 | National Film Board digitizing video content |
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Digitizing Canadian content Canadian content creators need to get their work online. The National Film Board of Canada (NFB - www.nfb.ca). Through decades of fostering Canadian talent and distributing the results, the NFB has been instrumental in establishing Canada as a global centre of excellence for animation and documentary production. Now, the NFB is embracing the digital world and providing some great lessons for other Canadian content creators to follow. Deborah Drisdell, director general of accessibility and digital enterprises at the NFB, said the board’s online presence is relatively new. Planning began three years ago and its first major foray—an online screening room at www.nfb.ca featuring 600 films from its collection—launched in January 2009. Since then, the NFB has expanded the screening room to include more than 1,800 films, and has added other distribution channels including an iPhone app, a professional online screening room for TV buyers, and partnerships with YouTube, Daily Mobile and others. The NFB is also exploring the creation side of the equation. This includes interactive productions such as Waterlife, an examination of the Great Lakes and an online documentary on the Canadian economic crisis called GDP. That’s a lot of new content and channels in a relatively short time. But Drisdell said it didn’t all happen at once and, based on the NFB’s experience, her advice to content creators and distributors is to start with a manageable piece and build up. “I think if we look at the big picture we can get paralyzed,” Drisdell said. “It’s not like a television program that’s going to cost $2 million. Creators can take small steps and do a digital creation right now, and test things with their audience.” That certainly worked for the NFB, which started with a modest goal of digitizing a slice of the board’s collection. “For us, it was really about creating a conversation again,” Drisdell said. “Now, we’re moving forward and having more engaged conversations with our audience, which digital allows.” Hopefully FNSSP team members will share their thoughts on any valuable resources they identify from this NFB online resource and let everyone know how they are using these resources in their classes ... Brian |