Arts, Culture and Recreation

Many NFB documentaries celebrate the vision and innovation of Canadian artists. Others demonstrate how our pastimes reflect our cultural values.

Excerpts


Boy Meets Band

Boy Meets Band 1


Canadian Landscape

Canadian Landscape 1


Earthware

Earthware 1


Kubota

Kubota 1


Pen Point Percussion

Pen Point Percussion 1


Snow Dream

Snow Dream 1

Snow Dream 2

Pen Point Percussion

1951, Director: Norman McLaren

      1 min 49 s


    


 

Help

 

Internet connection

Each film on this site is available for viewing at low speed or high speed.

  • Low speed: recommended if your Internet connection uses a dial-up modem (56 kbps or slower). Low-speed viewing results in lower quality image and sound.
  • High speed: recommended if you have high-speed Internet (DSL, cable modem) or are connected to an institutional network. Viewing in high-speed mode may cause occasional jerky images and sound interruptions if the speed of your connection is not fast enough.

If you're not sure which speed to use for viewing the films, try high speed first. If the results are not satisfactory, switch to low speed.

 

Format

Films can be available for viewing in either Macromedia Flash or QuickTime. Image and sound quality are similar for all these formats.

  • Flash: lets you view the film directly in the Web page without launching an external application. Requires the Flash plug-in (download for free at Macromedia Flash Player).
  • QuickTime (alternative format): requires QuickTime, version 7 or more recent (download for free at QuickTime).
 

Closed captions (CC)

Translation of the audio portion of a film into subtitles, for example, dialogue, narration, sound effects, etc. These captions let hearing-impaired viewers read what they cannot hear. Closed captions are available for a few films. To access them, you must select QuickTime (under Format) and With closed captions (under Accessibility).

 

Described video (DV)

A narrated description of a film's key visual elements to enable the vision-impaired to form a mental picture of what is happening on screen. Described video is available for a few films. To access them, you must select QuickTime (under Format) and With described video (under Accessibility).

Questions 1. Norman McLaren was an internationally renowned animator and the founder of the NFB's famous animation department. This documentary shows him at work on one of his many innovations. How does McLaren combine art and technology?

2. A strength of documentary is that it shows things that are otherwise difficult—or impossible—to see. How does this apply here?


About This Film

Short Description

Norman McLaren demonstrates how sounds work on a film's soundtrack and what synthetic sounds sound like when drawn directly on film.


© 2006 National Film Board of Canada | Copyright | Accessibility | Credits
This web site is partly funded by Canadian Culture Online