With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1159085
SEPTEMBER 2019 BCBUSINESS 13 TANYA GOEHRING I t's Saturday morning at the Vancouver Convention Centre, and there's some- thing strange going on. I'm here for the Digital Entertain- ment Career Fair organized by the Vancouver Economic Commission ( VEC), but my eyes are momentarily flooded with spandex and sparkles. When I pause to consider whether I'm witnessing a stunt to entice more women into tech careers, someone whispers in my ear: a cheerleading convention has come to town. Inside the career fair prop- er, natural order is restored: packed with orderly lines of people wearing muted colours and oversized backpacks, the room plays host to the hopeful, faces down in their phones, waiting patiently for the op- portunity to pitch themselves to the 40-plus businesses in attendance. Some are graduating stu- dents, some professionals who have clocked a year or two's experience, looking for the next step in animation or visual effects ( VFX); the cohort skews young, but there's a surpris- ing number of more seasoned faces peppered around. Chatting to some of those lining up, I find a disparate group: there's the young wom- an from France, hoping to have her visa sponsored by an em- ployer; the animator looking to move up from his entry-level position but fretting that the work on his phone he plans to show a recruiter isn't his best; and the 40-something who drove up from Seattle at the crack of dawn, who has a long career in games but wants to cross over to VFX and, he says, Vancouver is the place to be. It may feel a bit like a cattle call, but there are jobs to be had in this room (one success- ful pitcher was heard telling anyone who would listen that the gathering had changed her life). Although the work on of- fer (and the company cultures) Toon Town On track to become a $1-billion business this year, Vancouver's animation and visual effects industry has grown thanks to a mix of local and international players by Fiona Morrow F I L M A N D T E L E V I S ION ( the informer ) O N T H E R ADA R The Prophet (Bardel Entertainment, 2014) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Imageworks, 2018) The Addams Family (Bron Studios, expected in October) BIG DRAW Bron Studios co-founder Brenda Gilbert looks to the future AMONG THE ANIMATED FILMS MADE WITH VANCOUVER TALENT: IS THE WORLD'S NO. 1 ANIMATION AND VFX CLUSTER PROVIDES 10,000+ JOBS COMPRISES 60+ DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN- OWNED STUDIOS In 2018, the Hollywood Reporter named three Metro Vancouver VFX schools to its unranked list of the top 10 globally: 1. LOST BOYS STUDIOS 2. THINK TANK TRAINING CENTRE 3. VANCOUVER FILM SCHOOL VFX MARKS THE SPOT According to the Vancouver Economic Commission, the city's visual effects and animation industry: