On July 29, the latest incarnation of the Canadian Film Centre, MediaLinx h@bitat, will open its doors, introducing writers, graphic designers and computer programmers to new media production.

Housed on the grounds of the cfc in the former Warner Bros. Library, the $500,000 facility is a cross-platform environment using Mac computers, pcs, potentially sgi machines and the latest standard software applications for new media development.

While MediaLinx, the interactive arm of Bell Canada, is the primary sponsor, other contributors include Apple Computers, Onyx Computers, Sony, Agfa and Bulloch Entertainment Services, and discussions are still underway with Digital, hp, Intel and ibm.

MediaLinx h@bitat will be offering two major programs – the Professional Development Series, geared towards industry professionals in film and television, and the New Media Design Program.

Modeled after the cfc’s successful resident program, the New Media Program is a three-and-a-half-month endeavor where 12 to 14 computer programmers, graphic designers and writers will be trained to create new media products.

Participants will be put into groups of three consisting of one person from each discipline and together they will learn four major skill areas, the first of which is team-building skills and the collaborative working process.

Next is business and financial management skills, where they will be instructed in project management, budgeting, product marketability, and intellectual property and copyright issues.

‘The third skill is conceptual. This is where storytelling integration occurs, where we talk about the narrative models appropriate for new media products, how to design user interface, what information architecture means, and how to develop character,’ says Ana Serrano director of MediaLinx h@bitat.

‘The industry as a whole is now converging into something completely different, meaning other than just film and television, there are a lot of new players entering the market,’ says Serrano.

Technology is the fourth skill underlined, therefore graphic designers, computer programmers as well as writers must be very familiar with the computer tools of their trade where new media is concerned.

The MediaLinx h@bitat program is as particular about who it admits as the cfc’s resident program. Applicants must submit a portfolio, write an essay about why they want to be there, and be interviewed. The three-and-a-half-month program costs $4,500.

‘If we are uncompromising about who we solicit as students and who we accept there will be some very interesting projects coming out of here,’ says Serrano. ‘We would love the opportunity to develop those as commercially distributable and viable products.’

Serrano expects applicants to be those who want to move into media as well as graduates from under graduate or masters programs who show promise in their particular field.

‘As they learn the four skills they apply them to a project that they create together, and at the end of four months six teams of three will have a prototype or an entire product itself to showcase to industry people,’ explains Serrano.

The Professional Development Series is made up of two separate, but not mutually exclusive, streams – the film and television stream and the new media stream.

Those following the film and television stream will be entering into a software training course specifically related to those mediums such as MovieMagic budgeting, MovieMagic scheduling, Dramatica Pro screenwriting software and storyboard software as well as workshops on things like digital effects and the integration of digital technologies into the filmmaking process.

‘We offered our first workshop in May called Digital Solutions For Motion Picture Problems, and C. O. R. E Digital Pictures along with Cinar Studios came to do an in-depth and helpful workshop on how one should think about special effects,’ says Serrano.

Also as part of the Professional Development Series, MediaLinx h@bitat will offer three workshops, the first of which starts July 14 and consists of five days of digital storytelling taught by a University of Indiana professor who is in the process of developing a masters program in digital storytelling technology.

From July 25-27, in conjunction with Bulloch Entertainment Services, there will be a workshop on MovieMagic budgeting and scheduling. And Aug. 5-8, a professor from the University of Toronto will be leading a workshop on information architecture.

The New Media Stream will focus less on the technology and more on the idea of narrative development in media products such as digital storytelling, character development and the difference between Web-based episodic series and television-based episodic series.