AA, MA
Instructor, Motion Picture Arts Program
School of Motion Picture Arts - Motion Picture Arts Program
School of Communication
School of Motion Picture Arts
604.986.1911 ext. 7136
Bosa Building, room BC220
dbeaver@capilanou.ca
Education
MA, Communication & Culture, Royal Roads University, 2014.
AA, Cinema, Television, Stage and Radio Arts, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, 1988.
Bio
Dwayne Beaver (MA, Royal Roads University, 2014) is a screenwriter and director working across multiple disciplines including animation, comedy, documentary, drama, interactive and interstitial modalities.
After completing the first arm of his education, Beaver worked in local television news and commercial production as a writer, shooter and editor until he made his first dramatic short film in 1992 starting his directing career with music video, live-action and animated shorts.
In 1999, he made his network directing debute with War Planet/Shadow Raiders on YTV, produced by Mainframe Entertainment, then soon after with his live-action feature film The Rhino Brothers.
Expanding his palette, Beaver branched out again, including situation comedies with such titles as Robson Arms, Alice I Think and Road Hockey Rumble and then again into factual works for The Food Network, Oprah Winfrey Network and CITY TV culminating in a Best Direction Gemini (now the Canadian Screen Awards) for Conviction Kitchen and multiple Leo awards and nominations for Glutton for Punishment, A Million Stars, The Rhino Brothers and Road Hockey Rumble.
Beaver's academic research is situated in nodal storytelling structures, how narratives work in a network and visual communication. He's keenly interested in new technologies, having been the first Canadian filmmaker to produce and release a feature length dramatic film using 24P HD in 2001 (The Rhino Brothers) in collaboration with Sony Canada and Rainmaker Digital.
Beaver served as the Rogers Communication Teaching Fellow in the Theatre and Film department at the University of British Columbia from 2011-14, and as the Phil Lind Multicultural Teaching Fellow in the First Nations Studies Program in his final year.
In 2019, he was awarded the Outstanding Associate Faculty Award from the School of Communication and Culture at Royal Roads University. He has served on multiple boards for organizations such as the Playwrights Theatre Center (PTC) in Vancouver, ImagiNative and the Vancouver International Film Festival's inaugural New Filmmakers Day.
Coming from a communications and media studies background into film, I've always been interested in structural examinations of media texts.
Audiovisual media functions in savvy combinations of image, text and sound, which in turn, connects to story paradigms forged from the tensions between antiquity, our immediate culture, individual and collective voices.
I'm interested in the expansion and contraction of social ideas through screen stories, not only in my own work, but with new artists finding theirs. Stories and screen media on large, for me at least, are not just tools for self-expression, but for encoding the era, charting personal growth and unpacking cultural norms.
I teach screenwriting and directing, but if someone taking my class never writes or directs a screenplay, they will still see the power in their combination of words, visuals and underlying ideas to evoke in their own communication. Screenwriting and directing is the interface; communication, best practices and critical thinking is the code.
Outstanding Associate Faculty Award, School of Communication & Culture, Royal Roads University, 2019.
Phil Lind Multicultural Fellowship, University of British Columbia, 2014.
Rogers Communication Fellowship University of British Columbia, 2011.
Best Direction in a Factual Series, Gemini Awards, 2010.
Best Direction in a Comedy, Musical or Variety Series, Road Hockey Rumble, Leo Award, 2009.
Digital Lab Prize, ComaSTATE (an interactive narrative), CBC, 2008.
Platinum, Best Low Budget Feature, The Rhino Brothers, Houston WorldFest, 2002.