Evidence of meeting #71 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nfb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Government Film Commissioner designate of the National Film Board, As an Individual
I'd just say that Harvest Queens came out of our emerging filmmaker program.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Did it? Well, it was an excellent film.
I'm interested in, again, the issue of reaching young people, the move to short films, because young people watch short films, because they watch everything on YouTube. My daughters e-mail little clips to each other about all kinds of stuff. The bandwidth prefers short, and so they are accustomed to short.
I want to talk about that and ask you about your future direction on online content, because one of the big problems we've seen in terms of getting our immense Canadian catalogue online is how to monetize it. National Film Board has been pointed to as a model again and again, partly because I think, with the copyright issues, you have easier access to your own catalogue than some of our other institutions that are a little more challenged. But are there viable models out there to monetize the contents so that our filmmakers can actually see some return on being present all the time, anywhere, when anyone wants to see it ,on a cellphone, a shoe phone, or on YouTube?
Government Film Commissioner designate of the National Film Board, As an Individual
I'll come to that. I just want to say something about northern Ontario and one of the things we're looking at.
In various ways, it has been very important for me to reach out to communities. In fact, the week after my nomination was made, for example, other colleagues would have been on the golden sands at Cannes, while I was up at the tar sands in Fort McMurray, because I felt that it was important in terms of connecting to a community and seeing what was going on, and it's a place that has enormous importance for the country and the world. So it has always been important for me to reach out.
We're also looking in terms of our new technologies and saying, how do we create, say, virtual edit rooms--we talked about this in terms of northern Ontario, with my Ontario studio--so that we can have filmmakers working at a distance, because of the technology allowing things, so that we can reach out and be deeply connected to the talent everywhere.
I just want to say another thing about this, which I don't think gets expressed enough. When we say we reach out to the talent across the world or to cultural diversity or to other groups, it's not because we're checking off the boxes that it's right to do so, although it is right to do so. We strongly believe that what we're doing is enriching who we are, that we need this rejuvenation from these other voices, and that what we're doing is enriching Canada as a result of that, by bringing a whole set of other ways of looking at the world that we might not otherwise see, a way of thinking and feeling, and the level of creative energy that can be released by tapping into a community, whether it's a northern community or whether it's an Inuit or aboriginal community, or working with the black community in Montreal or in Vancouver, or elsewhere. It's tremendous, and I think no one else can do that but the film board.
I'm sorry, I'm going to go back to the question of short films monetizing.
It's still a big question in terms of that and how you monetize that. My own thinking at this point is, in creating that kind of way, how do we give back to Canadians what they've invested so they have some kind of access, in any case, to the films they've invested in through the film board?
Maybe it's through some kind of streaming, and then if they want to own, they can buy it. What we've been hearing in terms of models out there is that this has been working very successfully. In fact, revenues increase for people in terms of being able to have things available on a range of platforms.
There's nothing that has yet seen a viable business model that becomes part of a whole production financing mechanism that you can kind of look at and then it will flow back in. These are things that different kinds of people, from the major players in the world, the big studios, to smaller players, are looking at. I said earlier that I want to look at how we can be entrepreneurial and look at exploiting our materials, partly looking at that and finding different ways of doing that. Frankly, looking at that whole world, the online world and what gets monetized, do you know what the biggest business is, the biggest money earner in terms of audio-visual media? It's ring tones and screen savers. It's a billion-dollar business--very interesting.
Merci.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Andy Scott
Merci beaucoup.
Let me just add my own personal enthusiasm for the National Film Board. I'm certain that Echoes in the Rink: The Willie O'Ree Story has played in every school classroom in Fredericton, showing up in no ratings anywhere.
I was sitting here thinking about it, and I think I know of five people who are in film specifically as a result of that exercise. For those who don't know, this is another hockey story; Mr. O'Ree was the first black man to play in the NHL. He was out of Fredericton.
Kudos to you and to all who have come before you. Hopefully the committee can support you in your passion. It is obvious and encouraging. Congratulations on your appointment.
As we have heard everyone congratulate you, it may not be necessary for us to express our formal confidence, but it is a part of the process. I would accept a mover—and I see Mr. Angus—for the motion, which is that the committee has examined the qualifications and competence of Tom Perlmutter for the position of government film commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada, that it finds him competent to perform the duties of the position he has been appointed to, and that the chair report that to the House.
I see nodding approval, so I think we can fairly say that this is the unanimous position of our committee.
(Motion agreed to)
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Andy Scott
Congratulations to anyone who can bring unanimity to this fine group. Thank you.