From the back cover: While Canadians have been leaders in many aspects of communications technology, the content has been mainly foreign. So, too, have the applications of new technology typically been property of alliances of corporations in the U.S., Europe and Japan ... As the pace of the "globalization" of culture quickens, Canada's broadcasting, recording, film and publishing industries will face formidable challenges. Communications analyst Peter Lyman describes the impact of the new technologies on Canadian cultural industries and proposes strategies he feels must be accepted to make these industries viable in an ever-changing marketplace
No two nations in the world are as integrated, economically and socially, as are the United States and Canada. We share geography, values and the largest unprotected border in the world. Regardless of this close friendship, our two countries are on a slow-motion collision course—with each other and with the rest of the world. While we wrestle with internal political gridlock and fiscal challenges and clash over border problems, the economies of the larger world change and flourish. Emerging economies sailed through the meltdown of 2008. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that by 2018, China's economy will be bigger than that of the United States; when combined with India, Japan and the four Asian Tigers—South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong--China's economy will be bigger than that of the G8 (minus Japan). Rather than continuing on this road to mutual decline, our two nations should chart a new course. Bestselling author Diane Francis proposes a simple and obvious solution: What if the United States and Canada merged into one country? The most audacious initiative since the Louisiana Purchase would solve the biggest problems each country expects to face: the U.S.'s national security threats and declining living standards; and Canada's difficulty controlling and developing its huge land mass stemming from a lack of capital, workers, technology and military might. Merger of the Century builds both a strong political argument and a compelling business case, treating our two countries not only as sovereign entities but as merging companies. We stand on the cusp of a new world order. Together, by marshalling resources and combining efforts, Canada and America have a greater chance of succeeding. As separate nations, the future is in much greater doubt indeed.
Since the days of early television, video has been an indispensable part of culture, society, and moving-image media industries. Over the decades, it has been an avant-garde artistic medium, a high-tech consumer gadget, a format for watching movies at home, a force for democracy, and the ultimate, ubiquitous means of documenting reality. In the twenty-first century, video is the name we give all kinds of moving images. We know it as an adaptable medium that bridges analog and digital, amateur and professional, broadcasting and recording, television and cinema, art and commercial culture, and old media and new digital networks. In this history, Michael Z. Newman casts video as a medium of shifting value and legitimacy in relation to other media and technologies, particularly film and television. Video has been imagined as more or less authentic or artistic than movies or television, as more or less democratic and participatory, as more or less capable of capturing the real. Techno-utopian rhetoric has repeatedly represented video as a revolutionary medium, promising to solve the problems of the past and the presentÑoften the very problems associated with television and the society shaped by itÑand to deliver a better future. Video has also been seen more negatively, particularly as a threat to movies and their culture. This study considers video as an object of these hopes and fears and builds an approach to thinking about the concept of the medium in terms of cultural status.
This extensive bibliography and reference guide is an invaluable resource for researchers, practitioners, students, and anyone with an interest in Canadian film and video. With over 24,500 entries, of which 10,500 are annotated, it opens up the literature devoted to Canadian film and video, at last making it readily accessible to scholars and researchers. Drawing on both English and French sources, it identifies books, catalogues, government reports, theses, and periodical and newspaper articles from Canadian and non-Canadian publications from the first decade of the twentieth century to 1989. The work is bilingual; descriptive annotations are presented in the language(s) of the original publication. Canadian Film and Video / Film et vidéo canadiens provides an in-depth guide to the work of over 4000 individuals working in film and video and 5000 films and videos. The entries in Volume I cover topics such as film types, the role of government, laws and legislation, censorship, festivals and awards, production and distribution companies, education, cinema buildings, women and film, and video art. A major section covers filmmakers, video artists, cinematographers, actors, producers, and various other film people. Volume II presents an author index, a film and video title index, and a name and subject index. In the tradition of the highly acclaimed publication Art and Architecture in Canada these volumes fill a long-standing need for a comprehensive reference tool for Canadian film and video. This bibliography guides and supports the work of film historians and practitioners, media librarians and visual curators, students and researchers, and members of the general public with an interest in film and video.
Since the mid-1980s, US audiences have watched the majority of movies they see on a video platform, be it VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Video On Demand, or streaming media. Annual video revenues have exceeded box office returns for over twenty-five years. In short, video has become the structuring discourse of US movie culture. Killer Tapes and Shattered Screens examines how prerecorded video reframes the premises and promises of motion picture spectatorship. But instead of offering a history of video technology or reception, Caetlin Benson-Allott analyzes how the movies themselves understand and represent the symbiosis of platform and spectator. Through case studies and close readings that blend industry history with apparatus theory, psychoanalysis with platform studies, and production history with postmodern philosophy, Killer Tapes and Shattered Screens unearths a genealogy of post-cinematic spectatorship in horror movies, thrillers, and other exploitation genres. From Night of the Living Dead (1968) through Paranormal Activity (2009), these movies pursue their spectator from one platform to another, adapting to suit new exhibition norms and cultural concerns in the evolution of the video subject.
Much of this study, which addresses the issue of alternative ways of financing public service broadcasting in the USA and Europe, has been based on the Peacock Committee on Financing the BBC, in which the author was involved.
A provocative and timely call to action for civic-minded Canadians yearning for a more competitive political system ane better government. Canadians everywhere are asking: what's wrong with the Conservative Party? The Liberal Party of Canada has held power for 70 of the past 100 years--a feat unrivaled by any other political party in the Western hemisphere. This dominance has caused a great deal of frustration on all political fronts, especially on the right. In the past two years, the long-awaited merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives has not achieved the results many were expecting. Despite the explosive revelations of the sponsorship scandal, and attempts to improve his party's image, Stephen Harper's Conservatives still trail in the polls. In Rescuing Canada's Right, the authors examine the problems facing the Conservative Party and the broader conservative movement, and offer concrete solutions on how to fix them. Some of the issues the book will address: Why the Conservative Party and its predecessor parties have such a poor electoral record; Why today's Conservative Party is not really conservative. Why a new political vision is necessary to inspire Canadians--and what it should be. How the Liberals use public money to entrench an unhealthy reliance on the state--and how the right has failed to challenge it What Canadian conservatives can learn from the American and British experiences How to build a Canadian Conservative counter-culture in the media, academia, and the law How the right can break through to the young, and to immigrants in Quebec An action plan to end Canada's democratic deficit and level the political playing field. Rescuing Canada's Right will be a hard-hitting and groundbreaking work that will introduce new ideas and a passionate call for change for 21st century Canada.
Harry Alan Towers' reputation rests upon a corpus of 95 low-budget productions shot post-haste in every corner of the globe. He took an integral part, however, in the development of the protocols that now underpin much transnational film production and he must be regarded as a pioneer. Towers' slash and burn strategy focused on parasitic, back-to-back productions, funded by rights bundles that were pre-sold globally. This strategy was substantially derived from his early days in broadcasting wherein he acted as a go-between in the American and the British Commonwealth markets. Though he became adept at procuring funds from pariah regimes and black market economies, primarily he continued to act as a broker bringing together American equity investment and European finance under the auspices of EC co-production agreements. He was also quick to exploit the burgeoning niche markets becoming available in the wake of technological developments and government initiatives.
From Shakespeare to cop shows, sitcoms to docudramas, for over three decades the CBC has presented viewers with every variety of television drama and has become Canada's closest equivalent to a national theatre. Turn Up the Contrast is the first book to explore the content of Canadian television drama and is both a critical analysis and a survey history of how Canadians have used the medium to tell themselves their own stories. As a part of her research, Mary Jane Miller watched thousands of hours of television, sampling series and viewing in their entirety shorter programs such as movies and mini-series. Asking a variety of questions, she selected a number of programs for detailed analysis, and devotees of The Beachcombers, King of Kensington, Seeing Things, Cariboo Country, Wojeck or A Gift to Last will be pleased to find their favourites among those discussed at length. A University of British Columbia Press / CBC Enterprises Co-Publication.
"The development of the feature film industry in Canada has been uncertain and difficult, with problems usually attributed to the country's small population and US domination of the movie industry. Ted Magder goes beyond these obvious influences in his examination of Canada's state policies as they affected the production of Canadian feature films from the First World War to the present. He presents a study focusing on the interplay between government policy and the dynamics of the industry, and undertakes an examination of cultural dependency in Canada. State policies, Magder points out, are related to domestic forces that impinge upon and set limits to policy decisions and their implementation." "In the immediate postwar period, the tone for much of Canada's cultural policies was set by the National Film Board and the recommendations of the Massey Commission. Members of both organizations expressed distaste for films designed to entertain and deemed feature filmmaking unworthy of support. A change of heart took place in the watershed year of 1967 with the passing of the Canadian Film Development Corporation Act, when Canadians finally entered the business of feature film production. Magder considers how this came to pass, what had changed within the industry itself to make feature film production viable, and why the state changed its position from one of neglect to one of support. In the last five chapters, he examines the contradictions and limitations that have bedevilled Canadian feature film production over the last two decades." "In his conclusion, Magder proposes that both the notion of cultural dependency and the goal of public support for cultural production to express national identity need to be re-examined."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
