November / 1999

60 Years of Seeing Canada Through the Eyes of
THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD
“NFB productions should reflect through their content and personnel the diversity of Canadian society.”

by Don Angus

Amazingly, the National Film Board of Canada, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, is still alive and well. Reports of its demise — off and on for the last 50 or more years — have been grossly exaggerated. Today, on the eve of a new millennium, “The Board” is still doing what it does best: making movies that help define us as a nation — whether we like it or not.

CARRYING ON the NFB tradition of award-winning animation, the National Film Board’s animated film When the Day Breaks, by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis, captured the Palme d’Or at the 1999 Cannes International Film Festival, among other honours. Photo: NFB

It all started as war clouds rumbled over Europe. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King wanted to improve the productions of the old Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau and to increase their distribution in England. The growing and increasingly independent Dominion, decided King, should be seen in all its film finery.

Canadian public servants working in London suggested that British documentary filmmaker John Grierson be invited to Canada to assess the film industry. Grierson submitted his report in June, 1938, recommending that a coordinating body be established for Canadian film production.

In May, 1939, Parliament created a National Film Commission (soon to be known as the National Film Board) to work alongside the Government Motion Picture Bureau. Its initial mandate was to make and distribute films designed to help Canadians in all parts of Canada understand each other’s lives and problems. It was also responsible for coordinating the film activities of government departments.

The picture soon got much bigger. Canada entered the Second World War in September, 1939, leading to a shift in film production towards patriotic propaganda. The following month, John Grierson became the first Government Film Commissioner, and he quickly signed an agreement with The March of Time to distribute the NFB’s films in the United States, while Famous Players of Canada agreed to screen NFB productions in its 800 theatres across the country.

The rest, of course, is history — a silver-framed history of prolific creativity, glamorous honours and global recognition. Since its first Academy Award in 1941, the NFB has won 10 Oscars (including an honorary Oscar on the occasion of its 50th anniversary in 1989), 63 Oscar nominations, and over 4,000 awards at major festivals around the world. At home, there have been carloads of Genies, Geminis and Gémeaux. This year, for example, 12 NFB productions and co-productions received a record 20 Gemini Award nominations.

Over the years, the National Film Board has compiled a collection of over 10,000 films, a gigantic catalogue of Canadiana that touches upon virtually every aspect of our national being — our history in war and peace, our politics, languages, arts, cultures, religions, industries, sports, hobbies, joys, sorrows, and our sense of humour. From Atlantic to Pacific, there is scarcely a Canadian who has not seen and been inspired or instructed by an NFB production. And for many new Canadians, their first glimpse of Canada — a promise of beauty and freedom to come — has been an NFB vision on a screen somewhere in an uncertain world.

Sandra Macdonald, Government Film Commissioner and NFB Chairperson, says federal budget cuts in recent years have challenged the National Film Board “to do more with less.” She notes that not only has the quantity and quality of titles been maintained, but also that more Canadians, and non-Canadians, are seeing NFB productions than ever before, “at the lowest net cost in our history.” The NFB’s collection of Canada’s audio-visual history, she adds, is being transferred to laser disc and “will be available to Canadians and international audiences for years to come.”

SANJA sits on her grandmother’s lap in a scene from the 1996 NFB documentary Rape: A Crime of War, which earned a Gemini nomination for CSC Associate Michael Grippo. Photo: NFB

This year, the National Film Board has been celebrating its diamond jubilee with an anniversary film clip simply called 60, directed by Charles Binamé and produced by Peter Starr and Éric Michel of the NFB English and French programs. Featuring an original score by Jean-Marc Pisapia, 60 offers a two-minute, forty-second bouquet of images gathered from six decades of NFB film production.

The clip premiered May 1 on Air Canada flights and has played in Famous Players theatres, at numerous festivals in Canada and abroad, and on television. The in-flight screenings are part of a joint project with Air Canada that presents a unique selection of NFB films to the travelling public. Through this partnership, Air Canada offers business-class travellers a special channel that displays only NFB productions. Economy-class travellers can view a set of short films drawn from the vast collection of works produced by the NFB.

“It handles anything and everything.
The whole spectrum is there.”


What about next year, Year 61?

The NFB maintains that its mandate for the year 2000 will be as relevant as it was when it was first articulated in the Film Act of 1950, to produce films “in the national interest.” What is changing is how the NFB chooses to interpret this mandate. Over the next few years, the NFB states that it will focus on maintaining its production capacity and will reduce or eliminate those activities which are no longer cost-effective and which do not relate directly to production.

Its mission is to continue to “enrich Canadian society through the production and distribution of audio-visual works which provoke discussion and debate on important subjects; explore the creative potential of the audio-visual media; and achieve recognition by Canadians and others for excellence, relevance and innovation.

“The Board also wants to assure that its productions articulate its vision in the public interest, a vision which requires that a majority of Canadians should see and recognize at least one NFB production a year; every Canadian school-aged child should see at least one NFB production a year; NFB productions should break new ground in emerging audio-visual forms; every NFB production should be exceptional in terms of relevance, excellence, and innovation; and NFB productions should reflect through their content and personnel the diversity of Canadian society.”

For documentary cinematographer Michael Ellis csc of Toronto, it’s the diversity that makes the NFB distinct.

“I don’t think there’s any other body in the world that does the kind of diversity that the NFB does,” he says. “It handles anything and everything. They get into a lot of hot water over some things they do, but I think that’s part of what’s really interesting about them. The whole spectrum is there. If you take away the Film Board and the CBC, what have we got?

“I think the Film Board has trained a lot of people,” he adds. “There are a lot of people out there in business for themselves who did a lot of things for the Film Board and learned their craft there.”

Ellis’s credits include A Mind of Your Own, a documentary about four Ontario children with learning disabilities which he shot for the NFB in the summer of 1998. The film, produced by Tamara Lynch and directed by Gail Sweeney, was made for educational television and schools.

The NFB is “an amazing place,” comments CSC Associate Ronald Plante of Montreal, who has shot several dramas and documentaries for the Film Board, including the 1999 release Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the ’70s Generation, for which director Catherine Annau won the $15,000 prize for Best Canadian First Feature Film at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Plante says he and director Annau had the luxury of an intensive pre-production period, “one of the first times I have had the time to sit down and talk about the look. I think the NFB is one of the few places that give you time to do that and where you have the freedom to do what you want.”

(DOP Plante’s digital video work on Just Watch Me will be featured in next month’s CSC News.)

HITMAN HART: Wrestling with Shadows, an NFB co-production with High Road Productions, was nominated for four Gemini Awards. Photo: National Film Board


Toronto cinematographer Joan Hutton csc also has special feelings for the NFB, for whom she shot the acclaimed women’s hockey documentary The Game of Her Life and the co-production (with High Road Productions) Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows. Directed by High Road’s Paul Jay, Hitman Hart, which won a CSC Best Documentary Award for Hutton last spring, was up for four Gemini Awards this month. (Hutton pays tribute to the NFB in this month’s President’s Report.)

Historical Highlights

The 1940s: Because founding Film Commissioner John Grierson was a specialist in propaganda, the Ottawa-based NFB concentrated on the production of patriotic films in the early years, notably the series Canada Carries On and Actualités canadiennes (which became Les Reportages in 1943), all serving the war effort. When Norman McLaren joined the NFB in 1941, he broadened the production slate through the introduction of animated films. The addition of four separate studios in 1948 diversified post-war production.

The 1950s: Television and its program-time requirements prompted the adoption of new filming techniques. The decade also saw an increase in the number of studios and the consolidation of the French-language team. The NFB’s sphere of influence began to broaden, thanks to multilingual versions of its films. In 1955, over 400 NFB employees and their families moved to Montreal, where the Board’s new headquarters boasted an area of over 20,400 square metres, including laboratories and the largest shooting stage in North America outside California. In 1957, Grant McLean csc, one of the charter members of the new Canadian Society of Cinematographers founded that same year, was named Director of Production. The NFB’s first television series, On the Spot, appeared in 1953; during Canadian television’s inaugural year, the NFB produced 66 hours of 16 mm film for the new medium. By 1955, approximately half of the NFB’s films were made for television, one-quarter were sponsored by various government departments, and the other quarter consisted of NFB-initiated general programming.

The 1960s: The ’60s were characterized by co-production agreements with various countries and the NFB’s active involvement in Expo 67. It was the dawn of the video era. Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1964, the NFB had the know-how to work in a variety of formats and genres, ranging from half-inch video to IMAX film. The NFB took on an active role in Expo 67 with the development of a multi-camera and multi-image screen system for five simultaneous films designed for the Film Board’s $4.5-million Labyrinth pavilion. Since Canada had no other laboratories for the processing of 35-mm colour film, the NFB developed more than 500,000 metres of film for the private sector, to be screened at Expo 67. In 1963, the first feature-length films were made at the NFB, the fictional drama Drylanders, shot by Reginald H. Morris csc (see CSC News, January/97) and the documentary The Moontrap. The first feature-length co-productions with the CBC were produced in 1967: The Ernie Game, with cinematography by Jean-Claude Labrecque csc, followed by Waiting for Caroline, shot by charter CSC member Denis Gillson csc.

The 1970s: The arrival of videocassettes created a turning point in production and distribution. The’70s were also characterized by the regionalization of production and diversification of the areas and methods of distribution, both locally and nationally. Technological breakthroughs included giant-screen films and computer-assisted animation. John Grierson died in England in 1972 at the age of 73, and The John Grierson Building at NFB headquarters in Montreal was inaugurated. In 1971, the NFB produced its first computer-animated NFB film, entitled Metadata, while Mon Oncle Antoine won a number of prestigious prizes and eight Canadian Film Awards. Studio D, a unit focused on the production of films by and for women, was created in 1974 under the direction of Kathleen Shannon. In July, 1976, the NFB began work on the largest group project in Canadian film history: the official film of the Games of the XXI Olympiad in Montreal. Thirty-two crews totalling 168 people under the supervision of Jean-Claude Labrecque csc shot some 100,000 metres of film. The NFB achieved unprecedented commercial success in 1973 when Cry of the Wild opened in 500 American theatres.

The 1980s: The NFB demonstrated its creativity and innovation through its use of leading-edge technology. On the production side, creation of the Computer Animation Centre provided unequalled facilities for research into computer-assisted animation. On the distribution side, the decade saw the first experiments with videodisc, the computerization of information about films and videos, and the automation of the NFB’s stockshot library. A spirit of renewal uplifted the NFB as it celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1989. To add to the many awards earned by its films and filmmakers over the years, the NFB received countless prizes and honours, including a special Oscar. Earlier, in 1981, the Applebaum-Hébert Report recommended that the NFB stop producing and distributing films and become a research and training centre, but the Film Board rejected the recommendation. In 1986, the NFB introduced a new logo and the following year the NFB headquarters building in Montreal was named the Norman McLaren Building, in honour of the distinguished creator of animated films who died in 1987. The NFB co-produced more and more with the private sector, taking part in a number of major films in the 1980s, including The Decline of the American Empire.

The 1990s: Following its 50th anniversary, the NFB launched a re-vamped logo and has pursued the technological innovations initiated in the previous decade. Research in IMAX for Momentum (shot by Ernest McNabb csc), Canada’s official film for Expo 92 in Seville, as well as in computer-assisted animation, have brought more international recognition to the NFB. Momentum, using a new IMAX format of 48 frames per second, was seen by close to two million people at the Canada Pavilion at Expo 92. In 1994, the NFB participated in the 50th anniversary of D-Day in and outside Canada, while the feature The Company of Strangers was universally acclaimed. The same year, The Boys of St. Vincent garnered five million viewers with its national telecast and was also a hit in the United States, being rated among the 10 best films of 1994 by the magazines Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and USA Today.

Oscars won by the NFB
1941 — Churchill’s Island, documentary by Stuart Legg
1952 — Neighbours, animated short by Norman McLaren
1978 — I’ll Find a Way, documentary short by Beverly Shaffer
1978 — The Sand Castle, animated short by Co Hoedeman
1979 — Special Delivery, animated short by John Weldon and Eunice Macaulay
1980 — Every Child, animated short by Eugene Fedorenko
1983 — If You Love This Planet, documentary short by Terre Nash (shot in part by CSC Associate Susan Trow)
1984 — Flamenco at 5:15, documentary short by Cynthia Scott
1989 — Honorary Oscar awarded to the NFB “in recognition of its 50th anniversary and its dedicated commitment to originate artistic, creative and technological activity and excellence in every area of filmmaking.”
1995 — Bob’s Birthday, animated short by David Fine and Alison Snowden

(For more on the National Film Board, visit www.nfb.ca)

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