The Educational Day of the VP Gathering will take place on April 14, 2026, at Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands; this edition, aligned with the theme “Leaders of the Craft”, is designed for educators and academic professionals in media, arts, games, entertainment, and programming who are shaping the next generation of Virtual Production talent.
The day will feature a live demonstration on our VP stage, focusing on the practical methods, workflows, and craft leadership skills that should be embedded in contemporary VP education.
Attendees will participate in panel discussions examining the realities of building and running VP facilities within higher education, exploring best practices, curriculum design, operational challenges, and the pedagogical approaches needed to develop future leaders of the craft.
Throughout the day, a VP Marketplace will be active providing educators with the opportunity to meet key vendors, discover new tools and solutions, and explore how industry technology can be effectively integrated into academic programs.
Students of entertainment technology enter the industry with advanced skills, but limited exposure to production culture. Meanwhile seasoned professional know the work environment but need to find time to up-skill. This session looks at mentorship as the missing link between learning, practice and knowledge sharing. We’ll explore how experienced practitioners serve as process guides, and new talent brings fresh perspectives on workflow. This continuous exchange advances production fluency and builds sustainable careers as VP technology continues to advance.
Presentation abstract coming soon.
This roundtable brings together recent graduates from various virtual production programs across different schools, universities and countries. They will share how they approached their transition into the industry, the choices that shaped their early careers and the challenges they faced when finding work. The discussion will also highlight what aspects of their training genuinely supported their professional entry and what could be improved. The goal is both to help teaching teams reflect on how to strengthen their curricula and to offer current students a clearer sense of what the professional world can look like. It also gives recent graduates an opportunity to compare experiences and provides studios and employers with insights into how to better support and recruit new talent.
Presentation abstract coming soon.
More than a single project, this is a presentation of a body of work that composes a larger and long-term strategy of implementing VP curricula over years, resulting in the development of a Ministry-approved Virtual Production Graduate Certificate program at Humber Polytechnic in Toronto. It addresses “real-time pipelines, Technical R&D and innovative production workflows.” In an age where rapid changes are impacting the film/media industry, institutions grapple with the need to respond in order to best prepare students. In the case of Virtual Production, early adopters lead the way in public post-secondary institutions, by integrating changes not in a ‘straight forward’ manner, but through iterative and dynamic steps.
