Film Production at UBC
Current Students: Tri-Mentorship Program
In 2008, the Film Production Program, in collaboration with the Film Production Alumni Association and the Faculty of Arts, launched a Trimentorship Program that matched final year BFA students with UBC Alumni who are now top industry professionals. The purpose of the Tri-Mentorship program is to encourage relationships between Industry Mentors and senior students, who in turn, offer their own mentorship to junior students interested in pursuing a degree in Film Production. Through this tri-level structure it is the program’s goal to develop a sustainable mentoring culture that encourages stronger partnerships between students, alumni/industry professionals and the community.
Starting in September Film Production Student Mentees are each assigned an Industry Alumni Mentor. Over the course of the year the students meet with their mentors at least four different times, allowing for open discussion of industry-based questions paying particular attention to specific challenges and experiences that the mentors may have faced during their own introduction to the film industry. Through these relationships students gain invaluable insights into their chosen industries, as well as networking strategies crucial in negotiating their future careers in film production.
The Tri-Mentorship program operates under the umbrella of UBC Career services, who manages overall funding, develops curriculum, provides consultation, training and resources, builds community connections, develops and implements overall marketing strategies, researches and shares best practices, evaluates program success, and institutes necessary program changes. For more information about the Tri-Mentorship program at UBC visit: www.careers.ubc.ca/mentoring.cfm
2010-11 Industry Mentors:
Producer Mentor Arvi Liimatainen
Arvi has been
producing for over
two decades. His
credits include
the series Hiccups,
Intelligence, Da
Vinci’s Inquest and
the feature films
Marine Life, Bye Bye Blues, Cowboys
Don’t Cry, Medicine River and The
Life.
Producer Mentor Andew Boutilier
Andrew has
produced several
feature films
including Pink
Ludoos, Severed,
Normal and Stay.
He also has
credits as a Line
Producer and Supervising Producer
for Canadian and international
broadcasters and production
companies including Syfy and
DHX/StudioB.
Director of Photography Mentor James Liston
James has shot a number of feature films including The Cabin Movie, Severed, and Julianna and the Medicine Fish, starring Rob Schneider. He has also shot many commercials, music videos and short films.
Director Mentor Richard Martin
Richard has
directed six
internationally
distributed
feature films
and TV movies,
as well as over
40 hours of US and Canadian TV
series. He has also directed awardwinning
short documentaries and
experimental films.
Director of Photography Mentor Gregory Middleton
Greg has received
a wide range
of awards and
nominations
for his work on
feature films
and TV series.
His feature films
include Gunless, Passchendale, Slither
and Kissed. His TV credits include
Smallville and Fringe, and the TV
movie The Snow Queen.
Director and Writer Mentor Mina Shum
Mina’s feature
films include the
internationally
acclaimed Double
Happiness, Drive,
She Said, and Long
Life, Happiness, and
Prosperity. Her TV
credits include Bliss, DaVinci’s Inquest
and Exes and Ohs.
Producer Mentor Jayme Pfahl
Jayme has
produced TV
movies as well
as drama and
documentary series
for a wide range of
networks including
ABC/Lifetime and
the Discovery Channel. His credits
also include the feature films Marine
Life and Naked Frailtie.
Director and Writer Mentor Mark Sawers
Mark’s films
include the short
Shoes Off!, which
won the Best
Short Film prize
at the Cannes
Film Festival’s
International Critics Week, his 4th nomination in
this category. His work on TV series
includes the comedies Alienated and
Kids in the Hall.
Director Mentor Brenton Spencer
Brenton’s directing
work includes
episodes of a
wide range of TV
series including
The Crow, Outer
Limits andStargate
Atlantis as well as
the teen feature Blown Away. He also
has extensive credits as a director of
photography.
Director of Photography Mentor Glen Winter
Glen has worked for
the past six seasons
as Director of
Photography on the
TV series Smallville.
He directed two
episodes of Smallville
and has won two
Canadian Cinematography Awards.
In 2010 he was nominated for an ASC
award.
Director and Writer Mentor Anne Wheeler
Anne has directed
feature films,
television movies
and series. Her
features include
Better than
Chocolate and Bye
Bye Blues. Her TV
credits include Crash and Burn, Search
and This is Wonderland. She has six
honorary doctorates and the Order of
Canada.
Past Industry Mentors:
Director Mentor James Genn
Writer and director James Genn grew up in Vancouver in a family of artists, writers and musicians, and he began working in film and television as a teenager. His work includes the short films Direct Lines (1995), Second Date (1999), and the Genie Award nominated short film The Dog Walker (2003), produced at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, where he completed a director's residency in 2003.
He has directed twenty or so episodes of primetime comedy and drama television series, including two network pilots, comedy series episodes for the N Network in the US, and several seasons of CTV's Robson Arms. He also works in other mediums, such as commercials, music videos and documentary series.
His work as a director is recognized for its elegant crafting and technical precision, and he has a unique and imaginative eye finding humanity in tragic and comedic storytelling. Prior to working exclusively as a director and writer, James was a prominent independent filmmaker and had a successful career as a sound designer, creating the soundtracks for many feature films and series. He currently lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Director of Photography Mentor Gregory Middleton
A graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Theatre and Film Department, Gregory Middleton CSC has worked as a Cinematographer in television and film for over 15 years.
Greg has received a wide range of awards and nominations for his work on feature films and TV series. His feature films include Gunless, Passchendale, Slither and Kissed. His TV credits include Smallville and Fringe, and the TV movie The Snow Queen.
Editor Mentor Allison Grace
Alison Grace grew up in Vancouver and studied film at the University of British Columbia. Upon leaving school, she immediately started working as an assistant dialogue editor on features, including Norman Jewison’s Agnes of God, and on the television series Philip Marlowe: P.I. (Paragon Pictures). Alison worked with Jewison again on Moonstruck as dialogue editor, and continued to hone her skills on television movies, features, television series and documentaries.
Alison served as both editor and dialogue editor on the independent feature film Double Happiness. Shot in Vancouver in 1994, the film earned her a Genie Award for Best Achievement in Picture Editing. In 1996, she won the Gemini Award for Best Achievement in Picture Editing for the CBC movie Little Criminals. Alison edited the Disney feature Air Bud in 1996 and has been working steadily since then on both long-form work and television series. In August of 1998, Alison was nominated for a Gemini Award for Best Picture Editing on the CBC made-for-television-movie White Lies.
In the past few years, Alison’s work has included editing Charlie Martin Smith’s feature film The Snow Walker, Mina Shum’s feature Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity, numerous television movies including the pilot, Intelligence and various one-hour series including Dead Like Me, Da Vinci’s Inquest, Outer Limits and Intelligence. Alison lives in Vancouver with her partner, Earl Fudger and several loving cats.
Writing Mentor Ian Weir
Ian Weir is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist. His stage plays, which include The Idler, Bloody Business and St. George, have been produced across Canada, as well as in the U.S. and England. The Island of Bliss premiered in March 2008 at the Western Canada Theatre in Kamloops, and his new play Hope and Caritas will be premiered in October by Solo Collective in Vancouver. For television, he was writer and executive producer of the critically acclaimed CBC miniseries Dragon Boys. Previously he was creator, head writer and executive producer of the long-running teen drama series Edgemont. Along the way, he has written more than 100 episodes for nearly two dozen other series, ranging from Beachcombers to Cold Squad to One Life to Live. Other credits include nine radio plays (three for the BBC, and six for the CBC) and three young adult novels. He has won two Gemini Awards, four Leos, a Writers Guild of Canada Award and a Jessie.
Current commissions include two stage plays, a feature film screenplay, a TV movie and a novel. He lives in Langley, B.C., with his wife Jude and their daughter Amy.
Producer Mentor Dean English
Dean English is a partner in Perfect Circle Productions, a Vancouver based production company that works in both live action and stop-motion animation feature films. English’s feature film credits include Kissed, Lilith On Top, Flower and Garnet, Looking For Leonard, Falling Angels and Gwar. Collectively these films have been programmed in the world’s most prominent international festivals -- including Toronto, Berlin and Cannes -- while winning awards and nominations from such bodies as the Genies and the Grammys.
Recently produced projects include Edison and Leo, Canada’s first stop-motion animated feature, and The Timekeeper, celebrated Quebec director Louis Bélanger’s first foray into English language cinema.
Producer Mentor Mary Anne Waterhouse
Mary Anne Waterhouse joined Anagram Pictures after producing the feature film FIDO with Anagram partner Blake Corbet. Starring Carrie Anne Moss (The Matrix, Memento), Billy Connolly (Mrs. Brown, Lemony Snickett), Dylan Baker (Happiness, Spiderman 2), and Tim Blake Nelson (O'Brother Where Art Thou, Minority Report), FIDO is a quirky, highly stylized, comedy which Lionsgate Films is distributing in the US and Internationally, with TVA handling Canadian distribution.
Mary Anne brings with her a breadth of experience in both production and finance gleaned from almost twenty years working in the Vancouver film scene. Prior to FIDO, Mary Anne produced the recently released independent feature Desolation Sound, starring Jennifer Beals, Ed Begley Jr. and Lothaire Bluteau. In 2002, Mary Anne produced the CTV movie 100 Days in the Jungle, for which she earned a Gemini for Best TV Movie. 100 Days was shot on location in the jungles of Costa Rica and starred many of Canada’s finest actors, including Peter Outerbridge, Nicholas Campbell, Aiden Devine and Michael Riley. In addition to her work in independent production, Mary Anne has extensive production service credits, including the internationally financed indie feature Beautiful Joe, starring Sharon Stone and Billy Connolly, Stephen King’s 13 part Kingdom Hospital for ABC, as well as numerous American television movies including Mr St. Nick, starring Kelsey Grammer and Snow White, which starred Miranda Richardson.
Mary Anne’s film roots lie in production accounting, a career which she began shortly after graduating from UBC with an honors degree in Film & Theatre. As accountant, and subsequently production manager and line producer, Mary Anne has been involved in over forty film and television productions. Her extensive background in finance and accounting, combined with her many years of production experience, have provided her with a broad perspective on the making of films in Canada and a unique ability to combine commerce and creativity.
If you are a UBC Film Production alumnus and are interested in becoming a future mentor please contact Sidney Chiu at Sidney@ubcfilmalumni.org.
