#WeAreTheChange: Celebrating 150 Years, the Right Way
For the 150th anniversary of confederation, the RTA program is collaborating with the CBC on a new series of mini-documentaries. This series is called #WeAreTheChange, and showcases local Canadian changemakers from the Pacific to the Atlantic provinces and territories. This collaboration (which is also overseen by White Pine Pictures), offers undergrad and masters students the opportunity to create high quality content within a professional timeline. It also offers students a glimpse into the tremendous amount of preparation that goes into producing a successful vignette.
Aside from the obvious experience this collaboration provides, it raises some interesting points regarding how far transmedia has come. During the last celebration of confederation in 1967, transmedia obviously did not exist in the way we know it today. Instead, events such as Montreal’s Expo ’67 were staged to showcase Canada’s creativity and innovation, and it attracted citizens from coast to coast.
Along with this, CBC Television broadcast performances by notable singer-songwriters such as Gordon Lightfoot, whose “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” of songs, helped ignite a renewed interest in Canadiana. Bobby Gimby’s “Ca-Na-Da (The Centennial Song)” was the anthem of the summer that best captured the spirit of the time. These examples — a live event, television broadcasts, and recorded music — were the precursors to modern transmedia.
Now, with the help of modern technology, Canadians from all across the country can share their stories with the push of a button. Like the creation of the national railway in 1885, the internet has completely connected all thirteen regions.
My group has the pleasure of documenting the story of a young man from the Yukon, a territory so distant from Toronto that it may as well be a planet away. Through this project, I am meeting a fellow Canadian from a completely different walk of life, that I otherwise would have been unlikely to ever hear about — this is the very essence of #WeAreTheChange.
The purpose of all of this, in my opinion, is that since Canada is so vast and multicultural, we lack a single unifying national identity, like the United States has.
Instead, what makes us distinctly Canadian are our individual voices, and the sole thread that runs through them is a set of ideals and values that are unlike anywhere else in the world.
The contest and resulting series will tell Canada’s stories across multiple platforms like no event, single broadcast, or song ever could. This meets the mandate of RTA and the Transmedia Zone, and will truly celebrate Canada’s conception in a special way.
-Julian Muia
