Welcome to all fans of Outsider Gaming! Colin Giles, creator of some of the most adored and iconic works in the field, joins us today for a fascinating exploration of the constantly evolving world of animation and visual effects. Colin, who is now the head of animation and visual effects at Vancouver Film School, has an extensive resume spanning more than two decades. Among his many accomplishments are credits on the quirky Ren and Stimpy Show and projects collaborating with Rob Zombie, Adam Sandler, and Seth Rogen. His artistic abilities also include directing, designing, and animating.
So, check out the full interview video on YouTube or continue reading below where we’ll follow Colin’s career. From discussing his early days of sketching and his love of animation, as well as the twists and turns and varied possibilities that led him to his current position at VFS. Come explore Colin Giles’s creative process with us in this exclusive conversation as we uncover the insights, achievements, and lessons gleaned from his remarkable artistic journey. Let’s get into it!
Paul:
Welcome to Outsider Gaming. I’m your host today, Paul, and I’m joined by the lovely Colin Giles. Uh, he is currently the head of animation and VFX in Vancouver Film School. He is old like me. He has about 23 years’ experience and counting in the business. He has a very varied and interesting CV and he’s worked in directing, animation, and design. He’s worked on very famous shows like Ren and Stimpy. He’s worked on Thomas and Friends. He’s done ad work for the likes of Starbucks, big companies like that. He’s also worked with movie projects with Rob Zombie, to name one, Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen. Yeah, quite an interesting CV. So welcome, Colin. Nice to meet you.
Colin:
Glad to be here. Thanks, Paul. Thanks for having me.
Paul:
Awesome, I hope I got all that right. I fact checked all that. That’s cool.
Colin:
Sounds good. Yeah, something like that. It’s all good. It all sounds good. I’m so old now. Sometimes I forget. I’m like, oh yeah, I worked on that. That’s fun.
Paul:
I did that thing. Yeah, so speaking of, what takes you on such a journey like that? You know, you start as I’m guessing in animation, that kind of thing, and you end up being like the head of a department in BFS. How does that happen?
Colin:
I think it happened because I had no plans. I don’t think you can plan this. It certainly wasn’t like I was sitting in, you know, late high school or early college thinking like, I’m going to run this darn place one day. It was really just born out of a love for drawing, actually. And I fell in love with animation as an art form, you know, in my teen years, which at the time made me not very cool, which is already, layering, not cool upon, not cool as it was. I went to a school where the arts were really supported. I was really lucky that my family was very supportive of it. And I had a lot of support with a wonderful art teacher who kind of encouraged my parents to encourage me. And it was just never really in doubt that I was going to do something in the arts. I was just a kid in school that could draw well. And it was my introduction to the Disney animation films that made me think, oh, that’s kind of interesting. I could do that. And I went on a tour of the Walt Disney Studios in Florida when they were there at Disney World Park. That’s when I made the real connection, oh, this is a job. People actually do this. They’re sitting there drawing and getting paid for it. I was like, that’s it. Like there was never any other shift in my focus for that. So having grown up in northern Alberta, which was, you know, outside the core hub of where art and animation gets done.
Colin:
Yeah. I moved out to Vancouver and started school there. My goal was always to work at Disney. It was always to be a hand-drawn animator at Disney. And I was lucky enough or unlucky enough, I suppose, depending on which perspective you have of basically going to school when Toy Story came out. So, the art of 2D hand-drawn animation was kind of in flux and this 3D thing was going to come and take over our world, you know, in similar dialogue that we’re having with AI. And in that world right now, we’re all going to be out of work. And, of course, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. It just shifted and the industry exploded. But I was lucky enough that my first foray into professional work was 2D animation with Disney Interactive. I got to work on a lot of cool legacy characters. Got to draw Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. And from there, to make a very long 25-year story short, it was really just following threads and opportunity. Some advice I would give young people nowadays is to embrace being naive and ignorant a little bit. I was just like, oh, I’ll just take this job over here and I’ll work with this. And really, what I didn’t realize at the time was my greatest skill. I think the talent that I had was just working with people and just being a good professional. It wasn’t the most talented drawer in the world. I had just a bunch of general excitement about the industry and really loved working with people.
Colin:
And other than a few chunks of 6 to 8-months periods of time, I found myself not without work very often and just jumped to different jobs and different positions and became an animation director. I did cleanup, I did inbetweening, I did animation, and I did supervising, worked on commercials and games and TV, dabbled in flash, you know, at the time, flash before the toon boom.
Paul:
Like the flash games and animations and stuff? That was huge.
Colin:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, flash has been used in television shows as well. So, I just kind of like moved in there and, and would just sort of like every time a door opened, I would just kind of walk through it. And most of that came through networking and just working with people and keeping up with college friends or people. The animation and gaming world is very small and we’re all kind of especially here in Vancouver. It was very small and had a lot of service work. So, I was meeting people from outside of Vancouver just by proxy. And yeah, I ended up working at a studio where we had this 3D production. It was a film that was starting in the studio, and they just asked me, do you know how to animate in the computer? And I said, no. Um, and they said, well, we like your work, and everyone else here kind of knows you, and we need people. Would you be willing to learn on the job? And I said, yeah. So it was that kind of naive, ignorant things like, oh yeah, sure, I can do this. It’s like, yeah, I can drive a motorcycle or sure, I can fly a plane. I just kept moving in that direction. And I think at some point, the major fork in the road was just a moment in life where I took a break. I took a bit of a sabbatical and just kind of ran my course in my own professional standing. And I think I would be transparent and maybe vulnerable enough to say that I’d probably not trained myself to deal with the rigors of television animation, where you’re kind of on the fifth season of something.
Colin:
And so, I just decided to step away and kind of dabbled in some freelance TV work. But at the same time, I had this itch to teach being a, you know, a lead or a supervisor in a production. Your kind of working with newer artists a lot, and you’re doing a lot of teaching on the fly and mentoring. And so, I started picking up some classes here and there, and I just fell in love with it. At some point I tell students that in your career, you’ll find the place where you actually do fit. It might not even necessarily be the place where you thought or wanted to fit, but if you’re smart, if you become un ignorant about it, you just have to look within and be like, oh, you know what? This actually fits all the skills that I’ve been building all this time, whether it’s on purpose or you’re just kind of granted with it. And so I’ve been here now at Vancouver Film School for ten years.
Paul:
Wow.
Colin:
And even then, I started as a part time instructor. And now somehow, I have my own office and run three programs, so you just never really know.
Paul:
It’s pretty good. I mean, I was going to ask what kind of advice you’d give to yourself or somebody starting out again, but it sounds like, yeah, just be open minded and keep going for opportunities. As you said, you might end up doing something that isn’t 100% a good fit for you, and you just adapt and evolve and change.
Colin:
And, you know, I have friends who have worked at the same studio for years, you know, they’ve worked at Pixar for five years.
Paul:
And they want to do the Five Seasons on a show. Yeah. They like that one thing.
Colin:
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think the way my brain works; I like a recharge. And this job is a daily recharge. It’s always something new. There are new students with new ideas, new cultures, new voices. Um, it’s super exciting. And I get to with my experience, which is very broad. It’s helped me. So, I give advice with a grain of salt, which is like, nobody wants me to just walk in and just tell them what to do. You know? Like you don’t want that kind of advice. But if people do come and ask for it, be like, hey, you know, if you can learn anything from my journey to this point is I look at it more of a horizontal career rather than a vertical one. Even though there’s that verticality in terms of experience, because I jumped around a lot and learned a lot from many people. I just have this kind of wide spectrum experience. And part of that is not art based. It’s people management. It’s listening to people, you know, creating new curriculum. And just solving problems as an administrator or as a manager. And then the biggest part of my job that I enjoy the most is then just getting to mentor students and encouraging them to just follow their gut, especially when they’re in school. I mean, obviously we have rules here, but it’s really a place for them to find themselves and find their voice. And I see myself in that, and it’s so much easier to look back on it in hindsight and go, oh yeah, that’s what led to a career for me was just this open mindedness and just looking for opportunity or stumbling backwards bumping into opportunity and then you just from there, you have to then take it seriously, right. And put all your effort into being the best employee and the best colleague. Then by that point, you’re also mentoring people around you, and it just becomes this sort of familial group effort, and you’re a big part of the team. And at some point, you’ll be asked to maybe lead a team. And sometimes you’re on the team and all those skills, they all kind of like blend into this melting pot of what brought me here. So, I try and instill that culture onto all three of our animation programs here, which is, just kind of seek yourself out in the work itself. There’s always going to be time to build on your craft. But being a professional, just being a good artist, and by being a good artist, I mean being a good professional is someone who’s curious and excited about things. And even as our industry is changing so fast, I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I’m sure you can recognize this, too. Our industry has changed 3 or 4 times over. Right. And we’re on the precipice of maybe the biggest change we’ve had yet. I understand what the sort of scary parts of that are. But I also know there’s opportunity there. So, you just have to be open to all of it.
Paul:
Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think as you said, if you’re open minded and if you’re professional, like if you’re willing to work with people and make a good impression, you’ll end up building a network. You’ll end up getting opportunities. You end up kind of finding your feet, I suppose. Yeah, the Vancouver Film School itself. Wow, what a website! I gotta say, I was going to just list off a couple of things, but I’m going to do it justice. Actually, have it here in front of me for bragging rights. So, graduates from Vancouver Film School have worked on everything that you could ever think of that is successful. And just a few examples, right in front of me. So, 22 alumni have worked on Luigi’s Mansion 3. You have alumni who’ve worked on Halo Infinite and the Ghostbusters movie, the Free Guy film & League of Legends. Going into like the kind of superhero stuff you’ve got, you know, The Avengers, you’ve got all that. I mean, it’s a complete bragging right. So this is an impossible question probably but what do you think has led to all this? Like, there’s hundreds of successes on this page. Hundreds!
Colin:
I think there’s a couple points. I mean, it’s hard to break it down into some easy points. I mean, we’ve been around for over 35 years now, so there’s just sheer numbers behind it. And I know many other schools have obviously graduated students into major productions as well, but for us, it’s just the sheer scope of it. It’s all across games. It’s all across film and television advertising. We have students who’ve gone on to start companies. So, for me, what I’m most proud of since, you know, in my relationship with Vancouver Film School is when you look at the credits of these projects, you’ve got people in supervising, writing, producing, directing positions, and all the way through the production, and they’re peppered with VFS in there. So, it’s really cool that there’s such a wide scope of experience in there as well. I think if I was to like point out the secret sauce, it’s in our name, we’re Vancouver Film School and I don’t think we’ve ever lost that fundamental value in story and storytelling. And I think that’s where our students come out with a whole bunch of great craft skills. They understand the industry, they’re well prepared. They’re being trained by industry professionals constantly. So, it’s like from the moment you walk in the door, it kind of feels like a studio. But for us, every decision we make is based on storytelling. And so, everything that students do has to have some sort of connection with a story. Not like everyone here is writing three act plays or feature films, but we respect the art of storytelling so much that I think that’s really the secret underlying, almost subtextual idea about what’s going on here is when you come here, you come to film school and even though we’re not, we’ve grown just beyond, like the film production program, every aspect of our entertainment industry and beyond.
Colin:
Now, that’s how we communicate, right? As humans, we communicate through story. So, it’s important to us that our students are imbued with that value from day one, that they are here to be storytellers and that we’re here to listen to them and that they’re not just here to learn a specific set of skills that’s just going to get them a job and then they move on. It’s amazing to see that range of experience in the credits that our alumni have gained, because you realize that we’ve been educating these students for a career, not training them for a job, and that means they’ve become adaptable. And it’s really cool to sometimes see names. I’m like, oh, that person worked on a Pixar film. And oh, look at that. They worked on Arcane. So, they went from here to there. And you know, there’s like this really cool adaptability that’s built into like kind of our culture here as well. So yeah, it’s hard to pin like exactly why um, other than I think that everybody that comes in here is, you know, all of our student body and our staff is everyone’s sort of driven towards telling the best story.
Paul:
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like a talented bunch. And obviously you’re getting young minds in and you’re molding them in a certain way and hopefully you’re helping them build their network and set up projects. Speaking of courses and things. So, you have your kind of 12-month course, I’m guessing for third level education? Are there any other things? Are there scholarships, part time courses, master classes, anything that you can do?
Colin:
Yeah, I mean, we are a slightly different school. First of all, we’re a private school. I should remind people of that. That gives us some advantages. You know, we can move very quickly. And we do move quickly in the fact that we’re a 12-month program. So, we have all of these different programs at the school, and all of them mirror this 12-month experience, which is a very intensive experience in the sense that all of our programs have over 1000 hours of training in them. So that’s a lot of education to pack into 12 months. For us, it means the learning curve happens fast. You fail forward, meaning you’re making the mistake in the morning and you’re fixing it in the afternoon. And then you’re getting a review in the morning, and then you’re applying that information and it’s just iteration. So, there’s this sort of energy of just making it like everything we do is applicable. It’s all application. There’s no theory. There’s, you know, there’s no quizzes. It’s not like memorization. It’s here’s the information in order to create this imagery, and then go, you get supported on that. So, what we’ve done successfully over 35 years, then, is to take those ideas and figure out how we can package that for other audiences. And the main way we’re doing that right now is through another department called VFS connect. And VFS connect is essentially an online offering where students from around the world can take intro classes. They can take we can workshop in software development, we’ve done ones in machine learning, we’ve done Intro to Photoshop, we’ve done Intro to Maya, we’ve got aiding one’s film, one’s acting. So across our school we’re able to introduce people from many different countries or experience levels to the ideas that, you might want to use in our full time programs, but also just for people who may not be able to come to Vancouver or are just looking to sort of dip their finger in it, especially if you’re maybe older or if you’re looking to make a career change, you don’t have to make that huge commitment you can like, say, I’ll just try this class that happens once a week. And, we’ve had success with that of people going, oh, this is really where I’m supposed to be. We are developing new courses all the time for that. So we’re also looking at the highly advanced classes where maybe industry professionals who are looking to change, say, from, game production to film production or vice versa, or from TV to feature film, or want to level up in their craft or in their software skills, they can then come to us for that kind of training and by using that same fundamental value of no matter what it is you’re training yourself on, it’s all going to be used for the purpose of telling a good story. So that’s how we sort of approach that type of thing. In terms of scholarships. We offer scholarships in all kinds of different areas. And what I love about our recent scholarships are they’re kind of focused. So, we had a really successful ‘Women in Games’ scholarship last year which also came with a post grad internship, which was really cool.
Colin:
We’ve had indigenous student scholarships. We’ve had region-based scholarships. So Latin American scholarships, European scholarships, North American scholarships, high school scholarships. And we’re really out there looking for the best talent to bring in and give maybe some people who haven’t had the opportunity or wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity, a leg up. We have a really cool relationship with the high school in Manitoba here in Canada, where they have a donor who is giving out scholarships on their behalf. But they have to be used at Vancouver Film School. So, it’s an amazing relationship where we’re helping these high school students even before they come to VFS. They know us. They’ve worked with us in workshops. So, it’s a really cool way of developing talent from a young age, especially when all these young people are quite aware of what’s happening in the industry. They come in quite knowledgeable about where it is they want to end up.
Paul:
Yeah. I think even looking at your website, like the courses you’re doing, they’d be the cool courses, you know what I mean? They’re the things that I think I would want to do if I was going back and if I had a time machine. You’ve got animation, you’ve got game design, you’ve got film production, you’ve got the writing stuff. You can write for literal skills, for TV, movies, video games. And they all seem interconnected because they all obviously are, you know, entertainment. They’ll all lead to some sort of project, you would hope, on the big screen or the small screen. And when your students are doing those courses, do they blend together at all? Do they work on projects with another department to say, okay, well, let’s put an animatic together, you know, get our classic drawers to draw something right, or come up with a story. Does any of that happen or maybe it happens after they graduate?
Colin:
It does. Yeah, it does on both ends. Yeah. And sometimes it’s informal, which is sometimes even the most magical thing when just students meet each other and they kind of work together. But there are very formal ways in which we do that too. And I like to joke around a lot. We’re sort of like one of those studios in the 30s in Hollywood that has just like little departments, and you just go to the writing department, and you go over here, for your costumes. And that’s how we kind of work. So, if you’re making a film in our film production program, you’re working with the actors from the acting department, you’re working with the writers, from the writing department, you’re working with the sound designers from the sound department. Um, you’re probably working with the makeup artist from our makeup department. If you have visual effects in your film, you’re working with our visual effects students. So, it’s really cool how all those sorts of intersect in many different ways. And here in the animation programs, of course, we have concept art, classical animation and 3D animation. We do some formal stuff, but it’s really cool to see because we’re all in the same campus. Some concept art for a visual effects project popping up, and you’re like, oh, that’s that concept artist from that class who met those visual effects artist. And we kind of foster that, that intermingling just by being in the same space and running it much like a studio where everyone can talk to each other. So, although there are assignments and there are projects that are kind of limited to the constraints that we need them to be under that explodes out amongst the whole school.
Colin:
And then, yeah, in terms of alumni, I mean, we have people coming back working on projects. We have people coming back as mentors. We see students who have gone on and made little independent companies as alumni who met each other at the school. And they’ll bring in writers and effects artists and filmmakers from the different programs. So, we’re like a little petri dish of industry that sort of expands out over time. And we just kind of mix together.
Paul:
You could literally be putting together production teams in the future. Like, I mean, that’s exactly what could happen. Yeah. Forming friends and bonds and exploring their networks together. It’s amazing. Um, my love is VR. And now I know, it’s probably not your department, but I’m sure you can tell me a bit about it. And so, VR and AR for me are very new technologies. From a gaming perspective, the games are better than you think they’re going to be. They’re more immersive than you think they’re going to be, but there’s not that many games or they just seem to be trickling. Maybe there’s not enough money behind them or whatever. So, from just a course perspective, and the number of students that are applying for those courses, is there a future there? Are there jobs thereafter do you think?
Colin:
Yeah, I think VR AR finds itself in an interesting place amongst our whole industry, not just in entertainment, but in the enterprise world as well. So, AR/VR, our program works a lot with the enterprise side of VR, AR meaning, you know, vehicle design. We’ve had students work with Tesla on some projects, a lot of pre-vis type stuff, a lot of travel and tourism, training for the medical field or the construction field or mining, which is huge out here in sort of western Canada. So, our approach to VR/AR has been to sort of let VR/AR naturally blend into our 3D world or our game design, but on its own. A lot of these students are coming from other programs or coming from other universities, and they’re working on essentially case studies, working with industry directly on using VR/AR as a problem-solving tool and as a training tool, as an integration tool. It’s really exciting to see how that’s working. We have had some students use VR/AR here, especially VR in terms of pre-visual building worlds. We have integrated it a little bit with our relationship with our motion capture partner, Beyond Capture, which is one of the leading motion capture studios in Canada. They are in our basement, integrated into our film studios. They have a massive, beautiful studio down there. So, our students use that space for mocap, but we have used VR/AR in those instances as well to sort of blend that in. We’ve had students just do completely VR projects as well. So again, it’s much like our philosophy at VFS, across the board is there’s a place for it in so many different aspects of what we do that it’s not just a filmed entertainment world, it’s not just a game industry.
Colin:
It’s in so many different places. And there’s some exciting stuff that is being done in that. And what’s really cool is you can take a game design student, or you can take a 3D student and have them work with VR artists who are essentially designing a VR experience. But of course, they need visuals, interactivity, they need UI design. And we have all those aspects at our school. So again, VR becomes almost like as if you’re making a film, you rely on so many different artists to make it come to fruition, and we have all those artists that are at our disposal here at the school. So, for us, VR/AR is a is a growing thing. I think in terms of like as you mentioned, are there a lot of games out there right now? I know we had a huge lot for a couple of years. Oculus was like the big talk, and now we’ve got Apple Vision, which is sort of a different version blend of VR/AR and different.
Paul:
High price range as well, I feel. Yeah.
Colin:
Exactly now you’re talking about the industry side of it, which is like, can people afford this? Um, do people want it? So, I think it’s sort of finding its way and really those developments will come out of finding something new like, I know the whole beat saber game was like big. It’s like perfect. What an entry point for really such a wide audience. Right. And yeah, same thing with gaming in general. It’s once you get that mass acceptance of it, then it’ll move itself forward. But right now, what’s exciting is it’s still kind of like the Wild West. You can make anything. There’s no rules. It’s someone’s going to find that moment where there’s like a mass adoption of it for many different reasons. Obviously, you mentioned the affordability of it could be part of that issue and part of the solution. So, yeah, it’s just giving students an opportunity to try it. You know, accessibility is always such a major part of, you know, the growth of any industry. So, once it’s adoptable and accessible by a mass group of people, then that’s when you start to see that forward movement happening.
Paul:
It’s definitely commendable that you’re taking on something that’s new and cool as well. You know, it’s something that all the kids want to do. Absolutely. Something you want to do. So yeah, it’s amazing. I only have a couple of questions left. So just before I get into them, for anyone watching our interviews out there, if you like this stuff, please hit subscribe. Please hit the notification. For Colin, go check out VFS, Vancouver Film School. It’s a brilliant website. Watch the sizzle reel. If you love gaming, you’ve got God of War Ragnarok in there. You’ve got lots of cool games like Baldur’s Gates there. Yeah, all these amazing projects that, graduates from your school have done. It’s amazing. Taking it back just prior to your work in TV and movies and stuff like that. Have you got any kind of anecdotes or interesting celebrity meets that you might have had, or any funny stories for us?
Colin:
Um, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot I don’t have enough time to fill you in on all. And some of them I probably couldn’t even tell you on a platform like this. Um, it’s been it’s been really wild. I think for me, maybe this is more of a romantic thing, but I have been able to meet a lot of artists that I’ve respected as a young artist and being a new professional, this job in particular, has actually brought me closer to the industry than being in the industry itself. I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of public speaking. I’ve worked with the Ted group, and I’ve worked with different conferences around the world, so I’ve been able to travel a lot, all across Asia and South America as well, which has been super exciting. And I feel very blessed that that’s been part of my journey and part of being a cartoonist. But I think for me, I’ve been able to meet just really, really amazing people. I know in school, I looked up to an animator, Glen Keane, who’s kind of a master of what he does and has gone on to win Oscars and stuff. And yeah, just you get those moments where you’re at an event and you not only get to shake their hand and say thank you, but you find yourself having a meal with them, or you’re at a table with 3 or 4 other artists that you look up to and you’re just like, I can’t believe I’m here. You know, you hear those stories a lot of that type of thing.
Colin:
So, whether it’s being able to work with artists like that, I’ve just worked with some incredible people, talented people, directors, other artists and been inspired by new artists who’s come in and worked. So, for me, I’ve been able to meet some celebrity type people that a lot of people might know. But meeting artists that I’ve really looked up to has been, has been better. And building relationships, personal relationships with them has been a really cool blessing. I also met my wife in animation. So, there’s that. That’s the celebrity sighting. But I think for me, when I look back, it’s the moment of realizing, like, just the passion that all of the people I’ve worked with put into this industry, and being able to work with people like that is such a gift. And so that’s my romantic answer, just the whole journey itself has become this amazing ride of building relationships and learning from people and just becoming a better artist and a better person because of it.
Paul:
Oh, wow, lovely answer. I like that you have more admiration for people within the industry and their work, more so than, you know, somebody with celebrity status. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. So last question. We are a gaming website. As you know, it’s Outsider Gaming. I don’t know if you game or not. Maybe you haven’t in years. Maybe you do every day. I don’t know, but what is your all-time favorite game or what game are you may be playing now?
Colin:
Well, I have a son who is right around that nice video game age of eight years old. So, he’s finding all the games. And what’s been great is it’s tying me back to my original entryway into gaming, which was Super Mario Brothers 3. My favorite game of all time. And I can still play it. I play it okay. But what’s awesome is I now have my son building games and Super Mario Maker and oh yes, playing those levels. Yeah, love that kind of stuff. I love puzzle games. I love even some of the apps that my youngest son uses that are really cool, like little interactive games. I obviously worked at Disney Interactive, so I worked in games for a while in that regard. And I’ve always had such a high respect for the gaming world. And although I don’t play, I mean, I’ve gone through phases, you know, where back in the day, Civilization and SimCity and all those kinds of games. But I didn’t adopt the whole console gaming world. I’m a Canadian, so if I do ever find myself on a console, I’m probably playing an NHL hockey game. And it’s so cool that they’re made down the street here in Vancouver at EA sports. So yeah, I’m sort of being re-energized into the gaming world because of my sons and they’re getting really deep into it. And then what’s cool is I get to give opinions now about it like, oh, that that new Disney illusion Island game. That’s cool. That’s like a puzzle game and that’s nice.
Colin:
Yeah. And then you get to see Fortnite and you’re like, okay, I have no idea what’s going on. We actually had a tournament at our school for our students a couple of weeks ago. It was a Super Mario or Super Smash Brothers tournament, and we had like 30 people in it. It was in the theater. It was a wild time, and it took me at least 4 or 5 rounds of the tournament to really understand what I was looking at, and I felt very old, and I didn’t want to come off like that well, in my day, but I’m just trying to embrace it. I’ve always been such a cartoon fan in my free time. My sort of envelope into that was watching old cartoons and working in that realm. So, the gaming side of it was always like on the periphery for me. But now as a father of two young boys, I’m going to have to jump into it.
Paul:
Well, a recommendation from me that could kind of cover all your bases, especially with Disney, would be Dreamlight Valley. It’s pretty good. Like even for a grown up. I’m playing it with the kids. And then they’re going to bed and I’m still playing. That’s right.
Colin:
Keep going.
Paul:
Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of like farm sim crafting. But you’re meeting all the characters, it’s cool.
Colin:
Right.
Paul:
Yeah, obviously, it’s great for the kids and good for Disney too. This has been brilliant. You have been amazing. Again. I really want to plug the VFS website I was blown away. You could spend 10 seconds on the website and you’re hooked because there are so many cool things going on, so many brilliant courses. And just as I said, the bragging rights on some of the projects that guys went to work on is just amazing. So well done and thank you for today. You’ve been brilliant.
Colin:
Thank you, Paul. And just a reminder to any viewers out there who do love games, you can actually download some of our student games that are made at the program. If you go to VFS website, vfs.edu on the Game Design program page, there’s something called arcade and you can and download some of the award-winning games that our students have made. There’s a couple over the last few years that have won the unity game of the year, and they’re just highly playable, highly addictive in a good way. And, so, yeah, I encourage you to connect with us in that way. It’s not just looking at stuff. You can interact with us as well through all kinds of different means and why not play our own games? Visit our VFS arcade.
Paul:
It’s amazing. We’ll make sure we stick the link at the end of the video description as well. Brilliant. Thanks a million Colin. Great to see you. Thanks.
Colin:
Thanks so much Paul. Appreciate it. And all the best. Will look to connect with you again in the future.
Paul:
Cheers.