It's been fascinating listening to you this morning. I have long felt that the National Film Board is one of our great cultural treasures, and you speak very passionately about it. In fact, some of the successes you list were even surprising, I found.
At the outset, I do have to say that I think there has been a general parliamentary indifference to our cultural institutions over the last 15 years. Regardless of how careful you have to be because this is your first day before Parliament, I think it needs to be on the record that there is insufficient funding to realize the possibilities you have talked about, especially in the age of transforming platforms and where we need to go. It's not just at the film board; it's in all our cultural sectors, but it's at the film board in particular, because of its successes.
I see your background, and I don't think I need to question you on any of that. It seems to me that when we talk about the realm of possibility, the real success of the film board is the ability to take risks and to try emerging artists. If we don't have programs that allow emerging artists to experiment and bring their own odd point of view that no one else in an older generation might ever have seen, or that someone else might never have seen, we will never make great films. In order to do that, we need adequate funding, because it's risky to work with emerging artists.
I would like to base my questions this morning on what happens when you are looking at proposals from emerging artists. Is a move to digital easier to cost out and justify than the old analog film costs? What kind of support would you give? Is it technical support or script support, or do you just let them go out? How does the National Film Board work with an emerging artist on an emerging project?