Student Félix-Étienne Rocque presented his own video production to an audience of about 200 people on Saturday, November 18, at the Excentris complex.
His 20-minute comedy, Vaccu’M, was shown in the largest of Excentris’s three cinemas, the Cassevettes, which has 5.1 Surround Sound.

Vaccu’M was post-produced at the IITS Media Labs as part of an independent study Rocque is doing in the Faculty of Fine Arts. It highlights the potential of the mini-dv (digital video) format in a carefully planned production.

Using only a Canon XL1, Adobe Premiere and Adobe After-Effects (as well as a bit of SoftImage animation), he surmounted the challenge of developing a professional look for the green screen effects (for superimposing images), CGI (computer-generated imagery) and colour treatment.

Rocque, who has been in the animation program for two years, was exhilarated by the potential of the Media Labs.

“It is really great that a facility like this exists here,” he said. “Without it, it would have been very difficult for me to complete my work. I would have had to go to commercial facilities at a much greater cost.

“It’s amazing that the university provides this kind of technological support and so few students know about it. The support of the staff there was great. They’re very knowledgeable, and their ability to troubleshoot any technical difficulty I was having was really appreciated.”

Rocque extended his thanks to Michael Boyce, Aaron Pollard and the rest of IITS in the closing credits of his video. He will return to the lab for his next project, and plans to take advantage of the newly installed sound studios for improved sound/music design and mixes.