Nicholas Longstaff, in brief.
(Boxer-briefs, actually, though that’s more than you wanted to know.)
First off,
Here is a link to where I am right now: http://www.cfccreates.com/
The Telus Interactive Art and Entertainment Residency at the Canadian Film Centre
The facility is beautiful - a mansion once dedicated to keeping the famous racehorse Northern Dancer, from whom something like 80% of Canadian Racehorses are descended.
Founded in 1988 by Governor-General Award recipient and Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Norman Jewison, the CFC has nineteen years of history collaborating with North America’s top broadcasters, studios and other key organizations, has solidified the CFC as a vital partner in the growth and progression of the Canadian entertainment industry, worldwide.
Within the CFC there are a number of residencies and programs, as well as a wide array of activities. I am in the Telus Interactive Arts and Entertainment residency -
Residents are drawn from all over, and across all disciplines to collaborate in a 5-month long, intensive experience, immersing us in the theory and practice of collaborative interactive art and entertainment. That means elements of Theatre, Dance, Film, TV, Internet, Installation Art, Gaming, and emerging technologies and more.
This builds on the work I was invested in at the Ontario College of Art and Design http://www.ocad.ca/ and ties in beautifully with the collaborative process I developed over the last 5 years with staff and students at The Theatre School and ArtsCore, and is even pertinent to my ongoing work with Learning Through the Arts http://ltta.ca/
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What was the first week like?
Well, it was really full…
After getting my butt out of London (and making space for my glamourous and soon-to-be-famous subletters Z.Jane and Tyler) on Sunday night, it was really exciting to meet the other 5 residents on Monday (more about these five thrilling folks next issue) as we jumped right into the thick of things with David Wolfenden, the Executive Director of Outward Bound Canada. His focus has been group work, collaboration and leadership training.
To balance out this introspection and team building, Darren Wershler-Henry (Author and Prof. at Wilfred Laurier University) took us on a freeform whirlwind tour of new and interactive media forms… enough info that, once back home and eating dinner, I twice fell asleep before finishing.
I’ve now met a broad cross-section of staff here, and am spending energy and time getting ahead of the game so that I have freedom to work on a few special side-projects - including using my access to these facilities to polish off the LONG AWAITED Haunted Hayrides DVD (An I for an I and we all go blind)
In a nutshell, the structure of the next Five months will be:
the first 2.5 months:
absorbing learning and exploring, with small projects to test out our group dynamics
the second 2.5 months:
creating a prototype which CFC will help launch, but which I and my group will own the intellectual property rights.
