YouTube your way into the Vancouver Film School
Some creative types no doubt look down on the “user-generated content” that shows up on YouTube – the cat videos, the clips of startled hamsters, the bad lip-synching and so on. But whether you like the content or not, there’s no question that the site has become the de facto source for short video online, and the Vancouver Film School has decided to take advantage of that.
VFS and YouTube announced a partnership yesterday that launched the Vancouver Film School channel on the video-sharing site, and along with it a scholarship contest hosted by YouTube. As part of the contest, anyone can create a short film, cartoon or creative advertising pitch on the broad theme of “what matters to you,” with a maximum length of three minutes.
From the submissions, the film school will select 10 finalists, and then the YouTube community will choose three winners, each of whom will get full-tuition scholarships. According to the YouTube channel, submissions close on May 9.
The film school has 14 production-oriented programs that last one year or less and involve working with industry veterans from the fields of animation, sound design, production, writing and visual effects.
VFS students have been uploading their efforts to YouTube for some time already: one animated short called The Switch, by Zack Mathew, recently passed the one-million-views mark after being featured as a selection on the YouTube Canada site.