In December 2018 I joined Vancouver International Film Festival Video Editing team, working closely with the marketing team and the year round programmer to produce sizzle reels, highlights, and preview trailers. This is such a large canvas for me to paint my unique creative vision. I have created videos for the use of social media advertising before, but the large number of viewing counts cannot compare to this kind of theatrical experience. When the lights go down, my work projected on the big screen can demand audiences' full attention. There is no stop button, or swiping down. Every single time a full house audience giving me applause after the trailer brings me utter joy.
How do you distill a film series, oftentimes a dozen of films included, into one and a half minutes? How do you encapsulate the essence of the whole festival program, choose the perfect music and footage, and bring them all together into a cohesive, eye-catching piece? These are the questions I am facing every time I receive a lineup from the marketing team and programmers. I realize that the sizzle reel is not just about putting all the same elements together, but rather finding a common theme from the films and reflecting the tone of the certain genre. That is where the storytelling comes in, and what I enjoy the most. From analyzing the stories, understanding the genre, editing the bone of the trailer - music, experimenting new sound editing techniques, trying out different graphic designs, every limit-pushing task opens up a world of possibility for me to explore.
Here is a selection of my video editing projects for the Vancouver International Film Festival.
An exciting overview of Vancouver's annual celebration of cinema taking place from Sept. 26 - Oct. 11, 2019. The sizzle reel kicks off VIFF's media launch. For an in-depth look at the process that went into making this sizzle reel, read my story here.
An overview of the 39th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival. The sizzle reel kicks off VIFF's virtual media launch and plays on VIFF's new streaming platform VIFF Connect and the new TV Displays the VIFF Centre.
IFF Italian Film Festival was back in January 2019 with a week-long celebration of new Italian cinema, documentaries, and established classics, including work by masters like Fellini, De Sica, and Bertolucci.
Ten of the best feature films released in Canadian theatres in 2018.
Curated by Barbara Chirinos in partnership with VIFF Vancity Theatre’s Tom Charity, the annual Black History Month film series is a significant contribution to Vancouver's cultural diversity.
This retrospective pulls together Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke's dramatic fiction films from his underground debut, Pickpocket, in 1997, to his latest, Cannes prize-winning Ash is Purest White (2018), including his first five, rarely screened masterworks, on 35mm prints.
Rupture returned June 6-9, 2019 for another showcase of genre cinema fuelled by artistry, originality and adventurousness.
Celebrating 15 feature films reflects the quality, diversity and depth of 2019 cinema.
The seventh annual Italian Film Festival brings together the best in recent Italian cinema with sidebars showcasing the rich legacy of the past.
Curated by Barbara Chirinos in partnership with VIFF Vancity Theatre’s Tom Charity, 2020's Black History Month film series gives us a wide range of black experience and creativity, from Fela Kuti’s radical Afro-beat to Toni Morrison’s haunting literature. It includes a history of horror movies and the new Underground Railroad historical drama, Harriet, as well as an all-ages $5 animation show, a Queer Night, and a tribute to the late writer-director John Singleton, with Boyz n the Hood.
Celebrating Black voices in cinema, VIFF’s Black History Month film series shines a spotlight on powerful stories of resilience and liberation. Curated by Nya Lewis, this year’s program includes 7 features and a shorts program with films from Canada, Africa, the Caribbean, UK, and the US, plus a free Vancity Impact Talk.
VIFF presents ¡Swoon! Cinema Almodóvar retrospective series, celebrating the world of Pedro Almodóvar, a place of primary colours and primal emotions, where stories are spun with fabulous freedom, intoxicating Al-melódramas driven by sex and surprise, reckless women clash with feckless men, gender norms are gleefully subverted and camp is elevated to high style.
Indulge in the pleasure of nostalgia this summer with the spotlight series on 1970s American cinema, Ragged Glory: Summer in the 70s. Comprising just shy of seventy 70s films, the series runs from July 15 to September 4, 2022.
What kind of bird are you? Welcome to the marvelous, melancholy cinema of Wesley Wales Anderson, ten rueful comedies, 1996-2021, bittersweet tales of eager dreamers and disappointed over-achievers; frauds, failures, foibles and follies. Including all of Wes Anderson's 10 feature films, "Wes World" screens at the VIFF Centre from December 21, 2022 to January 5, 2023
With Hayao Miyazaki's eagerly awaited comeback film The Boy and the Heron due for release in fall 2023, there is no better time to revisit the spellbinding fairy tales which have enchanted audiences for four decades and made Studio Ghibli the most revered animation studio in the world. VIFF presents the complete Ghibli retrospective series, Studio Ghibli Forever!, screening 2023 year round.
An overview of the stellar film line-up for the 42nd Vancouver International Film Festival, September 28 – October 8, 2023.
In 2023 holiday season VIFF taps into the deepest wells of wonder: fairy tales, folklore and fantasy as told and retold by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Scheherazade, Walt Disney, Jean Cocteau, Guillermo del Toro, Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg, to name but a few. These movies are a magic carpet transporting us across continents and centuries, yet always bringing us – like Dorothy’s ruby slippers – safely home again.
There is a world of Anime beyond the universal fairy tales of the Ghibli tradition. Japanese animation has a storytelling sophistication and breadth that puts Hollywood to shame. In Beyond Ghibli: New Japanese Anime series, VIFF celebrates filmmakers whose work uses Anime to express the human experience with creative complexity, passion and wit. You’ll find sports movies, slacker comedies, love stories, coming of age dramas, and sci-fi fantasy, even a couple of musicals… And, always, breathtaking imagery that speaks to all ages.