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Could do it like the arts in some countries, basically grants to interesting projects.
Here, we have the National Film Board, https://www.nfb.ca/ who I see are proud of their 75th Oscar nomination and put out some good stuff financed by taxes.
It's not perfect and you would get some shit projects mixed in with good ones.

There's a great animated short by John Weldon that explores this topic. It's called To Be and can be found at this URL: http://www.nfb.ca/film/to_be/

In Canada, the only notable services we have are the iTunes Store (of course), Netflix, Crackle (if you like watching the same ads over and over even in the same breaks), Crunchyroll (if you like anime). There's also YouTube and Vimeo.

I think you might be selling Shomi and Cineplex Online a bit short. Both seem to be fine services -- what is really holding them back is a near total lack of device support, making it more difficult to integrate them into the living room (or in the case of Shomi,needing to be a Shaw or Rogers customer).

I recently cancelled my 90 day free Shomi trial. It's more geared towards TV binge watching it seems -- while it has movies, its selection is sparse, and in some cases duplicates what Netflix already provides. I'm not much into TV shows, however my wife may have watched it if it had actually been available on any of our smart entertainment devices. They technically support cable boxes from Shaw and Rogers, but that doesn't include much in the way of browsing; you have to use another device to find what you want to watch, flag it, and then find it on your cable box's "On Demand" section as a saved item. Perhaps even more stupid, the service just started three months ago, and the only other non-PC and non-phone/tablet device they support is the Xbox 360. Way to aim for last generation there, guys!

I've never even used Cineplex's offering, even though it looks like a pretty decent service overall. Again -- the device support just isn't there for set-top devices, although it seems to be better than Shomi. They also support the Xbox 360, the Roku 3, and some LG and Samsung smart TVs.

Then there is the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Nearly their entire collection is available to watch online (http://www.nfb.ca) -- over 2500 films. I was surprised to learn that they do have some device support (Roku, LG Smart TV, Samsung Smart TV, Panasonic, Google TV, Opera TV, Philips). No Playstation (or Sony TV/BluRay player) or Apple TV support, unfortunately.

The CBC would seem to be ripe for this sort of streaming service. Their iOS app already has a full compliment of all of their shows and original programming available to watch free on-demand, as does their website. They also have streams of all of their radio stations, again for free. I'm rather surprised that nobody has done the footwork to get their content on their devices (beyond PCs and iOS/Android mobile devices).

So I'd argue that the content is there -- it's the device support that sucks. It's all over the place. You might get two or three services with a Roku, but for others you'd need an Xbox 360. Apple Canada should be pursuing more of these sorts of connections. It's bad enough we don't get many of the US service like Hulu here, but it feels nearly criminal that we also don't even get was access to the existing Canadian services either. The services are there -- it's the lack of widespread device support that is hurting them.

Yaz

NFG has some cool stuff. BEST is https://www.nfb.ca/film/juke_b...

There's an animated short that addresses this by having the 'transporter' kill the original, through an amusing series of mechanisms. I saw it decades ago, and I wish I could remember the name.

"To Be", by Josh Weldon. (Also available in crappy Youtube quality)

http://www.nfb.ca/film/juke_bar_en

This is one of my earlier works. I am the one telling the story.
I hope you like it.

Not to mention the fact that once the next spring rolled around, every single person you moved up there would be exsanguinated.

http://www.nfb.ca/film/blackfly/

the movie "carts of darkness" is enjoyable to watch and might give you a new perspective on people who collect recyclables from trashcans: http://www.nfb.ca/film/carts_of_darkness/

Meh. You want real Serious Business, watch this film Devil at Your Heels, a documentary shot in 1981. Screw jetpacks, this guy had a ROCKET CAR. He was going to jump a river from Canada to America with a TEN-STORY RAMP. For real! If you have a spare 100 minutes, I highly recommend the film. At least watch the first five minutes about the rose bushes. If you have an engineering background, the opening shot of the ramp plus an unaerodynamic car going 250mph...make your predictions about how the film ends. The guy Ken Carter is full of unintentional humor. Fans of Napoleon Dynamite or School of Rock will love it. And unlike these two films, the subject is 100% in earnest. Filme Board du Canada didn't make that sort of film back then.

The same link mentions matrioshka (brain); also points to... Just for a start (and version of parent poster could easily result from just being a native speaker of some Slavic language or even local dialect of Russian, influencing his chosen form of romanization)

Watch the amazing animation 'Madame Tutli-Putli'. on the National Film Board of Canada - her eyes are actually human eyes.

Movie here... http://www.nfb.ca/film/madame_tutli_putli_en

Making of here... http://www.siegelproductions.ca/filmfanatics/model.htm

Pardon my blog-whoring, but I've posted a short history of powers of 10 media, which goes:

• 1957 book Cosmic View, The Universe in 40 Jumps
• 1968 film Cosmic Zoom
• 1977 film Powers of Ten
• 1996 film Cosmic Voyage
• 1997 film Contact
• Most Recent flash interactive Scale of the Universe

Just another way to celebrate an exponentially awesome day. : )

I'll take you up on your challenge and visit each site to see what I think about it. Note that my laptop has a 10" screen so I'm not expecting many of these sites to work at this resolution.

1 Moodstream

Yep, didn't fit in my screen. The controls were cut off on top and bottom.

2 monoface

Top of the person's head was cut off but the site was still usable... and hilarious. Thanks for that.

3 WATERLIFE

This site nicely provides the scroll bar on the side so I can still see any content that has gotten clipped off of the screen. Fonts on the bottom are too small and because it is flash I either lean forward and squint or choose not to read the text.

4 Mark Ecko

I just about barfed all over my laptop. That is an awful site. Everything is moving around following my cursor, menu will drop down over my cursor when attempting to move the screen to the top because there appears to be content out of reach. I attempted to contact them to share my opinion but I clicked on a link which downloaded a pdf and so I gave up. Maybe it isn't flash that should die but flash developers shouldn't be allowed onto the internet.

5 HBO

In my opinion this site could use html5. I don't see how this site uses flash that couldn't more easily be done in html5.

6 Get the Glass

This looks cool but again, it cuts off at the bottom the screen so I can't read the button labels (although I know that they are there) and going fullscreen doesn't help for some reason as the portion of the words that is off of the screen doesn't get drawn even when the screen size changes.

7 http://www.agencynet.com/

This one is especially bad on my small screen. Half of the text is missing unless I'm viewing it in full screen. Links are overlapping. And even after everything is loaded, getting anywhere is slow. And I hate the design.

8 2Advanced Studios

I had hope for this one when I saw the scroll bar but the font is too small, annoying sound effects mean that I leave this site even though I can see some nice looking art

9 SectionSeven

Well that is a mesmarizingly useless loading bar. And navigation is hidden unless I go to fullscreen. I hate the navigation and again with the overlapping links.

10 Dave Werner

Hey they have scroll bars! So at least I can see everything if I try. However, fonts are too small and at least one of them looks quite a bit worse than Comic Sans and the navigation is annoying. There is no way to quickly see what options are available. To get to know all of the options I would need to carefully move my mouse over the entier area, starting from the left and mentally creating a grid on the screen and making sure that I mouse over everything. That is just plain stupid.

And my conclusion is that flash should die. Of course, I'm hardly unbiased. I'm on a netbook so nearly every flash site breaks. I'm on a slow internet connection so I always need to wait to view the site. I don't have good eyesight and I regularily make use of my Ctrl+ and Ctrl- keyboard shortcuts to read text. That is obviously imopssible on flash sites. I use keyboard shortcuts a lot and flash sites break my browser based keyboard shortcuts like page up and down, f11 for fullscreen, Ctrl t for n

1 Moodstream
2 monoface
3 WATERLIFE
4 Mark Ecko
5 HBO
6 Get the Glass
7 http://www.agencynet.com/
8 2Advanced Studios
9 SectionSeven
10 Dave Werner

Source: Top 10 Best Flash Websites of 2010

No, he had been saving and replanting his own seed for generations. Once his field was contaminated by monsanto's patented abominations (through no fault of his own) suddenly monsanto declared him a criminal.

An iPhone is not the same as seed.

What most people don't realize is that monsanto is not only patenting GM seed (which is bad enough; they have bought up hundreds of seed companies, closed them down and eliminated the seed. They replace the freely saveable seed with their own patented seed), but they have the audacity to patent regular seed. They go into public seed banks, searching through thousands upon thousands of seeds, looking for ones that haven't been patented yet and patent them. How can they get away with this you ask? Who gives them the right to co-opt a food source and claim it as theirs? Twisted patent laws and corrupt trade deals that's how. Large multi-national corporations influencing government legislation that's how.

Monsanto does need to die. See "The World according to Monsanto" for a detailed insight into the obscenity known as Monsanto. Also google around for "Seed Politics" and see for yourself why this needs to be stopped.

It will be worth watching what happens to the documentary RIP: a Remix Manifesto as it pushes the mashup boundaries itself while reporting on the whole mashup phenomenon.

Fortunately it's backed by the National Film Board of Canada and so they aren't completely without some official backing.

If you're curious about mashup culture, or in the legal maneuvering behind it all, or in fact about copyright's entire future, it's worth checking this great film out.

Basically The Treaty mentioned gives Earth Governments total power and control over the entire Universe!

It's a ridiculous and worthless piece of paper written by arrogant power hungry and greedy humans who have the gumption to think that they have sovereign power and control who can go where and when and with whom. Then they tell everyone that they are "free" and we buy it.

Do as the fictional Astronaut Farmer did, ignore them. He tried it there way and they just tried to protect their interest of control over power and freedom of movement. Then he just went.

Ignore the Treaty, it's worthless. Go to the moon. Do it now. Go to Mars. Do it now.

What will they do? Shoot you down after you launch? There's a good chance of that, but, na, the worst they'll try to do is give you a ticket or want you to slap their silly NASA logo onto YOUR ship. Meanwhile the rest of the world will be cheering you all the way.

Freedom. True Freedom is freedom from the control of others. True Freedom and Power. Of course, with power comes responsibility... as Ben Parker says... and which current world governments and those with power fail to heed.

Do we really want our Sol Solar System run and controlled by the likes of those in power (pick any country in the world)? Not on your life. Most governments on Earth are anti-peace through their actions of killing people via their state sponsored terrorism.

"Even the most vile serial killers have nothing on the deadliest organizations on Earth - governments that encourage war and genocide." - Elliott Leyton.

See the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's excellent two part documentary series "The Man Who Studies Murder", part two is on State sponsored Murder - the largest killer of humans on the planet:
http://www.arts.mun.ca/anthropology/people/scau/leytonE.php
http://www.nfb.ca/collection/films/fiche/?id=51458
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourinterview/2007/04/anthropologist_and_author_elli.html
http://www.google.ca/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&q=+%22the+man+who+studies+murder%22&btnG=Search&meta=

"The Man Who Studies Murder, Part 2: The Anthropology of Murder looks at the culture of killing and why some countries produce more killers than others. The murder rate in Canada is 1 in 100,000 while in the United States it is a remarkable 10 murders per 100,000, the highest rate of any western, developed nation. Leyton argues, using Newfoundland as an example, that this can be explained by cultural differences. Killing is rare in that province because the people there developed a peaceful means of preventing conflict and violence using ostracism, gossip and ridicule. In the United States, on the other hand, violence was instrumental in the creation of the country, and, as a result, became socially acceptable. It is an American's constitutional right to bear arms, and the United States is the only western nation to still use capital punishment."

"Leyton also argues that governments are the real serial killers by ordering their soldiers to go to war. While the politicians try to justify wars and make them legitimate with propaganda, they are still murder. Government complicity in mass murder is highlighted using the examples of genocide in Rwanda and the holocaust in Nazi Germany. The tape does not explain the cultural causes of those tragedies."
http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol11/no11/themanwhostudiesmurder.html

One can also point to Iraq

The only things I've seen more of than Pixar's shorts over the years is original Star Trek episodes. If you, like me, are Pixar'ed out, then detox go and watch some awesome more National Film Board of Canada films:

http://www.nfb.ca/trouverunfilm/?v=h&lg=en

WAY more material here. (anyone remember the Jumblies stamp movie! oooh that was great!)

bathos: bathos - a change from a serious subject to a disappointing one

It's great to see slapstick humour is thriving in the U.S.

In highschool myself and a few friends made a habit of getting together to watch comedic silent films. The films were available from libraries and the venerable National Film Board of Canada.

Generally our favourites were Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

While I fear and loath (in the best intentioned way of the late H.S. Thomson) the policies of America as applied to IP, the USPTO has taken to mimicing Chaplin's indifferent giant machine crunching the common person in the truest, sadly comedic, bathotic fashion. Unfortunately I'm afraid act two has been foredone by Kafka.

Draw your own conclusions about this guy...

Actually, the NFB has created some great stuff over the years. I visted their library in Toronto and had a great time.

Alaskan Mech + Bear-Proof Suit = Battletech Atlas

for which he won an Ignoble Prize. http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig199 8

I want to see this guy fight the guy in the Bear Suit

Yes, but is it bear-proof?

The animation you mentioned, Ryan , exclusively used old-school keyframe animation, even though it looks like it might be motion captured. Like I guess animators should go with whatever works.

Here's the nfb page for it. Unfortunately you can't buy it online, but if you can find it at your local video store, it is definitely worth the time to watch.

It was, and it did.

I haven't read Acid Dreams, but I can very highly recommend the Canadian National Film Board documentary Hofmann's Potion (most of the work you're referring to was done in Saskatchewan). You can get NFB films at most public or university libraries in Canada (dunno about the US, but I do see an SVCD copy on eDonkey).

Quite an eye-opening film. It's interesting to note that a large part of the blame for LSD being scheduled can be attributed to Timothy Leary - by revelling in pushing reactionary buttons and not properly respecting the drug, he may have spoiled it for everyone.

If you're in Sydney, Australia, this movie is playing at the Sydney Film Festival this year, and might be worth checking out. Maybe the DoD could talk to this guy? Might be handy if the United States is ever invaded by ill-tempered grizzly bears with lasers strapped to their foreheads.

If you're in Sydney, Australia, this movie is playing at the Sydney Film Festival this year, and might be worth checking out. Maybe the DoD could talk to this guy? Might be handy if the United States is ever invaded by ill-tempered grizzly bears with lasers strapped to their foreheads.

of a government-controlled film industry obviously is enough to make any right-thinking person want to see all possible copyright protection added to every possible intellectual property treaty.

Faced with this potential evil

Im not sure what you mean but:

I am Canadian. I am happy and proud that Canada's National Film Board and CRTC exist to assist film makers and artists create their works. Art and film is valuable to a healthy culture and should be publicly supported. For profit films are mostly not art - they would be profit vehicles first, creative works second.

I'm a huge fan of shorts. I think it's great to be able to flesh an innovative idea out in 5 or 10 minutes and not have to worry about using filler to make it 90-120 minutes. You'll find the most creative stuff that way.

Some of the best stuff I've seen came from the NFB here in Canada. I highly recommend checking out Norman McLaren's work. He was obsessed with the use of technology in animation and had a tendency to inspire people to experiment in their own creations. Neighbours, which uses stop motion animation with live actors (yup, it's pretty freaky) and a soundtrack which he drew directly on the film, won an Oscar. A lot of the other NFB stuff is amazing to eyes and ears as well. They're selling DVDs now, too, including a pair of animation collections which I highly recommend. The first one has Getting Started, which is the story of my life. :-)*

I also recommend a series of DVDs out there called Short Invention. They're really cool and I've been finding them in the Future Shop, which is even cooler, so you might be able to buy them off the shelf locally.

But, please, please, do not focus on computer animation and the like without showing the works of Norman McLaren first or your students will definitely miss out on something very important.

--

Of course you are correct... anyone who would dispute it's an idiot! ;o)

Doesn't work under Linux nor Windows nor a Mac (emulator) tried and confirmed. You can easily read those .vob's off a Region 0 disc, of which I have a couple from the National Film Board of Canada. Matter of fact the cartoon guy playing scrabble on the homepage is on one of the discs... and so is The Cat Came Back, my personal favourite.

I really hope this "technology" doesn't make it into hard drives... or I'll be stocking up on some before the old ones go away, or wait 'till it's cracked.

Of course you are correct... anyone who would dispute it's an idiot! ;o)

Doesn't work under Linux nor Windows nor a Mac (emulator) tried and confirmed. You can easily read those .vob's off a Region 0 disc, of which I have a couple from the National Film Board of Canada. Matter of fact the cartoon guy playing scrabble on the homepage is on one of the discs... and so is The Cat Came Back, my personal favourite.

I really hope this "technology" doesn't make it into hard drives... or I'll be stocking up on some before the old ones go away, or wait 'till it's cracked.

Why buy something that's just for looks when you can get the Ursus Mark VI hardsuit.
It doesn't have any real weapons to speak of, but
you could prolly graft a M60 on there pretty easily.

Hey, it's only $150k...

--K
---

I bet Troy Hurtubise could use that in his project.

Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.

Digging a new Panama Canal with nuclear bombs. Blasting out an instant harbour. Launching a giant rocket with nuclear explosions. Science fiction? No. Actual plans.

Between 1957 and 1988, American and Soviet scientists used nuclear bombs in more than 150 civilian engineering experiments around the world.

Edward Teller, co-inventor of the H-bomb, had the most effective blasting service on the market. And he was looking for business. He promised prospective clients bang for their buck, "to reshape the land to their pleasure." The idea was to use atomic bombs to carve out harbours from Arctic coastline, to divert rivers, even to blast a new Panama Canal through Central America using 300 megatons of nuclear explosives.

Filmmaker Gary Marcuse combines newly discovered footage and interviews with key Russian and American scientists, including Teller, to document these atomic mega-projects and the environmental movement that emerged in opposition to them.

A feature-length version of Nuclear Dynamite played at the Vancouver International Film Festival (2000)

You can get more info on the documentry from the [Canadian] National Film Board: Nuclear Dynamite

Combine these shoes with the Ursus Mark VI armoured suit, arrive in your personal helicopter... from Slashdot, I can get the tech I need to become a superhero! Now all I need are some nifty superhero-style weapons!
--

Take the bear suit, add some actuators or hydraulics to move the limbs, throw on a weapon and your ready to kick some ass! :)

Remeber Wally, the blue safety dog? Those shorts are hilarious.

There's also Getting Started, which was always one of my favourites. It's about procrastination, the guy reminds me of myself. I'm sure many other Slashdotters have exhibited the behaviour displayed in the short as well.

Plus, The Big Snit never ceases to make me laugh out loud, no matter how many times I see it.

Any geek would also be proud to have a collection of Norman McLaren's stuff, such as Neighbors. McLaren was obsessed with animation technology and was a true hacker in the art form. For example, he used to actually draw the soundtracks directly on the film, experimenting with what shapes make what sound. There was also the one where the chair avoided being sat on, and the one with the guy and the garbage can (has to be seen).

There's also a lot of great stuff that wasn't commonly shown on television except on shows like CBC's Open Wide (I miss that show), and TeleToon's Splat! If you live in Canada, you can go to the local NFB (It's like a library) or some of the larger libraries and check out all of the cool stuff you haven't seen. A warning though, expect to waste a lot of time in there.

If you live in Montreal, or are planning to visit, Check out the NFB'sCineRoboteque. It's truly a geek experience.