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by Rebecca BollwittDisclosure: Review — I am not being paid to attend, or cover the VFS courses. I found this to be a unique opportunity and decided to sit in for a few hours each day upon invitation of VFS staff. Please review the Policy & Disclosure section for further information.
This week I have gone back to school, kind of. The world-renown Vancouver Film School has invited me into their Summer Intensives classes, which are brief crash-courses, each representing a slice of a full multi-month program and course load. The intensives run for eight hours, five days this week and should they desire, students can then sign up for the full program in the fall. I’m getting a sneak peek (a few hours a day) in a different Summer Intensive each day this week. My first course on Monday was Intro to Sound Design.
It was the start of the week for every Summer Intensives student so there was an orientation at VFS’s campus on Homer at Hastings. There, students from around the globe (South Africa, Venezuela, Australia, and some locals) were welcomed to their programs and introduced to some of the impressive work that VFS alumni have done within the last year alone.
Introduction
We were then carted away to the Sound Design campus which is located at 1380 Burrard (at Pacific) while other programs stayed at either 420 Homer or walked over to 198 West Hastings. There I met Shane Rees, Head of Sound who gave an overview of the week’s course content and introduced a few of the department’s faculty who in turn touched on their courses offered throughout a regular school year. Seated in a theatre with a large mixer across the front floor, students introduced themselves and shared a bit of their backgrounds. Some had sound experience in film, others were musicians, gamers, or business students looking to change things up. Previous experience with ProTools, microphones, or foley sound editing not required. You don’t even need to know how to play a piano to take this course.
Course Content
Shane explained that they focus on post-production sound for television and film, and game sound design. You don’t attend to learn how to compose or record for musicians. As for games, he said to keep your mind open to it as a medium, “it’s such an interesting and dynamic industry that is so young, it’s going to be challenging.” Gaming is also the reason that PC software is still prevalent, even though it’s a Mac-based campus. Shane then told us all that we were going to learn some physics and I immediately though of that glint my husband gets in his eye while wearing his Nikola Tesla t-shirt as he tells me about kilohertz and frequencies.
Sound is Energy
Instructor Gary Bourgeois pulled up the whiteboard and attempted to explain what he covers in a full course of Physics & Psychoacoustics within a 40 minute time frame. He then asked us a question that hovered like a cloud over our heads for a good half-minute: “What is sound?” Continue reading this post ⟩⟩
Join Translink at Bonsor Recreation Complex in Burnaby (right near Metrotown) on Wednesday, July 18, 2012 from 6:00pm to 8:30pm. The event was packed to capacity last year so they’ve made sure to book enough space for this event. Activities will be available for all ages and include playing a transit board game, enjoying food and drinks, trivia games, colouring for the kids, giveaways, and more. You can take transit right to the event, like the #19 Stanley Park/Metrotown or the SkyTrain to Metrotown.
To attend I Love Transit Night, just fire an email to thebuzzer[at]translink.ca and put “RSVP” in the subject line. Include your name, age, and number of guests.
In celebration of I Love Transit Week, I also have a prize pack to give away courtesy of Translink and The Buzzer. It includes:
3-zone FareCard, good for a month of unlimited transit travel
A cooler tote bag
A beach towel
A Frisbee to get you moving
A bottle of bubbles
A $10 gift card to Dairy Queen
SPF 45 hypoallergenic sunscreen
Metro Vancouver cycling and transportation maps
And the full collection of Translink’s transit buttons
Here’s how you can enter to win:
Leave a comment on this post naming your favourite form of transit (bus, Millenium or Expo Line SkyTrain, Canada Line, Sea Bus, etc.) (1 entry)
Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win a summer transit prize pack from @Translink & @Miss604 http://ow.ly/cgyVq
I will draw one winner on Friday, July 20, 2012 at 3:00pm. Follow @Translink on Twitter for questions, comments, and the latest service information.
Over the years I have profiled bloggers from the Northwest Territories to the Fraser Valley, anyone that interests me and that I hope will interest you as well. A few years ago I started asking a standard set of questions and I’ve sent these out to a few local bloggers for this week’s series. Click, share, explore, and enjoy.
How long has your blog been around?
I started Modern Mix Vancouver in May 2009, so I have been blogging for over 4 years!
What is your role/involvement (developer, owner, blogger etc.)
I’m the founder and editor of Modern Mix Vancouver.
What does your site do/what is it about
Modern Mix Vancouver is a Canadian lifestyle blog. We cover local events & lifestyle, fashion & retail, beauty & skincare and food & drink.
What can people see, read, and do when visiting your site?
Visitors to Modern Mix Vancouver can read up on the newest beauty products, local restaurant reviews, Vancouver events and lots more. I live in downtown, so naturally, many of the happenings I write about take place in the Vancouver lower mainland core; that is: downtown Vancouver and all its neighbourhoods, Kitsilano and Main Street. I recently adopted a rescue dog named Teddy in January, so some of my newer postings also focus on pet product reviews. Content on Modern Mix Vancouver is written with locals in mind, but I’m sure some tourists stumble across my website as well.
Why do you blog?
Blogging has opened so many doors for me – personally, socially and professionally. It has provided me with very unique opportunities to connect with my city and I’m always so excited to “be in the know” about events, trends and openings in Vancouver. I’ve had the opportunities to work with a wide array of businesses, from large national brands to small local boutiques – every experience has been unique, every event is different and I always look forward to seeing what’s next!
What is the ultimate goal for your site, how would you like to see it grow?
For me, blogging is not a means to an end – I’ve enjoyed this process very much over the past for years. I would like to continue to stay relevant to my readers and to keep up with my postings, which will ultimately help Modern Mix Vancouver grow as a Vancouver lifestyle brand.
Next weekend BC’s largest multicultural celebration, the Surrey Fusion Festival, will take over Holland Park with two full days of music, food, and free entertainment. Between filling up on empanadas, Jamaican smoothies, and cannoli or watching Delhi 2 Dublin, Good For Grapes, Hawksley Workman, and Los Lobos, you can take a free walking tour of the city’s new downtown core.
Surrey Fusion Festival. Photo credit: John Bollwitt on Flickr
Paul Hillsdon and Nathan Pachal of the blog Civic Surrey will lead a Downtown Development Tour at 11:00am on Saturday, July 21, 2012. You can meet them at Gateway SkyTrain station and join the tour for free, just RSVP. If there’s anyone who can tell you about present and future developments in Surrey, it’s these two.
“The downtown walking tour is an opportunity for locals from across the region to see first-hand the urban transformation underway in Surrey. For followers on Civic Surrey, who read about these changes on the blog, it’s a chance to experience downtown on foot and meet some new friends along the way,” Paul told me.
“We’ll examine SFU Surrey and the new City Centre Library, as well as private developments from Concord Pacific and Century Group. Of course, this is also the weekend of Fusion Festival, so there’s no better time to explore downtown and then enjoy the rest of the evening at one of Surrey’s premier regional events!
If you can’t make it out for the walk, they’ll host a Civic Surrey meetup at the Fusion Festival at 1:00pm on Saturday where you can meet Paul and Nathan, and chat with other readers of the site.
On this day in 1959, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II herself presided over the grand opening ceremony for the Deas Island Tunnel, known today as the George Massey Tunnel.
(Left) 1957 – Banner for the tunnel construction. VPL Accession Number: 41357. (Right) 1957 – Aerial view of construction. VPL Accession Number: 41355
The premier [W.A.C. Bennett] handed the Queen a costly pair of silver scissors, and she gave him a dime for them. The coin-for-scissors trade is an old British custom, which holds that if the giver of a cutting implement does not receive a coin in return, the friendship between the giver and the receiver will be cut. [Source: Vancouver History]
This stretch of highway connecting Richmond and Delta/Ladner is the lowest point of any public road in Canada, dipping 20 meters below sea level. It actually opened to traffic in May of that year but the ceremony took place in July. Tolls were applied until 1964 and it was renamed in honor of Delta MLA Nehamiah “George” Massey in 1967.
