The VIFF 25th Annual Film & TV Forum is the place to be for Vancouver filmmakers needing to hone their business and creative skills, expand their international contacts, and increase their digital media savvy to help them parachute their projects right onto their target markets screens. Forum dates are Sept. 28 – Oct. 1, plus New Filmmakers’ Day, Oct. 2 at the Vancouver International Film Centre.

Participants have a real treat in store with GOING FROM ZERO TO HERO: How to Create Compelling Digital Extensions for Feature & Television Projects.Digital savvy experts- Ian Christy, Lead Level Designer, at Next Level Games, Phillip Djwa, Founder/President, Agentic, Rob McLaughlin, Director, Digital Content and Strategy, NFB, Jennifer Ouano, Founder/Head of Elastic Entertainment, and Matt Toner, President of Zeros2Heros, will cure your digital extension blues with a clear, comprehensive lesson in what it is, how to produce it, what it can do for your production, how to avoid those bank-breaking mistakes and how to monitor what you’ve created.

Directors On Actors: Maximizing Performance features Terry Miles (A Night for Dying Tigers) and Karyn Kusama, (Jennifer’s Body) as they share their insights on creating the right environment for the creative and collaborative relationship with actors – from the rehearsal process, to speaking the actors’ language. On New Filmmaker’s Day, David Slade(The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Hard Candy) focuses on the anatomy of a scene.

On Finding Co-production Partners, producers Raymond Massey of Massey Productions and Barbara Shrier of Paloma Films share their experience on international co-production, while Wall Street expert Peter Espig, of Anji Bridge Fund, will discuss raising capital, tax considerations and optimum financial structuring within the burgeoning Asia economies.

TV Day hosts two exceptional executive producers on Showrunning: Team Leaders.James Marshall, Executive Producer of the cable-darling Smallville and Dan Sterling, Executive Producer of Comedy Central’s hit,The Sarah Silverman Program will enlighten us on the multi-faceted talents needed to execute a successful TV series.

Webisodes are continuing to make the jump from cyberspace to television and feature film. Webisodes with Legs provides case studies of this phenomena with Ryan Copple and Kaleena Kiff, creators of Riese and Michael Davies, creator ofAfterjudgment talking about the highs and lows of creating, financing and distributing for mainstream partners. A key panel of the New Filmmaker’s Day, their insights are valuable and integral to anyone considering this form of market entry.

Emerging filmmakers may find themselves intimidated by public funding agencies. Join Telefilm Canadaexecutives John Dippong, Interim Director-Operations, Bill Hurst, Senior Content Analyst, and Viviane McConkey, Content Analyst on The Life of a Telefilm Project as they walk us through a project’s evolution from development to release.

The 25th annual Film & TV Forum takes place in the Rogers Industry Centre at the Vancouver International Film Centre, 1181 Seymour St., September 28 – October 1, plus New Filmmakers’ Day, October 2. The Vancouver International Film Festival acknowledges the generous support of Telefilm Canada and our major corporate partners Rogers Communications and Visa Canada.

For more information, please phone: (604) 685-3547, email: forum@viff.org, web:viff.org/forum