Through the leadership of highly regarded professionals in the world of set design for film and theatre, the PAL Canada  "Setting The Stage" masterclass, will provide participants with information about:

- Set designers and prop masters, artistic experts who work in the entertainment industry and express visual stories through innovative and creative means.

- The weapons master, sometimes credited as the armorer, weapons specialist, weapons handler, weapons wrangler, or weapons coordinator, is a specialist that works with the property master, director, actors, stunt coordinator and script supervisor. The weapons master is specifically responsible for maintaining control of any prop weapons, including firearms, knives, swords, bows, and staff weapons.

- How to get into the business of set design and being a props master.

- All safety matters surrounding weapons on set. 

Dave Brown

Dave Brown is a firearms safety specialist and professional instructor. He works primarily with government agencies, law enforcement officers and military units on weapons handling, safety and marksmanship.

Learning in the fast-paced world of competitive pistol shooting, Dave trained with some of the fastest and most accurate shooters on earth. After being approached to provide the same type of advanced training to firearms professionals, he began to realize that these skills could save lives and would be especially useful in the field of police weapons training, where instruction at the time was dominated by stationary shooting exercises and outdated techniques. Vowing to approach police training as a science, he studied the performance of the human body under stress and integrated that into modern dynamic shooting techniques. He began writing about his common sense approach to practical firearms training in 1995, eventually becoming one of few civilians considered an expert in police weapons training.

His knowledge of firearms and his high standards of safety led Dave to become one of the primary subject-matter experts in the design of the Canadian Firearms Safety Course, literally helping to write the book on firearms safety in Canada. Dave has now written over 80 magazine articles on firearms training for a variety of police publications, been recognized in court as an expert witness and lectured on the science behind police firearms training for the Canadian Association of Journalists and the University of Manitoba Law School.

Widely sought after by the film industry as a firearms specialist, Dave has become an integral part of many movie and stage productions. Considered one of the top firearms safety specialists in the business, Dave was the keynote speaker at the 2002 Halifax conference on Safety in the Film Industry, opening speaker at the 2012 Action on Film International Film Festival in California, keynote speaker at the University of Winnipeg Student Film Festival, guest lecturer at both the University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba film school and seminar presenter at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology.

in 2018, Dave was presented with an Honorary Award for his lifetime of work behind the scenes in the Winnipeg theatre community.

He has been invited to speak on the topic of firearms safety in film to groups all across Canada and the U.S. and media outlets around the world.