With the media landscape experiencing a period of unprecedented change, Playback wanted to know how academic institutions across the country were preparing the student of today for the media world of tomorrow.

In response to the simple question ‘How do you see your curriculum evolving in the next few years?’ reps from eight schools offered a variety of responses, but certainly a recurring theme is making students fluent across various digital media streams.

Slawko Klymkiw, executive director of the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto:

‘We will continue to seek out new strategic partnerships nationally and internationally with organizations that share the CFC’s objectives and goals: to actively promote and invest in Canadian creative content…
‘In response to the expanding industry need for future content mediums, the CFC is exploring the development of programs such as: international coproduction, an actors’ conservatory, a gaming lab, a mobile film festival, documentary and script development, interactive cinema, multi-platform mediums and an enhanced feature film program. Each new program launched will be specially crafted to support and foster talent, propel Canadian entertainment forward, and build capacity for the industry.’

Susan Millican, CEO of the National Screen Institute – Canada:

‘Over the next two years, the National Screen Institute – Canada will continue to support writers, directors and producers working in film, television and digital media – with digital media becoming a greater part of our curriculum. We also want to extend the reach of our programs in the aboriginal community and continue to develop our diversity training.

‘We are also looking forward to collaborating with the National Film Board on its Nunavut Animation training program.’

Michel G. Desjardins, director general of l’Institut national de l’image et du son (INIS) in Montreal:

‘Our efforts to have students take up the challenges of cross-disciplinary study will redouble in the coming years.

‘We think it is crucial that the screenwriters, directors and producers heading up creative projects – be they dramas, documentaries, video games, web environments or advertising – understand and master the potential offered by overlapping areas of expertise. Inspiring students to cross between various disciplines will familiarize them with new forms of writing and instill new reflexes that will quickly make them functional in today’s extremely competitive commercial market.’

Dick Bourne, academic coordinator for Calgary-based SAIT Polytechnic’s Film and Video Production; Radio, Television and Broadcast News; and New Media Production and Design programs:

‘Our key to technological innovation will be a new Media Technology Center, to open in the fall of 2012. It will house SAIT’s six existing media programs and provide facilities for launching at least as many new programs in specialties such as audiovisual production, simulation, game design, performance, outdoor advertising, and digital sound and music. A Media Technologies Degree will also be introduced, available to all of our media students.

‘We will design the entire center around HDTV. A convergence newsroom will facilitate one-stop filing of print, broadcast and web stories. TV mobile production will be fully integrated. We will inaugurate a streaming Internet video feed and a second radio feed. In New Media, a motion-capture studio and 3D laser-scanning equipment will be introduced.’

Brenda Longfellow, chairperson of the Department of Film at Toronto’s York University:

‘A recent grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation is enabling us to transition to ‘true’ HD at the senior undergrad and graduate level for student productions…

‘We recently retooled our upper-year courses into specializations in craft and three project-oriented streams: documentary, fiction and alternative film. Over the next two years, we’ll be refining these revisions and enriching our production program by hiring an additional full-time faculty member. We are also actively investigating adding a producer stream and formalizing our screenwriting offerings into a certificate or major program.’

Maria Jacquemetton, head of Writing for Film, Television & Interactive Media, Vancouver Film School:

‘The curriculum will emphasize character-driven feature films popular in the Canadian market as well as the Hollywood mandate of high-concept stories, and evolving trends in television, like reality TV and the reality/scripted hybrid. The curriculum will continue to explore emerging forums like podcasting, mobisodes and writing for interactive media, computer and online games.’

Seanna McPherson, instructor at North Vancouver’s Capilano College Film Centre:

‘To address student demand we are developing a four-year applied degree program. Our intention is to [turn out] a complete filmmaker through the course of this degree. Our degree graduates will be equipped with the entrepreneurial skills to set up and run their own companies, find funding for their projects and develop opportunities for distribution, broadcast and exhibition. They will have a creative approach to their careers. They will have the training and education necessary to work both above and below the line, and they will have the skills, knowledge and imagination required to become successful global independent filmmakers.’

Ron Rogers, department head, Entertainment Management Program, and manager, Career Services, at the Trebas Institute in Toronto:

‘The challenge for schools such as Trebas will be to stay apace with developments [in digital editing and FX]; to provide students with the necessary access to and training in the cutting-edge equipment and facilities, but to also provide students with the understanding in how those tools can be used as part of the creative process.

Educators will need to balance the vast potential engendered in digital filmmaking with the core creative elements such as screenwriting, lighting and composition that will always be the foundation of the medium.’