In order to understand the web site for the Vancouver Film School (VFS), one must know a little about the school itself. The school has four campuses in downtown Vancouver. It was founded in 1987 with only 12 students; that had expanded by 1995 to include 600 full‐time and 1,200 part‐time students. It offers six immersion programs: Foundation Film; 3D Animation & Digital Effects; Alias/Wavefront Power Animator; Multimedia; Classical Animation; and Acting for Film and Television. The school also offers numerous part time programs each semester.
VFS prides itself as being on the cutting edge of education as we move into the 21st century. It is disappointing, however, that the web site ‐ albeit the school ‐ promotes itself as high‐tech, but fails in providing any sort of schooling over the Internet itself. The VFS web site won the Best of the Web award by CNET on March 12, 1997, primarily for its graphic design and quality. The web site’s sole purpose is to advertise the school, as is the case with any university or college home page. It provides typical school‐oriented information, such as its admissions policies, course listings, and directory of its faculty, staff, and students.
The index of faculty members links you to brief individual resumes for faculty, as well as their e‐mail addresses. It is interesting that they have a copyright policy listed in their admissions information. Considering that graduates have final projects such as films, animated features, computer products, or the like, this is understandable and noteworthy.
The VFS home page is almost German Expressionistic, yet classical, with contemporary designs and sharp contrasts in black, red, and gray. At the right of the screen is a table of clickable tags to other pages. The web site has links to its major programs, each on a whole maintaining the official school logo. There are numerous links to items such as part‐time course offerings, student productions, their own Intranet (currently under construction), and open chat‐rooms in Vancouver’s Web Caf,.
The web site itself is vast for a small school. The webmasters recognize this, however, and have attempted to help visitors. They provide a flowchart site map to help navigate through the web site. They also change some of the logo colors of the pages to help differentiate between different links.
Web pages have many advantages, one of which is the ability to create multimedia presentations. In this instance, VFS uses the Internet uniquely and artistically to enhance aspects of the school and students. One of their best links leads to descriptions of students’ works. For instance, in the film department’s drama section, one finds a summary listing of students’ drama films with computer‐designed top sheets to represent movie posters. Even more impressive is the student gallery in the 3D Animation program. There is no doubt that the students are talented individuals; and the availability of their work is presented well on the school web site.
The Gallery of Hours is a digital gallery of the works of students past and present. The webmasters recommend a fast modem connection and Shockwave from Director to properly experience the graphics and audios they provide for entertainment. But having patience for this gallery to open is worth the wait. The opening courtyard scene resembles something out of the game Myst.
Another bonus is called VFS News, or Bonnie’s Bytes (maintained by Bonnie Robb, Website Production Manager). This section provides news information on the computer world and education, as well as school information. Her section on electronic publishing provides a visitor with great links on a variety of topics related to starting an electronic journal to getting published electronically.
The Cybrary is VFS’s online library of resources related to their academic fields. According to the web site, its purpose is “to list links of particular use in the programs we offer and the technologies we use. Links to larger collections are also offered.” It is currently maintained by a student, Mark Belcourt, with the assistance of three other students. The Cybrary web page is divided into two frames. The information is arranged by subject and then subheading. This is a convenient reference tool because it offers a variety of information and it is main‐tained.
Currently the VFS web site does not have a functioning search engine, although in a note by Susan Janzen, Website Administrator, this search engine is promised to be active by early April. The school offers online registration as well. One can also find information on alumni.
The URL can be a bit tricky. Be forewarned not to confuse “http://www.multimedia.edu” with “http://www.multimedia.com” ‐ the latter URL will bring you to the home page for PC Magazine. The only other problem I encountered was that the Job Board site did not work, although one would hope that it would be running soon, as its advantages would be noteworthy.
Overall the web site is admirable from the point of view of the organization being an education institute. It offers its students and prospective students a lot of information, for which they should be proud. However, I see little use for it in many libraries. The only two sites that I could perceive a library bookmarking would be the Cybrary and Bonnie’s Bytes, both of which provide useful information. Yet, most of this information is available at other sites dedicated specifically to those topics.
