GOALS AND PHILOSOPHY

The goal of this art/film school is to refine and define the creative abilities of aspiring film/video-makers and artists. We believe, by creating an interdisciplinary and holistic approach to artistic expression and film/video making, we will help develop individuals who can achieve creative and socially responsible work in art and film/video making.

The purpose of the interdisciplinary approach to art and film is to give participants and students more profound and deliberate tools to work with as they engage themselves in works of art. We also hope to instill a deeper sense of what the artist's responsibility is in the development of community, culture and the wider society.

We want students to be very aware of the local traditions in art and film and as well as the great traditions from the wider world. We believe that marrying the local with the wider world is essential in developing students who can appreciate the culture they are coming from, as well as the great cultures that surround us.

This school will look at how the different combinations of disciplines in the arts can creatively influence a potential filmmaker/video maker, painter or photographer. For instance: how did different movements in the visual arts such as expressionism and surrealism ultimately affect the aesthetic qualities of film culture? By consciously being interdisciplinary and holistic, we hope to stimulate and to encourage sensibilities with regard to subjects that go to the very heart of our society: whether that be poverty, spirituality, or the environment. We want to give each student a sense that they can play a critical role in culture building and revitalizing different aspects of our society.

The essential idea is to develop a school where there is a lot of flexibility and flow between the different disciplines, but the larger goal is to have a strong vision and direction of where the school is going.

This school will be in many ways, an artistic and creative laboratory, where experimentation and the synthesis of ideas will be encouraged as a means to elevate the potential of each student.

We also want to give students from all backgrounds the opportunity to have hands on experience in developing, producing and distributing their films and videos. First of all, we want to do this by developing serious in-house projects and secondly by aiding students in any way we can with their individual projects. We have designed and developed two series of workshops and courses over the past year to help kick off these objectives.

The Inglewood Film and Art School intends to build a strong rapport with the wider community in terms of how we can work together to create a vibrant, alternative arts/film school in Inglewood and in Calgary.

Our focus and primary goal is to create an exciting and dynamic foundation for art, film/video and cinema that is outside the mainstream and outside the norms of some of our educational institutions. This, hopefully, will allow us to build something together that is unique and which is ours.

Brent Spiess