An Interview and Workshop at GIFTS Film School

Last week I attended a week-long workshop at the Gulf Islands Film & Television School, located in the beautiful Gulf Islands, BC.

You have to take a ferry to the island from Vancouver. It’s a long island about the size of Manhattan. But instead of a couple million people, there’s only several hundred! Besides Kauai, it’s arguably the most lush place I’ve ever been to. Only much more remote (and colder).

I didn’t know anything about the school and really had no idea what to expect. A friend of mine generously registered me into the school. All I knew was that some of the mentors were involved in making the powerful documentary film, The Corporation. And I love that film!

The ferry ride over was pretty cool. There were only a few dozen people on it. As we docked into the remote island, it started to feel like I was in some sort of movie. Considering I was recently in L.A., it was a huge contrast.

As I walked off the ferry, I was greeted by some staff members of the school who had come to pick up the students. It was a really old, small, yellow school bus! It was covered with colorful writing, which appropriately matched the hippy-ish look of the staff.

Looking around, I realized that just about everyone on the ferry was going to GIFTS. And most of them were kids! As I hopped on the bus I thought to myself, “Okay, this is going to be interesting!”

The drive from the ferry terminal to the school was cool. Cool in the sense that there is a windy two lane road that goes through a forest. No intersections, no street lights, pretty much no other cars. Then it hit me. I was in an old school bus with a bunch of kids (and some adults) driving through a forest. I was going to camp!

I started singing “99 Bottles of Beer” in my head and chuckled as I released any kind of expectation of the week. “Let’s just have some fun,” I thought to myself.

We arrived at the school, which was originally an old logging camp, and had an orientation. There were about 30 students who ranged from ages 9 – 59 (maybe even older).

Most of the kids were either in the ‘Video Game Making Course’ or the ‘Dramatic Film Course’. There were about 10 adult students. Half of us were in the ‘Professional Development Course’ and the other half were in the ‘Documentary Making Course’.

The 2 mentors, (instructors), went around asking everyone what they wanted to learn. I was expecting to learn the basics of making a film, but really came hoping to learn some technical skills as well. But by the end of the discussion [I decided to just learn what the mentors were the best at teaching], instead of asking them to teach me something [I wanted].

Word had gotten out that I’m a stuntman. So the staff decided to take advantage of that novelty and asked me to do a workshop for the kids. We ended up making a short film about it that includes a personal interview of yours truly.

I gotta say that it was a really fun week. I made some new friends, learned a few things about film making, and had lots of fun. We were suppose to make a film, but because of doing the workshop and filming it for the school, my team had almost double the amount of work. Fortunately, I had a great team and they were up for the challenge.

Before I had formerly agreed to it, the school had decided that I was going to come back next summer to teach a course! Considering how much fun the kids had, the friendly staff, and the resources of the school, I think I’ll accept their offer.

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