Our Story
The core team at the Centre for Arts and Technology has been delivering leading edge media and entertainment technology education for over 30 years. From the days predating personal computers when music was recorded on magnetic tape through to the marvels of computer graphics, visual effects, surround sound, the Internet and digital filmmaking, we have achieved a reputation for excellence.
This same team founded and developed The Institute of Communication Arts in 1980 which became one of Canada’s top entertainment technology schools later renamed CDIS (Center for Digital Imaging and Sound). Many well known engineers and producers graced the halls of our schools including Bob Rock (Metallica, Mötley Crüe Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Cher, The Cult, David Lee Roth, Skid Row), Brian Dobbs, (AC/DC, Bon Jovi, David Lee Roth, Cult , Motley Crue ) and Joey Moi, (Nickelback, Santana).
And that was just a beginning.
We did not just witness the birth of the Internet, we were in the delivery room helping give birth to it and front row centre for its graduation into the mainstream. And we know where it is going next (shh, don’t tell anyone).
In the nineties we were one of the first schools in Canada to deliver premier computer animation and digital media courses. We then witnessed many more talented grads achieve top industry jobs and major media credits in film, television, video games and throughout the major employers of the entertainment industry. These people, our graduates, earned their success through hard work, talent and the timely education and skills that we had the opportunity to deliver to them. We were partners. Their success was our success and ours was theirs.
In 2002 our team then formed a new school, the Centre for Arts and Technology. We established campuses in Fredericton, Kelowna and Halifax. We pursued the use of emerging technologies to deliver world class education using teleconferencing over the Internet. This enabled credible world class training by leveraging technology to share the limited yet essential instructional resources available for emerging technologies. And it ties together various regions, connections, opportunities and students of this craft. It allows us to bring industry specialists from key production centers to our schools thousands of miles away.
Today this team continues to bring the assurances and quality that our experience brings to the table. Our team members sit on major industry boards including the Private Career Training Institute Association and The Degree Quality Assessment Board in British Columbia as well as the Canadian National Association of Career Colleges.
For us it is personal, just like it is for you.
Our Approach
We are about people working together to achieve success, as measured by respect, reputation, and results. We honor decency, integrity, loyalty, and truth. We honor it through actions not just words.
Quicker does not mean better. For the most part we have found that people need time to develop skills and then further time to build a resume or a "reel" as they call it in this business. Some very talented people can prosper in a short intense program, but many do better at a pace that allows development of all the skills in harmony, over a slightly extended period of time.
Teaching someone to be good with a piece of software or equipment is called training. Developing the whole person by allowing them to evolve creative skills and intuition with the technology is called education. And education extends beyond learning a specific craft and into learning about processes, management, marketing and how to play nice with others. Our programs are holistic and comprehensive and thus, so become our grads.
We develop work/learn environments that demand and expect mutual respect. We earn the respect of our students by delivering what we promise; we earn the respect of our industry by producing graduates who in turn, earn the respect of industry; we respect our planet, our environment, our community and contribute by being part of the solution.
