Stagecraft Program

Wayne Phillips
Entertainment Technician
Graduate, Stagecraft Program, Class of 2003

About a week after Wayne Phillips finished the Stagecraft Program at Douglas College - on April 23, 2003 to be exact - he started working as a Scenic Carpenter. He worked straight through until December.

"Financially, it's been my best year in a long time," says Phillips. "You get overtime after eight hours, and often work 10 to 16 hour days. It's a lot of fun."

Phillips helped build the set for Paycheck, a sci-fi thriller starring Ben Affleck, and spent five months on Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital, a new 15-part miniseries. "They call it ‘E.R. on acid,'" says Phillips.

Phillips worked hard to construct a creepy hospital basement in a New Westminster warehouse for Kingdom Hospital. "We built it beautifully and then we wrecked it. It took quite a while to wreck it just right. We knocked out tiles, broke glass and ripped doors off their hinges."

Then the set decoration department came and sprayed cobwebs everywhere, using a glue gun connected to an air hose. When they spray it the glue dries immediately and looks like cobwebs.

"They give you a blueprint of a set - you have to figure out how to build it," says Phillips, who lives in Chilliwack. "Douglas College's Stagecraft Program teaches you everything - lighting, design, painting, props, construction and sound - and how they interact with each other. As a Scenic Carpenter, it's important to understand the needs of all of the departments. I know how to build my set so there's room for the lights. And how to make it user-friendly for the painters."

Phillips was an experienced carpenter looking for a new career when he took a career aptitude-test that said he belonged in the entertainment industry. Having already tried acting and modeling, he decided to go behind the scenes, which was an ideal fit with his background in carpentry.

He looked at all of the institutions with stagecraft programs, and chose Douglas College. "They were more hands-on and more dedicated to stagecraft. I wanted the backstage training in all areas of the field."

Phillips graduated from Douglas College's Stagecraft Program with the highest marks in a two-year diploma program, earning the Governor General's Bronze Medal for academic excellence.

"The film industry in Vancouver is huge right now," he says. "The Stagecraft Program was my ticket into the entertainment industry."

To learn more about the Douglas College Stagecraft Program attend a freeinformation session on Tuesday, April 13 at 5 pm in Room 1614 of the New Westminster Campus (700 Royal Avenue, one block from the New Westminster SkyTrain station). For more information please call the Stagecraft Program Coordinator Drew Young at 604-527-5280.