What's New

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CA Video & Film Production students got a chance  recently to work with J.D. Fortune, lead singer for INXS.  J.D. was in town recording some tracks when he was asked to audition for a part in an upcoming CBS television series.  They needed someone to shoot J.D.'s audition fast and put in a call to Columbia Academy, just up the hill from where he was recording.  VFP students shot the session and got it down to L.A. in a matter of hours.   Just another example of the kind of real world experience students in our programs get.  (The picture is from the audition session.)

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Talk about a long broadcasting career… Columbia Academy President George McNeill just returned from London where he was visiting his friend, Sir Patrick Moore, the noted British astronomer.  Sir Patrick has been the host of The Sky At Night, a weekly British television series since – get this – 1957!  In fact, he holds the Guiness World Record as the longest serving host of a television series.  George was there to help celebrate Sir Patrick’s 85th birthday as well as the updating of Patrick’s latest book, Bang!  The Complete History of the Universe, which he co-wrote with legendary Queen guitarist, Brian May (a noted astrophysicist in his spare time), and Chris Lintott.  Check out the website.  It contains a really cool animation sequence they’ve created to promote the book.  Brian May wrote the music. (http://www.banguniverse.com)

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RSD grad Craig Berkey was recently nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the Sound Mixing team for this year's Best Picture, No Country For Old Men.  Unfortunately the Oscar went to the Bourne Ultimatum, but the nomination was a great honor.  Craig also worked on another Academy Award nominated film this year, Transformers, as a Sound Effects Editor.  His latest film is Nim's Island, opening in April, 2008, and starring Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin.  Craig was the Sound Designer for Nim's Island.

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It is with great sadness that we report that Columbia Academy has lost a member of its family.  Recording & Sound Design (2006) grad, Leo Del Pinto, was tragically killed while vacationing in Thailand.  Leo was a great guy - always smiling, always willing to help out - even in other departments.  He was friendly with students in all divisions, and worked on several Video & Film Production department shoots.  After graduation, Leo landed a job touring with the Canadian band, The Pindolls.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family. Leo will truly be missed.

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Last month's Professional Sound magazine featured a story on North Vancouver's Sharpe Sound Studios, one of the area's busiest post-production sound house for television and film.  Sharpe Sound has hired many of Columbia Academy's Recording & Sound Design graduates over the years who have worked on hundreds of television series and feature films.  We were blown away to see a photo  accompanying the article which featured four of our grads in senior positions at Sharpe (pictured: Standing: L - Kelly Cole, Sr. Re-Recording Mixer, R - Qiu Chun, Chief Technical Engineer.  Seated: L - Iain Pattison; R - Bill Mellow, both Senior Re-Recording Mixers).  Also at Sharpe, Laurie Melhus, Studio Manager and recent grad Matthew Dawson, computer room & ADR.  Photo courtesy: Digidesign www.digidesign.com and Professional Sound magazine www.professional-sound.com

JOBS, JOBS, and more JOBS for CA Grads

Broadcasting Jobs

Returning to her old stomping grounds of Vancouver Island is recent BPA grad, Sonja Jensen. Sonja has just been hired as a weekend news reporter/anchor for three Nanaimo, BC stations: The Wolf, The Wave, and The Ocean. Sonja joins fellow CA grad, Ross Raymond, who has been on the air at The Wolf for quite a while now.

Emilie Clarke, a BPA grad from 2007 has returned to Vancouver and has landed a gig gathering traffic info for the Terry & Tara Morning Show on 103.5 QM/FM. The Terry & Tara Show is produced by long-time BPA Instructor, Peter Schaad. Other stations may be using her traffic reports as well, such as The Beat 94.5, 1410 CFUN, and the Team 1040.

Two more CA grads get their start in Chetwynd, BC. Mike 'The Vike' Erickson has been hired to do mid-days at Peace FM. Mike will also be News Director for the station - a big job - hey, it's a big area. Also landing a first on-air gig at Peace FM is Karly Seigner. Karly grabs the coveted morning show spot. Mike and Karly join Kimberley MacLeod, a recent grad already on the air at Peace doing the afternoon drive. Let's see, that's three out of the four on-air shifts being covered by Columbia Academy grads. I wonder what that other school's grads are doing these days? Congratulations, guys! Have a great time and learn lots up there.

Steve Burden, a grad from way back, dropped us a line to let us know that he is now on the air in Dawson Creek, BC at Radio 890, known as the Peace Country's country. Steve will be on the air weekends at 890. He writes, "I would like to thank everyone at Columbia Academy for helping me achieve a lifelong dream of mine. I will always be grateful for everything you taught me."

Warren Andrews has been hired on at a station nearly in his back yard. You can hear Warren on the air at 98.9 JET FM, the Island's Best Rock, serving Powell River, Campbell River, and Courtenay, on Vancouver Island.

Kimberley MacLeod bagged her first on-air job at Peace FM in Chetwynd, BC. Peace FM has given many Columbia grads their starts over the years.

Sean Cruz defied the odds and nailed his first on-air job in a major market at Vancouver's AM 730, All Traffic Radio. Sean may be starting with the dreaded overnight shift, but he's on his way.

Dylan "Bob Thomas" Hinkleman landed his first production job just before graduating. He's been hired on as a Production Editor for Vancouver's Info-Chip Communications, one of North America's leading providers of custom digital audio solutions for on-hold, internet, and multimedia networks.

Recent CA grad, Ashley Hinton is on the move to a great new job as Senior Swing Announcer and Imaging Producer for The Wolf 97.3 in Prince George, BC.

Brand new CA grad, Scott Campbell has landed his first job only weeks after graduating. Scott's been hired as the Morning Show Co-Host doing News & Sports for Newcap's new Big Dog 103.5 FM radio in Lac La Biche, Alberta, about 200 kilometres north-east of Edmonton. Scott will also take on a host of other duties at the station.

Freshly-minted grad Matt Coppin is only 19, but he's already landed his first job at a major market radio station. Matt's been hired as the new overnight Traffic & Weather Announcer for Corus Radio's AM 730 in Vancouver, joining fellow grads, Asa Rehman, Nathan Thomas, Ann Luu, and Sean Cruz on the air. Ann has also been hosting on Shaw Television in Vancouver. Travis Goodman, a CA grad from 1996, is also an anchor at AM 730 as well as the station's Assistant Program Director.

Trish Jewison was hired while still in school to gather and report traffic for CTN, the Canadian Traffic Network, who provide airborne traffic reports to a number of Vancouver radio stations.

Speaking of major markets, check out what's happening with Columbia Academy grads and Vancouver's News 1130. Now on the air at News 1130 are CA grads: Reshmi Nair, Karen Thomson, Nikki Pena, Kari-Lynn Twidale, and the latest addition, Amanda Wawryk. Reporter/Anchor Shane Bigham provides the male CA BPA grad presence. Shane has been with News 1130 since 2001.

Recent grad Mindy Singh and brand new grad, Puneet Dhami have both landed jobs with RJ1200, a Vancouver Hindi and Punjabi radio station. They will be doing on-air shifts as well as production and other duties for the station.

Brianne Cook has made a leap into broadcasting in a big way! She landed her very first radio job at a mid-market station, Sun FM in Kelowna, BC, where she'll be hosting evenings and weekends.

After a year of hosting mornings at Chetwynd, BC's Peace FM and doing play-by-play announcing for the Dawson Creek Junior Canucks, Dan O'Connor has followed his passion for sports to North Battleford, Saskatchewan where he'll be doing sports reporting for CHNB and Q98 FM radio as well as play-by-play announcing for the North Battleford North Stars (SJHL) hockey team.

Dan's good buddy and former classmate, Marcus Fitzgerald has also left Peace FM to follow his love of sports as a Sports Reporter & Anchor for Newcap's The Fox 101.1 FM in Brooks, Alberta.

As if that wasn't enough, Newcap has also hired BPA grad Satiar Shahrokhzadeh to do the same job at their Fox station in Edson, Alberta. Way to go, guys!

Video & Film Production Jobs

VFP grad Shane 'Fresh' Holford has returned to his home in Barbados and is super-busy. He's opened his own production company, Fresh Productionz where he's editing and doing color correction and image polishing for a number of clients. He is also heading up the wedding video department of a new company as well as working on music videos, awards shows, and a bunch more. Busy guy!

Video & Film grad Stephanie Lehman, who has been working for Canada's TSN (The Sports Network) since graduation writes to say, "Things are going really well. I'm now cutting our headlines and bumpers, as well as the Sportscentre Top 10's and any other special features that you see on the show. Still doing the highlight packs but not as much as I seem to be making my way slowly up the ladder.
It's nice because now I get to be more creative instead of just telling you what happened in whatever game."

Andry Razafimanantsoa, a recent VFP grad, has returned to his native Madagascar and has been very busy since returning. He has already produced two documentaries and two music videos. He's "working like a dog" (just like we told him would) but loving every minute of it.

Two recent CA Video & Film grads have landed jobs as editors in Vancouver. Chris Alarcon is a Junior Editor with busy Basetwo Media, owned by three other Columbia grads, Jonathan Galbraith, Jeff Pelletier, and Tom Marchand. And Sohrab Sandhu has been hired as an Editor and Camera Operator for Music Waves and Red FM in Vancouver.

Aziz Dhamani e-mailed to let us know that he has just wrapped as a 2nd AD for a short film shot in HD in his native country, Bangladesh. He writes, "We had a team from Britain shooting the feature which will be premiered at the Toronto Film Festival."

Recording & Sound Design Jobs

Recent RSD grad, Megan Vermeulen is off and running on her new career in post-production audio. She started out working at Vancouver's busy Post Modern Sound - a part time job she landed and maintained while attending school. As soon as she graduated, however, a great opportunity opened up for her as a Studio Assistant at DBC Sound, which she jumped on. We're sure she'll be running the place one day! Congratulations, Megan.

Current RSD student, Scott Armstrong, has been busy working with Nasco Staffing Solutions in Vancouver, loading and unloading semi-trailers for major concerts. He just finished with the Van Halen reunion show (where he got to watch the show from just off-stage - how cool is that?) and will soon be working with the boys from Bon Jovi when their two shows rock Van City in December.

RSD grad Goran Samardziski has just landed a great new job as a MediaTechnician for the BC Children's Hospital and the BC Women's Hospital in Vancouver. Goran will be providing audio and video equipment, recording, and editing for both facilities.

Chris Stoness has had quite a ride in his new career since his recent graduation. While still in school, Chris interned as a Studio Runner at Bryan Adams' reknowned Vancouver studio, The Warehouse. Chris decided to make his own way, though, and shortly after, created his own artist development company, while still engineering on the side. Chris says that he's busier than he ever thought possible so soon and that things are going great.

Columbia Academy Recording & Sound Design grad, Jamie Ferland has landed a great engineering job at Moko Productions in Prince George, BC with former CA grad, Moses Kostamo. Jamie is helping Moses build a new studio where they'll be recording music and working on post-production projects. Jamie will also be doing live sound engineering at events throughout Northern BC this summer.

CA grad, Nick Alsfeld landed a job as a New Music Editor for Vancouver-based, EMedia Networks.

Matt Dawson has been hired to work in the computer room at North Vancouver's busy post-production sound facility, Sharpe Sound. Matt has already moved into doing ADR work there. Matt joins a number of incredibly successful Columbia Academy grads already working at Sharpe Sound.