When I decided to go to film school, I looked at what was available in Vancouver. I chose PAVI because of the range of topics covered in the Film & Digital Arts course. I already knew I wanted to focus on editing and this course included two editing classes. But it also had other subjects I thought sounded interesting and was excited to try out. Another appealing part of this program was that it ran during the afternoon, which meant that I could keep the job I had and work in the mornings before school.

The Film & Digital Arts program runs four hours a day, five days a week for a full year. There are twelve classes throughout the year, broken down into three terms. I started in September, which seems like the best time to start because it involves the most pre-production preparation. By the second and third term, we were doing a lot more filming and having that base knowledge from the first term really helped out. Of course, depending on your schedule, you can also start in January or May.

"The school now has a whole new set of computers, programs and equipment."

The classes are small, there’s a lot of one-on-one attention. At the highest enrollment of my class, there were thirteen students. We all worked together on most projects and had a ton of fun.The teachers I had were knowledgeable and had worked as professionals in the film industry. I even got to work with a couple of them outside of the school on video projects.

During my time at the school, we worked on Mac computers. This slowed me down a bit in my projects as I had a PC at home and couldn’t take my work home with me if I had started it in class. So I ended up doing some projects completely at school and some completely at home. Also, I had a different editing program at home from the one I was learning on at school. We used Final Cut at PAVI. However, I found out how similar it is to Adobe Premiere and was able to take what I learned from Final Cut and transfer the skills over to Adobe at home. It worked for me that way because now I can say I know the two programs thoroughly. The school now has a whole new set of computers, programs and equipment. If you’re interested in the specifics, I would suggest contacting the school directly and asking about their current status on equipment.

Film is a tough industry to break in to. Not only do you need the skills, you need good contacts. I have landed many video projects through my contacts at the school. Even now, three years later, I am still getting job opportunities through PAVI. I am currently finding steady work as an independent editor.  

Overall, I would say the Film & Digital Arts program at PAVI was the right choice for me. I had a great time making movies with my class, made some important contacts and came out of the school with enough knowledge and confidence to get started in the film business.