Courses & Programs

GIFTS programs run in one-week, one-month and weekend-long sessions. Some are available to youth, some to adults and some to both. Within each session, there are various productions streams offered. For example, you might choose the week-long Media Intensive Program for Youth with Visual Effects and Animation as your production stream.

Programs

Media Intensive Program (MIP): Make a movie in 6 days! Our most popular program. Available to all age groups and offers all production streams. No experience necessary. more info

Independent Media Producers Program (IMPP): Month-long program for adults. Choose Drama or Documentary as your production stream. Prerequisite: MIP or equivalent. more info

Professional Development for Teachers Program (PDTP): Weekend-long program for media educators. A highly intensive course production streamed on providing teachers with the training to teach video production. Choose Drama, Documentary or Visual Effects and Animation as your production stream. No experience necessary. more info

Special Programs (SP): Aboriginal, Adult Activist, Environmental, School Bookings, Custom-Designed Programs and more. Usually based on our week-long MIP, though they can vary in their duration, age group and production streams. more info

Age Groups

Youth (Y): 14-19 years. Most of our MIP courses are youth courses. more info

Adult:(A): 19+ years. Our IMPP, PDTP, some of SP and some of MIP courses are offered to adults. more info

Early Teen (E): 12-14 years. We offer a one-week MIP course, usually in July, for younger teens who can't wait to get busy making films! Our SP courses are sometimes offered to Early Teens as well, depending on the particular program. more info

Youth / Adult: Usually MIP programs which are offered to both youth and adults, though you will probably be working in a crew with your own age group. for more info, see youth and adult pages

Production Stream refers to the type of movie you will be making, such as drama, documentary or one of a variety of animation courses. Note that these streams are geared toward our week-long courses (MIP and most SP). Details on streams for IMPP & PDTP courses available where noted.
Note: you may have noticed that we don't use the term "production stream" in our print calendar. Instead, we use "focus". These 2 terms mean exactly the same thing, but we're switching over to "focus" in an attempt to clarify the distinctions between programs and streams/focuses. In the meantime, while the changeover is in progress on the website, it will perhaps be less clear, unless you remember that focus=production stream.
Drama - MIP | Drama - IMPP | Drama - PDTP

Advanced Drama - MIP

Documentary - MIP | Documentary - IMPP | Documentrary - PDTP

Advanced Documentary - MIP

Super 8 Filmmaking - MIP | Super 8 Film as part of IMPP

Classical Animation - MIP

Claymation - MIP

Computer / 3D Animation - MIP

Advanced Computer Animation - MIP

Scratch Animation / Cameraless Film - MIP

Extreme Week - MIP

Digital Video Effects - MIP

Acting on Camera - MIP

Professional Development for Teachers Weeklong - MIP

Post-Production (Editing, Sound, AfterEffects)

Soundtrack Composition - MIP

Visual Effects and Animation - MIP | Visual Effects and Animation - PDTP

Webcasting - MIP