Yesterday the CyberArts grade 9, 11, and 12 classes had the opportunity to attend the Imagine Native Film Festival. There we watched multiple short films centred on the culture of first nation people from coast to coast, as well as across the world. There was a variety in mediums, effects, and story lines in the short films. The first film was a one-minute sketch with a humorous mood, while another one later in the screening was an animation depicting child abuse and neglect. Out of the films I watched, my favourite was the very first one.
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| Scene from The Indian and the Tourist |
The first film was my favourite because of how short and simple it was. While I was intrigued by the issues that all the other films expressed, this was the only one that had a humorous approach to the social issue addressed. Titled,
The Indian and the Tourist, the setting takes place in an open field, with a first nation man playing guitar in the middle. In the midst of his playing, a tourist comes over with a camera to take a picture of him. While looking through the viewfinder, the tourist feels that something is missing. He grabs some feathers and a blanket, and dresses the musician up to look like a stereotypical Indian. He snaps the picture, and deems it a masterpiece. To end the film, the musician is seen chasing the tourist with his guitar, angry with how racist he was.
I enjoyed this because as I mentioned earlier, it was the only humorous film in the screening. However, just because the film made me laugh, it doesn't mean that it didn't have any deeper meaning. The backstory of the short, as told by the creator, took place in the early 20th century. A tourist visiting Canada saw a group of first nation musicians playing on the street, and decided he wanted to take a picture of them. He felt they were too "assimilated" to Canadian culture though, wearing clothes that white people typically wore. To fix this, he dressed them up in clothes that he felt looked Indian to him, possibly because he wanted a more interesting picture to show off when he got home. I liked the way the director approached this story because I feel that most filmmakers would typically want to approach a serious issue in a serious manner, perhaps because they feel that if they make a joke out of it, the audience might not take the matter as seriously, or even get offended. I liked this film because it made me laugh, but still reminded me of the racism that first nation people have faced in the past and the present.
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For the second half of the field trip, the grade 11s and 12s visited an advertising agency located at Adelaide and Spadina called Fuse. This is a popular agency in Toronto, having sponsored the 2015 Pan Am games. For this event they were responsible for the display of advertisements, promotion of the games, and also to create the official Pan Am games website that many people may be familiar with. At this agency, we got a small taste of the world of advertising through some of the company representatives who gave their time to talk to us.
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| Symphony of Swings, by Marc Pelland |
While we were there, we got a small tour of the office from Lane Buie, VP of digital marketing. He brought us to a room that looked like something out of a movie about a mad scientist. There were wires and mechanical and electronic parts scattered on the tables and floor, a robotic arm holding a beaker of water on one table, an Xbox Kinect attached to a computer, and a 3D printer in the middle of creating a small skull statue. There we met the company's creative technologist, Marc Pelland, whose job is to create new technology to be used in experiential marketing (non-traditional marketing). An example of his work at Fuse is the CIBC Symphony of Swings, an interactive light-up swing set that created music and changed colour as riders swung back and forth. In fact, I remember seeing this swing while on a walk with my dad downtown to the Luminato Festival. Although I didn't ride it myself, I did get to see it up close.
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| Pan Am games website, designed by Fuse |
After the tour of the agency, we received a briefing from Lane Buie, Marc Pelland, and Patrick Weir, creative director at Fuse. To start, both the CyberARTs class and the Fuse representatives shared their background. The students shared what they learned in CyberARTs, and the presenters told us about their past education and work before their time at Fuse. Following that, they told us about some of the past projects Fuse had done, such as the Symphony of Swings and Pan Am games mentioned earlier. "We like to stay away from traditional advertising," said Patrick Weir, meaning they didn't want to stick to usual billboard and poster ads you see all over the city. Instead, the company is always looking for bolder and more creative ways to rise above the sea of posters and grab the attention of passersby.
I'm glad the CyberARTs class was able to visit Fuse because our current project is to re-design the ad campaign of one of the given products by our teacher, and this trip has given me some genuine ideas I could use for my own use.
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| Fuse Logo |
