have reinforced his desire to pursue media into post-secondary, and while he was initially only interested in behind-the-camera work, he’s now considering pursuing studies exploring both sides of the camera.
The full list of the 2022 Film Academy Oscar Winners:
Best Supporting Actor: Sean Shannon
Best Sound Design: Logan St. Germain
