Among our current and previous mentors…
Vern Bevis is an award-winning independent filmmaker, GIFTS alumni and Capilano College Film Studies Grad. When Vern isn't teaching Video Production, he can be found working in the film and television industry in Vancouver.
Jenny Breukelman: Music
Jenny Breukelman has been working as a freelance multimedia artist for over 8 years. She trained in audio recording at Columbia Academy of Radio, Television and Recording Arts in 2000, and has since moved to Galiano Island where she is now working as a composer and animation/visual fx mentor at the Gulf Islands Film and Television School (GIFTS). She has worked on projects such as: an animated flash intro for Urban Ink’s "Women In Fish" production website, being an animation mentor for Sierra Club/Gumboot Productions "One Tonne Challenge" project, creating soundtracks for the National Film Board’s short clips on anti-racism, and for the "Smoke Screen" project, anti–smoking ads created by teen girls, put on by the Access to Media Education Society, Health Canada and GIFTS. Jenny has two children, a cat and a chicken, and is happy to work in mutimedia and live in the forest at the same time.
Barb Cranmer is a First Nations (Namgis-Alert Bay) director/ producer with several years of film making experience. These include the one-hour documentary films
Qatuwas: People Gathering Together (Director, Producer, Writer), about the rebirth of the Northwest Coast Canoe Culture; and
Laxwesa Wa: Strength of the River (Director, Co-Producer), about the native fishery on the BC coast, both of which have won awards at major film festivals. Barb's body of work illustrates her ability to produce quality films that explore social issues with depth and integrity. They also reveal her commitment to her own people in their efforts to tell their stories. Barb mentored during AMES first First Nations program in 1997.
Samonte Cruz: Video Mentor
Samonte Cruz is a fierce, mixed–raced Filipino educator interested in using music, audio engineering, media, & video editing as both forms of resistance and education. He is currently co–curating Dirty Gender Secrets, a multi-media art show brought forth to unearth the gender dirt we’re afraid to say, not allowed to mention – but are going to do it anyway. Runs October 21–23 2005 at Video In Studios, in co–production with LIVE biennial of performance art.
Kenna Fair is an independent film & video maker, who works in all facets of filmmaking world from directing to editing. A founding member of GIFTS, AMES mentor, and Program Co-ordinator.
Heather Frise has been making films for over ten years, including the multi-award winning documentaries
Bones of the Forest and
Open Season (co-directed with Velcrow Ripper). Her short experimental films and videos have toured internationally. She is a founding member of AMES, has taught at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and is currently working with the NFB in Toronto
Adam Garnet Jones is a film, video, and performance artist whose heart will forever be on the west coast, even though he is currently studying at Ryerson university in Toronto. Adam's films and Videos have screened at festivals, and won awards internationally. He is excited to find himself a life-long student/mentor.
Brett Gaylor is a freelance videographer, web designer and photographer, computer animator and digital system designer. He studied at Capilano College and Concordia University.
Suez Holland is an animation instructor and freelance visuals designer, who studied cartooning/illustration at Liège Academy of Fine Arts (Belgium), as well as animation at the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design.
Sara Kendall - Peer PerspectivesSara has worn many hats related to this program: she was one of the original video producers, and years later went on to be one of the fabulous outreach facilitators and most recently has helped to coordinate the entire program.
Sara is also the co-ordinator of the Vancouver childand youth rights-based monitoring strategy, a
first-ever-in-Canada intiative linking children,
youth, parents, their advocates and sevice providers
to assess and uphold the human rights of all young
people in the City.
Personally, Sara is interested in a creative analysis
of power that is meaningful and socially
relevant; she brings her readiness for dialogue and
learning to facilitation of all kinds. Most of sara’s
facilitation work is with youth, focused in the realms
of anti-oppression, writing and movement for
performance, non-violent direct action, and good fun
community building.
At present, Sara facilitates with: The Momentum
Project, an arts empowerment and social change
facilitation collective; Power of Hope, an
organization which facilitates international
arts-centered awareness and empowerment multi-day
programs for youth; Diversity through Hip Hop,
self-discovery and education workshops in BC's maximum
security juvenile detention center, and a number of
other people-serving organizations.
Peer perspectives facilitators
Gabrielle Martin - Peer Perspectives
Gabrielle Martin has been facilitating workshops and performing as an artist since 1999. She has facilitated anti-racism, anti-homophobia, sexual health, and performance art workshops for youth and adults, as well as assertiveness and self-defense workshops for young women. Gabrielle uses voice and movement as vehicles for expression and self-determination, and as tools for activism.
Kara Massie - accesstomedia.org webmistress (
www.greenlanddesign.org)
Kara Massie is a strange hybrid of her studies and experience in business and art. She has worked as a self-employed artist, illustrator and designer for 9 years. She has worked with AMES under many guises for many years, and just can't let go even though she's eight timezones east. She is a Canadian living in Wales. Mae ganddi Gymraeg bratiog.
Michael A. Mann is a stellar animation mentor. He claims that
when he grows up, he wants to do exactly what he does now: being an animator, illustrator, and graphic designer for web and print media.
Pia Massie's work includes films and videos, installations and sculpture, shown in museums and galleries, at festivals and on TV in North America and Europe. She has received the American Filmmakers Institute's Independent Filmmakers Award, the Prix Saint Gervais and the Experimental Narrative Award at the Atlanta International Film and Video Festival. Artist residencies include "Telling Stories, Telling Tales" at the Banff Centre for the Arts and "Foret Frontiere" with the Boreal Multimedia Collective. Current and previous teaching positions include Massachusetts College of Art, Gulf Islands Film and Television School, Rhode Island School of Design, Bennington College, as well as five semesters at Parsons.
Bo Myers was born and raised in Vancouver, and lived and worked in Israel and Montreal before returning to her hometown. A graduate of McGill University where she studied history and political philosophy, Bo went on to work in film, eventually attending Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design to study film and video. She has directed a number of her own internationally-exhibited and award-winning films. As well, she has worked with numerous other directors as, variously, cinematographer, art director and editor. Bo taught at Video In Studios before mentoring at the Gulf Island Film and Television School, and eventually joining AiCDIS.
David Ozier: Video Mentor
As a filmmaker, David Ozier has created work that has been seen at numerous festivals and sold internationally to both public and commercial broadcasters. As a Television Director, he has worked on over 175 episodes of various programs, and has been recognized with a number of awards, including recently winning a Gemini Award for his work with CBC ZeD.
Velcrow Ripper is a Canadian Academy Award (Genie) winning filmmaker, writer, web artist, media activist and sound designer. He has written, photographed and directed over thirty films and videos, both fiction and issue oriented documentary, often with an experimental edge. His most recent films are the short works, "Burn", "Rise", "Lanterns of Memory" and "Afghanistan: Aftermath" He has also done sound design work on many nottable film projects. He is currently working on the ScaredSacred Project, a book, feature documentary and
website.
Hayley Sinclair: Coordinator and Video Mentor
Hayley Sinclair was the long time coordinator of AMES’
Urban Outreach program. She has been the founding member of numerous grassroots collectives, notably, the
United Youth Moment, a street-youth action group,
Hush Grrls Hush, an all girl video collective and
Anti-Patti, an anti-patriarchy organization that creates films with victims of rape and the Vancouver-based chapter of the Radical Cheerleaders.
Her work as a youth organizer and a drug and alcohol counselor in the downtown core has enabled her to work with participants of
Urban Outreach with compassion and through a highly politicized ‘lens’. As the coordinator of
Urban Outreach, for the Access to Media Education Society, she has developed projects that are truly accessible to communities that most people pretend don't exist. She has mentored over 20 films and that work can be viewed at
accesstomedia.org/urban
Her artistic work has always followed her political agenda. Her work as a spoken word poet has lead her to perform at
Under The Volcano, Hush Grrls Hush Cabaret and
File This. Her films have included
Defence- something from the sidelines, a documentary-style road movie about a trip from Vancouver to Quebec city for the FTAA protest.
Sex is Ugly, an experimental montage on feminism in relationship to doing it, and
Fuck APEC Sucks, a documentary on actions at the anti-APEC rallies in Vancouver.
Alex Taylor: Animation mentor
Alex Taylor is an independent filmmaker and graphic designer living in Vancouver, B.C. He is currently finishing a BFA in Film at Simon Fraser University, and upon graduation plans to jump ship from his current job as a graphic and web designer to pursue a career in cinematography. During the summer, Alex mentors at the Gulf Islands Film & Television School.
Krista Tupper is a Simon Fraser BFA grad. Her work has been shown at festivals in Seattle, Palm Springs, San Francisco, Montréal, New York and Vancouver.
Aerlyn Weissman is an independent documentary filmmaker, co-director of
Fiction and Other Truths and of
Forbidden Love, both Genie Award winning documentaries.
Cecilia (Cease) Wyss has been involved in the Media Arts for ten years. She began working in this field at a community-based level, and from there her interest grew, bringing her into more exciting and challenging areas of work. Cease has produced two independent videos, both of which deal with First Nations Health and Cultural approaches to healing. She has mentored for AMES on several occasions.
Kira Wu is a practicing artist who works in both visual and media arts communities in Vancouver. She teaches photography and digital media at Kwantlen
University College in British Columbia.
Marcus Youssef: Script Writer Mentor
Chalmer’s award winner for “A Line in the Sand”, Marcus’s work has been produced across the country (Playwrights Theatre Centre, du Maurier World Stage, Rumble Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Popular Theatre Alliance of Manitoba, CBC, and UBC). Marcus has led workshops in dozens of BC schools and guided literally hundreds of youth through the scriptwriting process.
Zsolt Sándor: Video Mentor
Zsolt is a filmmaker who was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary. After studying theatre and film at the University of Victoria and Concordia University in Montreal, he spent 3 years exploring the Canadian film industry in Toronto, coming to some unpleasant conclusions. Fast forward to the West Coast, where Zsolt is now happily working as a director, DOP and editor in Victoria, involved in docs, shorts, television and corporate productions. Zsolt has been an instructor at the
Gulf Islands Film and Television School for 6 years and has recently led a group of filmmaking students to the Caribbean. When not playing with film and video cameras, he can be found on local stages strumming his signature brand of "acousto-ska", serving on the board of directors for MediaNet, Victoria’s video artists’ cooperative, as well as Open Cinema, an organization dedicated to nurturing community discussion by screening socially relevant documentaries.
