I arrived this morning into Toronto just after 6am (wow, red eyes are certainly to be desired), grabbed an easy cab ride into town, checked into a posh, comfortable hotel next to Massey Hall in the midst of all the Young Street action in the downtown core, and found light jazz wooing me into the room from the corner, crisp, white bed sheets turned down, enough space to cleanly execute a cartwheel across the floor and wifi! Exhausted from my fabulous flight, I slept, out like a light.
Good start.
Enough of the fluffy stuff – here’s where the ‘what’s happening here is important’ bit is best illustrated. This afternoon, all of the finalists of this year’s CNMA gathered at the Canadian Film Centre for a BBQ. This welcoming afternoon provided an informal time for the finalists to get to know one another. Adam Froman and Ana Sorreno both had a few casual, friendly, welcoming words to say. But what they said is the good part: this award show is 100% about celebrating great Canadian work. What more can you ask for? Especially when it’s coming from a group of leaders who throw this together and pull off 2 full days for the finalists, and it’s all stemming from a passion for recognizing work in digital media in this country.
Ana Serrano travels around the world, most recently having just returned home from Cannes, and she made a point emphasizing the fact that the world is watching Canada and the amount of fantastic work coming out of our country – the CNMA show is one example of highlighting Canadian talent. Why not embrace this?
I know that award shows are the most likely target (and easy) for slagging and negativity in any industry, but what is being celebrated here in Toronto this week is fantastic for the industry. I’d love to see the many talented people in technology in this country play a role and get involved in the event. What I see as an important element to this celebration continuing to being successful is to write, blog, talk about, advertise, whatever what’s going on across the board in digital media in the country – to do just that, we all need to support the cause and write about what we’re all doing! Our culture does not celebrate our own near enough.
(And as an FYI: the people organizing are not adverse to this show hittin’ the road, in fact, they encourage it moving across the country to another city – anyone up for the challenge?)
After Monday night’s show, there will be plenty of footage, interviews and wrap info on the last 24 hours on the CNMA blog – this is one place where the conversations can continue about who is making waves and which people and companies are paving the way in technology and digital media in Canada on the world’s stage.
I am never going to enter an award show which is pay to enter. Fix this, then I’m in. Or did I miss something?
Hey Megan. Your friend Boris’ comment is exactly the issue that we spoke about. This is the attitude we need to change. And I enjoyed meeting your friend Will.
~Adam
I’m jealous of you getting to be in Toronto.. sounds fun and I miss Will too, but I don’t really get this whole thing. What is the part that is “fantastic for the industry”? AFAIK this is a bunch of people who aren’t really doin’ anything interesting beating each other off. Fun I guess, but masturbation nonetheless. I even reject the designation of ‘new’ media. It’s media pure and simple and there are lots of Canadians doing interesting stuff that weren’t apart of this initiative.
Agreed – that’s the whole debate: getting more people, all people in MEDIA involved – and why not get involved in something that celebrates what’s being produced in Canada? There are ways to open this up and they are looking at changing the business model to an academy one – it’s one option. If that system changes to an extent, I think more people would be on board to take part. Boris would. But the CNMA are recognizing that they are missing a whole core of industry excellence and need people like you to help them figure it out and create ways to support it.
And you’re wrong – a lot of the work is fantastic. There are some great people involved and in attendance. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
(As well, new media was what this industry was called back in 2000 when this show started, i.e. similar to “new media bc”) And “beating each other off” – please, a tad crude dude.
Boris, I’m not sure I understand your concern accurately, but I believe there are fees for submissions to Cannes, Toronto Film Festival, CLIOs, and even the Academy Awards. It is not just CNMA or The Webby. I would hazard to guess that the real reason for these fees is not really to recoup costs, but as a base level filtering mechanism. Who wants to judge thousands of submissions if nominations have no restraints?
Kris, while I agree that New Media is a debatable designation, I think we can agree that there is a clear distinction when comparing linear content like Spiderman – The Movie, and Spiderman – The Comic to Spiderman – The Website, Spiderman – The Game, and Spiderman – The MMO. While new techniques and technologies are being used to enhance movies and comics, the later media content is still developing modes and platforms for the delivery and consumption of that content. In this context, I think the term new still has meaning, but obviously this is a temporary state.
The question I have is should products/services/projects like Facebook, twitter, MySpace etc be considered new media at all?
@David: My concern is that if it is an “award” that you have criteria for entering, but that some random payment not being one.
Also, everything you mentioned are film awards…which costs 10s of millions of dollars or more to make.
I don’t believe money should be used as a filter, that’s what it comes down to. You’re unlikely to change my attitude on that point. If there are real costs, I’m pretty sure that sponsors and/or government funding can easily be made to pay for it.
There are many techniques (e.g. you must get at least 1000 votes to be on the shortlist) to winnow down submissions.
The Webby Awards might be a better model. No pay there.
I have been involved with a couple of nominated projects for Webbys in 2002 and 2003. From what I was told, there were fees associated with those nominations. Maybe that’s changed, I’m not sure.