First Stripes: 12 Weeks with Canadian Armed Forces Recruits

Six Free Films About Hockey!

Hockey is, perhaps, the best game that involves using a curved stick to shoot a disk made of vulcanized rubber into a net. The first ice hockey game was played in the 19th century, igniting a passion for the sport that has continued to the present day, making it the quintessential Canadian pastime.

Unsurprisingly, the National Film Board of Canada has produced more than its fair share of hockey-related films. Many of these films reflect the love and dedication we all share for the game. More still explore the very personal stories of the players themselves. History, competition, loss, and triumph all play a part in hockey, so it’s only natural that our films embody that spirit.

• Related : Hockey: The Great Canadian Game… As Seen by the NFB

So slap on a pair of skates, and hit the ice for six free hockey films that are pucking awesome.

The Sweater

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One of the most beloved NFB classics in our archives, this short animation based on the book The Hockey Sweater tells the tale of a particularly mortifying moment in Roch Carrier’s life. During a time when everyone else in his school proudly wore the number 9 jersey of Maurice “The Rocket” Richard, Carrier was instead given a jersey of the rival Toronto Maple Leafs! The horror! How will he ever be able to face his friends at school? Well, watch and find out! The perfect film for hockey fans of all ages.

Just Another Job

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For those nostalgic for the Quebec Nordiques, this is the film for you. Incisive and charming, this documentary takes you right into the pre-season tension and action, as the team, led by the legendary Maurice Richard, prepare themselves for the opening game of the season.

The Thunderbirds in China

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A free full-length documentary for your viewing pleasure, this film takes us all the way to China, where the University of British Columbia’s own Thunderbirds battle that country’s best hockey teams. A hockey film with an international flavour, this doc perfectly encapsulates just how universal the language of hockey is.

The Rocket

oehttps://www.nfb.ca/film/rocket/

A man who needs no introduction, Maurice “The Rocket” Richard is one of the most beloved hockey players of all time. And, in this one-of-a-kind documentary, we are treated with a deep dive into his life, following his meteoric career from the 1940s to the 1950s. Featuring in-depth interviews and classic footage, this is a can’t-miss film for any old-school hockey fan.

The Rink

oehttps://www.nfb.ca/film/rink/

A short film made by acclaimed Quebec director Giles Carle, this documentary captures the perfect Sunday afternoon at a local skating rink. Full of fun, excitement and, of course, hockey. A feel-good film you won’t want to miss.

Blades and Brass

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Stylishly filmed, this classic NFB doc takes us back in time to the year 1967. Here, the very best of that season’s NHL games are spliced together into a perfectly cut highlight reel that is set to awesome and catchy music reminiscent of the Tijuana Brass. A great film that showcases the skill and grace of the game.

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This Week on NFB.ca: Get Animated! with Shop Class and Bone Mother

The second week of Get Animated! winds down, but not without seeing the online release of two highly-anticipated animated shorts – Shop Class and Bone Mother.

It’s been a fantastic 10 days, filled with both new and classic animation. Closing out the week with these two films, Bone Mother and Shop Class, as well as the three other films, marks a perfect ending for this edition of Get Animated! See you again next year!

Shop Class

This short film from Hart Snider pulls you so far into the 80s you can almost feel the hair gel and smell the French Formula hairspray.

Meet 14-year-old Hart, a young high school student who’s navigating puberty and his first crush at the same time. On top of that, he’s taking shop class with the dreaded, infamous Mr. P. Gone are his dreams of freshly-baked cookies in home economics, as he suddenly tackles shop assignment after assignment, each of which it seems he’s destined to fail. Little does he know, the worst is yet to come.

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Skin for Skin

This chilling film presents a dark allegory of greed and spiritual reckoning. We go back to the early days of the fur trade, and the Hudson’s Bay Company was at the height of its power. The film offers a clear demonstration of what can happen when a hunger for profit takes over.

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Bone Mother

Bone Mother is a creepy little tale inspired by centuries-old Slavic folklore. It’s the brain child of animation duo of Dale Hayward and Sylvie Trouvé of Montreal. With them, we go deep into the dark forest where we meet Baba Yaga, aka the Bone Mother, an ancient supernatural being. She guards over her store of bones, treating each with the utmost of care.

One day, a young arrogant prince enters her milieu. He’s got one scheme in mind, but the Bone Mother’s got another. And her plan results in one of the most enduring horror stories of our time.

oehttps://https://ift.tt/2yDn7IX

Co Hoedeman, Animator

It’s only fitting that on the occasion of an online animation festival, we should examine the work of one of the finest animators to have worked at the NFB, Oscar®-winning Co Hoedeman. With a range of films from the childhood favourite Ludovic to the award-winning The Sand Castle, he’s an artist who’s proven his talent many times over.

In this film, we watch him with his family, on his farm, and in the studio. We even get to see him work on a new clip.

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Creative Process: Norman McLaren

If we’re talking about one of the finest animators to pass through the NFB’s doors, we should focus our lens on the first animator. There is no way to understate the impact that McLaren has had on the world of animation. He was a creator in the true sense. He produced over 60 films, collecting over 200 awards. This film explores his legacy, and his process of artistic creation. It is close to 2 hours of McLaren goodness. You’re welcome.

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Tap: Find Water Anywhere

Tap helps you find nearby water refill stations.

Never Buy Plastic Bottles Again

Water is, of course, a necessary resource. In recent years, however, people have grown accustomed to consuming the essential beverage out of plastic bottles. This practice is not only entirely unnecessary, but most likely disastrous for the environment. Tap is a new free resource to help people find free water sources near them. The app shows established locations, such as Shake Shack, that offer free bottle refills or have open tap sources. It also shows other outdoor or indoor locations where you can refill your water bottle without having to pay anything. It’s a great social mission and it’s executed well.

Drink, Refill, Repeat

Although many other countries have open tap sources in their cities, the United States has lagged behind significantly in encouraging citizens to use free water. Americans tend to place little emphasis on tap water, often due to the abundance of cheap, plastic bottles. Tap aims to revolutionize the way we think about water, by showing us how easily accessible free water sources can be. Tap calls their campaign “the #drinkdifferent movement,” and anyone who wants to save time and money while helping the environment should consider downloading the app. If you operate a brand or private location, you can also partner with Tap in order to offer your establishment as an official Refill Station.

 

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Tomorrow: Plan Your Family’s Future, Today

Tomorrow lets you easily create a will online.

Free Will

The majority of people don’t want to think about creating a will. They definitely don’t want to put in the time, money, and effort of hiring a lawyer to draft one for them. Of course, creating a will is, for most people, a necessity. Tomorrow is an online service that assists in the (free!) creation of a legal will that can be downloaded as a PDF. The service works with 52 lawyers spread out across America in order to quickly draft and complete your document. Like Legalzoom before it, Tomorrow is aiming to disrupt the legal industry by simplifying access to relatively common and practical legal services.

Legal Disruption

Although the creation of wills is the focus of Tomorrow, the site also offers additional advice* as to how you should draft your document. It goes over every step of the process, from life insurance, trusts, valuables, and familial connections. There’s a ton of information included on the site, and it’s presented in a visually simple, yet understandable, way. For such a complex and difficult topic, Tomorrow does a great job of educating people about wills and helping them craft their own important documents.

*Of course, the disclaimer at the bottom of the site claims that “Tomorrow is not a law firm nor does it provide legal advice.”

Tomorrow: Plan Your Family’s Future, Today posted first on http://film-streamingsweb.blogspot.com

Watch Bone Mother, Dale Hayward & Sylvie Trouvé’s gothic animation

Dale Hayward and Sylvie Trouvé were thinking of putting a guest bedroom in their basement — but Baba Yaga had other ideas. And what Baba wants, Baba gets.

Bowing to her formidable powers, they found themselves transforming their basement into an animation set, a miniature studio where the mythic Slavic matriarch assumed a starring role in Bone Mother, awesome stop-motion now available online.

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Together Hayward and Trouvé have amassed years of experience in commercial and independent animation — making ads for Nike and other major brands, animating TV series and features like Little Prince, and running their own company See Creature — but Bone Mother presented a whole new set of challenges and opportunities.

They sat me down at the kitchen table of the Montreal home they share with their two kids and told me how it all went down — a tale of vampires and newborns, a thousand 3D-printed heads and an enduring shared passion for stop motion.

Co-directed by Hayward and Trouvé, Bone Mother was produced by Jelena Popović and executive produced by Michael Fukushima for the NFB Animation Studio.

How did you guys get together?

Sylvie: We were both working at Cuppa Coffee Studios in Toronto, animating TV series. We’d see each other in passing, and then at one point I became his animation director and had to talk to him. No choice! We ended up getting together, something we tried to keep a secret for a year or so, which was kind of fun. Then Hothouse came along; a 3-month apprenticeship program for emerging Canadian filmmakers with the NFB’s English animation studio in Montreal. We realized that we loved filmmaking and Montréal so we decided to stay.

Dale: Moving was a whole process of re-adjustment. We’d just finished working in Toronto, where we’d been working on Celebrity Deathmatch, a MTV gorefest that got made on a crazy schedule. 16 episodes in three months. And at the same time I’d been doing tests for my hothouse film. So I was pretty pumped when I arrived at the NFB that first day, but I quickly realized that the Film Board runs at another pace.

Which edition of Hothouse was that?

Dale: It was 2007, so Hothouse 4. My film was Roy G Biv — totally abstract, working with paints. Sylvie did her own Hothouse film the following year.

Sylvie: Mine was called Orange, an abstract look at urban spaces. That film led me to working with the French animation studio, where I made another film called Reflection. My background is in photography; it was natural and exciting for me to combine animation with photography.

What was the appeal of Baba Yaga?

Dale: We’ve always liked anti-heroes and fantasy stories. I first heard Maura McHugh’s version of the Baba story on the horror podcast Pseudopod. Baba is usually portrayed as a dark character, an evil witch. But there are lessons to be learned from characters like that. She’s like that old uncle who terrifies you, but who you totally respect at the same time. It seems natural somehow that Vlad the Impaler has the audacity to walk through her door. It was fun to have a story with two villains. It gave us lots to play with.

Sylvie: For me it was the fact that she’s a woman in this world. So many mythic villains are men — Dracula, Frankenstein, and all those guys. And then there’s Baba Yaga. She’s not your typical witch. She commands respect. She meditates. I liked the idea of paying homage to powerful old ladies. Just because you’re getting old doesn’t mean you’re getting weak. And I like that she’s Dracula’s mother. We don’t think of Dracula having a mother.

Dale: Vampires are big in pop culture right now, and initially we thought it might be too commercial for the Film Board. This is not typical NFB animation. But we pitched it anyway and they went with it. Baba is the main character, but I think it’s nice bonus for audiences to learn that it’s also Dracula’s origin story.

How did end up you making the film in your basement?

Sylvie: That was our producer Jelena Popović’s idea. I was pregnant with Rémi at the time, and initially we thought we’d have the baby and then go back to the Film Board, with baby in tow, thinking, you know, that people love babies and it would be fine. But we already had a daughter and should’ve remembered that it’s not that easy. Then Jelena said, maybe you can do it at home. And the more we thought about it, the more it made sense. We thought we’d eventually go back to the Film Board, to get shots that needed more space, but once we set things up here, we realized that we could adapt and shoot pretty much everything here.

Dale: It was the only way to get it done. As tough as it was to go back and forth between filming and diapers, it allowed me to be with Rémi during his first months. He could be on set with us, and our daughter Zoé was able to get involved in the production. She liked bringing her friends over to show them the bone house and the skeletons. And we could be totally flexible with the schedule. I would set things up knowing that Sylvie would take over later, and vice versa.

Sylvie: I’m a morning person and Dale likes working at night, so he’d often work until midnight and then I’d start shooting at 5 am. It gave us a nice balance. When I had Zoé, I stayed home while Dale was out working, and I found that quite alienating. This time around it was different. And it’s nice to have an artistic project that gives you a break from baby life.

Did making it at home affect the look or feel of the film at all?

Sylvie: I don’t think so, but I laugh when I look at certain shots, knowing that I’m looking at a section of our basement ceiling or wall.

Dale: Yeah, I had to comp out the basement pot lights in some shots. But that’s what stop motion is all about, holding things up with post-it notes and duct tape, and making it all work. We used lots of simple materials – foam board, and blue, green and even pink screen that we found at the dollar store. It was essential to expanding the environment in postproduction, so you couldn’t tell it was shot in a small room.

Was 3D printing part of the plan from the get-go?

Dale: Yes, it was part of our original pitch. We knew the NFB was looking for innovation, and we’d been working with André Michaud on Little Prince, which used 3D printed faces. Stop motion is typically limited with the range of facial expression, and this was an opportunity to take it up a level, to try to create more expressive characters.

Sylvie: That’s where the 1500 faces come in. We wanted a full range of emotions in the characters – angry and mad, angry and sorrowful, and so on. We weren’t using high-end printers but in the end that kind of worked in our favour. We discovered the stepping in Baba’s face looked like wrinkles, an effect that worked well for her character, so we emphasized this as much as we could.

Dale: At the same time we wanted to keep a textured handcrafted look — to be able to see the thumbprints so to speak — so each face, each set of eyes, was painted individually. That took months to do and we were lucky to have Eve Lamoureux and Claire Brognez help us out. They were a great team. We also spent quite a bit of time researching 3D printing filaments until we finally found a part wood/part plastic blend that matched our environment and took well to watercolour paint.

In such a dark gothic story lighting is key.

Dale: The challenge was to keep it dark and have it look natural, not have that “day for night” look. Most of the interiors were lit with tiny LED lights, hot glued to armature wire. We wired them to jacks – and controlled them with DMX channels. In the original story Baba’s house speaks, and the LED lights became that voice. When they come on, you know the house is talking.

Sylvie: Fire is a major element too, and it’s Vlad who brings that into the story with his lamp. His technology invades Baba’s natural space.

Was there a clear division of labour?

Sylvie: I come from a photography so I focus on what’s under camera. Dale is better on the computer. I know my way around After Effects, Photoshop and other programs, but I’m not a tech person at heart, and he’s also better at rigging stuff. I like doing the sets and painting, thinking of the visual composition. He did the storyboard and designs. We both constantly worked on the story and the editing.

Dale: Experience has taught us to establish who’s responsible for what. Whenever we don’t, we get into trouble. But it’s still evolving, I’d say. When we look at the film now, we forget who did what shot. We were both so involved. Even if it was my hand animating the puppet, it was often her idea. People ask us, who makes the decisions? Well we both do.

Sylvie: It’s all about which idea works better and that’s a question of maturity I think. When you first start off, you think, “I made this and nobody is going to tell me otherwise.” But that attitude isn’t productive. We just listen to each other and see what works.

How did the soundtrack come together?

Above: Sylvie and Dale with composer Rebecca Foon.

Sylvie: Sacha Ratcliffe was the sound designer and she immediately got what we wanted — the house and its voice, the animal sounds, the atmosphere, everything. Her design brought everything to another level. And the NFB team was great: Geoff Mitchell, who did the recording; Karla Baumgardner, on Foley; Jean Paul Vialard, who did the mix. They all really know what they’re doing.

Dale: We had cut the film to temp music from Inception and other Hans Zimmer pieces, big momentous music, so we had a good sense of the music cues. Rebecca Foon created wonderfully atmospheric music. Recording the voices of Baba and Vlad was amazing. With Baba, we knew we wanted the rough voice an older actress, a smoker, Renée-Madeleine Le Guerrier was perfect. As soon as I heard her laugh, I knew she was Baba. And Rafael Petardi, with his deep voice like butter, was completely convincing at the vain Vlad.

Any other collaborators you want to mention? 

Dale: André Michaud was a huge help with tech stuff, particularly all our 3D printing issues. We’d worked with him in Little Prince and he’s always open to trying prototypes but he knows when to say something wasn’t working.

Sylvie: Jelena Popović, our producer, really helped us get a handle on the story. She’s from Eastern Europe originally so she was familiar with the Baba legends. And Eve Lamoureux-Cyr and Claire Brognez painted all those faces, a job that took four months. Noncedo Khumalo handled the eyes and most of the Maya modelling.

Dale: Another key collaborator was Nick Fairhead, a old friend from Toronto. He’s a post-production guy who’s worked on lots of high-end features, and he really raised the production values.

Any influences? Art or artists who feed your imagination?

Dale: One influence on this particular film is the comic book artist Mike Mignola and his Hellboy character. He’s got an awesome style that took a while to become accepted in the mainstream. He’s now one of the industry’s most unique voices.

Sylvie: When it comes to animation, the people at Laika are totally inspiring. I love the work of Rachelle Lambden, one of the only women there. We worked together at Cuppa Coffee for a while. She’s a powerful character animator.

Dale: And we just finished working with Regina Pessoa in Portugal. It was really inspiring to see how she integrates work into her country life style, finding a balance between work and community. That’s something we try to apply to our own situation.

Sylvie: We both like live action too. I grew up watching horror movies with my mom – Amityville, The Thing, The Shining, all the Stephen King stuff.

What’s next?

Sylvie: Right now we’re shooting another stop motion film in our basement — a much simpler project directed by José Luis Saturno. And Dale is interested in delving into live action.

Dale: We both really enjoy live action, and I’d love to make a feature that integrates stop motion into live action somehow. Technology is evolving quickly, the lines are getting blurred, and that’s exciting.

Sylvie: Now that we’ve finished Bone Mother, we’re coming back to See Creature, pushing it in new ways. We’ve always enjoyed creating animated sequences for documentaries, and I also have a idea for a series of mini-shorts – focussing on little illuminating life moments. Likes lots of people, we’re looking for a balance and interested in working on projects that are meaningful to us.

Artwork from Bone Mother will be exhibited at Toronto’s Liberty Arts Gallery, opening November 1 and on display a month, and Dale and Sylvie are giving a masterclass on the making of Bone Mother on Nov 4 at the 2018 edition of the TAAFI Conference in Toronto.

For more making-of photos, check out the Bone Mother instagram account.

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Watch 4 Spooky Films About Monsters for Kids!

As All Hallows Eve draws nearer, we begin to experience a variety of changes. Temperatures start to drop, the days become shorter, the nights longer, the leaves change colour and fall to the ground, and our food economy becomes primarily pumpkin-spice based. But, perhaps the most important change is that the spirit of Halloween begins to take hold.

So, to properly prepare ourselves for Halloween, we here at NFB haunted house headquarters have gathered a pack of monstrous films, all for your viewing pleasure! Sometimes monsters stand in as metaphors; manifestations of our most deeply held collective and individual fears made physical and palpable. Other times, monsters are just good spooky fun.

So, turn off all the lights, grab a pitchfork and some torches, and get ready for a veritable cinematic monster mash!

A Monster’s Calling

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We begin our creature feature with an animated short that’s as funny as it is poignant. Using the classic monster-under-the-bed trope to great effect, director Louise Johnson soundlessly weaves a tale of how our own anxieties and insecurities can become monsters all their own.

Lost Monster Hop

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We continue our haunted list with this delightful little ditty. In this short animation about a pair of mellifluous monsters, we meet a lost banjo-wielding monster who’s baffled by a signpost next to some railroad tracks. She soon meets another monster and, though she’s initially frightened by the creature, they soon break out into a duet! A fun film for any monster lover.

Shyness

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A fresh take on one of the most famous monster stories of all time, Shyness is a highly relatable animated film. The short revolves around the infamous Doctor Frankenstein attempting to create his equally famous monster. But, after bringing the monster to life, Frankenstein is aghast to find out his beast is too shy to frighten anyone! A must-watch film for anyone who has ever felt shy in their life.

The Visitor

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We finish our abominable list with perhaps the spookiest entry so far. The Visitor tells the tale of a young boy left alone in a large vacant house. Or at least he thinks he’s alone. Soon, a cloud-like monster seeps into his home and begins to terrorize him. Try as he might, our young hero seems unable to escape the creature’s pursuit. Of course, as in all tales involving the monstrous, the moral here may be that the monster is just an expression of the protagonist’s deepest fears.

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