#creative surrey

Teaching film in an ever-changing world.

Story by Alex Browne, Peace Arch News

Read it all at http://www.peacearchnews.com/entertainment/219646281.html

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It’s a summer film program that may end up being much more than a summer film program.

Elija Sorensen says the plan for the South Surrey and White Rock’s new film school for teens (www.youthfilmschool.com) – which he’s starting up next week with co-founder and fellow filmmaker Kim Groth – is to develop the initial classes into a year-round after-school program.

Overall, the aim is to teach budding film makers just a bit younger than themselves (both are in their early 20s) how to take full advantage of the new democratization of the process, thanks to the rapid development of inexpensive high-quality digital equipment and the current potential of reaching an audience through such social media as Facebook and YouTube.

Two friends launch Creative Surrey

Story by Jacob Zinn, Photo by Kevin Hill. Reposted for archival purposes.

Read the original at http://www.thenownewspaper.com/news/two-friends-launch-creative-surrey-1.577994

Also in The Vancouver Sun: http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/friends+launch+Creative+Surrey/8751151/story.html

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Two SFU students want to develop a stronger relationship between the arts community and local businesses by creating opportunities for artists and executives to connect on a professional level.

Kashif Pasta, 21, and Shyam Valera, 22, are starting Creative Surrey, a project which they described as a business improvement association crossed with an artist collective. Through a series of meetups, the duo hopes to establish a network for creative minds and business people to share their ideas, work together and generate an economically viable arts industry in the city.

"We have other friends in Surrey who are artists and there's a ton of potential in Surrey," said Pasta. "There's a lot of talent, there's a large audience, there's this whole fusion culture that's really unique to Surrey... and there's no united voice for these artists."

Creative Surrey encourages crosspromotions, urging executives to rely on more local artists when they need imaginative advertising campaigns.

While Pasta and Valera aren't studying in necessarily artistic fields - they're currently enrolled in SFU's communications and biology programs, respectively - their longtime interest in making movies sparked the idea for Creative Surrey.

The two first started recording sketches about six years ago as freshmen at Tamanawis Secondary in the school's video program, and later created a film festival called Montage, encouraging short student films.

"We both shared a passion for film and filmmaking, and when the school got these really simple little cameras, we were like, 'We can make a little thing with this,'" said Pasta.

After high school, the two founded a group in 2011 called Dunya Media to feature short comedies and social commentaries. The group's YouTube channel hosts numerous gutbusting skits - both improvised and scripted - that find humour in conversations they've had about, for instance, driving with an "N" licence or explaining that South Surrey is still part of Surrey.

"Personally, a lot of our sketches just happen in real life," said Valera. "There's just a little bit of an exaggeration.

"We started off with sketches at first, and then now we're moving on to short films, longer-form content."

In a step away from two-minute shorts, the duo is currently finishing up a 12-minute film called Zoya, set to be released later this month.

The story revolves around a teenage girl who has had it with the social hierarchy of

high school.

"She starts wearing the hijab, the head scarf, and that ends up getting her more attention than ever before," said Pasta, noting that the main character ends up running for student council president as a result of her transformation.

In addition to Zoya, Pasta and Valera are in pre-production for a five-part web series called Welcome to Surrey, slated to be released sometime in 2014. With the tagline "You're born in one culture but raised in another," the comedy focuses on five friends in their early 20s who live in Surrey.

"It's a great place to grow up and it's a great place to raise your kids, but in between, it's kind of this empty space," said Pasta. "It's kind of about that period."

As artists in their own right, they've each participated in recent arts-minded events, including the City of Surrey's Creative Economic Summit, to spread the word about Creative Surrey.

While they've seen enthusiasm from the city and local businesses regarding better engagement of the arts, they feel that it's still difficult for photographers, videographers, painters and the like to find work.

"There's a lot of people in the arts field that are just graduating, but they have nothing to do here," said Valera.

Pasta and Valera are trying to set up partnerships with the Surrey Board of Trade and the city before their meetups start in the fall. No specific dates have been scheduled, but artists and executives can keep in the loop by signing up for the initiative's newsletter on creativesurrey.ca.

"We need not just a vibrant arts community but an economically sustainable arts community," said Pasta.

"People need to be able to pay their rent and raise families eventually."

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© Copyright 2013

The City of Surrey's Official Community Plan went public yesterday, and it contains some hopeful support for local arts and culture.

Above are the relevant elements of the "Society and Culture" policies (read more here), and below are some of the most interesting parts:

F7.2 Support artistic expression as being critical to developing a unique identity for Surrey by heightening character, countering anonymity, distinguishing one place from another and creating a sense of meaning and belonging for people.

F 7.4 Develop a range of venues to support cultural expression, education and the enhancement of community life through art galleries, libraries, museums and facilities for performing arts (see Figure 43).