2007 CNMAs see strong BC showing, new Telus/CFC scholarship handed out

After last year's record attendance, the bar was set high for the 2007 edition of the Canadian New Media Awards. The event didn't disappoint: interactive media players, from the most established to the most embryonic, were feted for their accomplishments before what appeared to be another sold-out crowd.Toronto's MyThum Interactive Inc. took home the Company of the Year award on the strength of its work with some of Canada's biggest corporations in the mobile interactivity space.President and CEO Michael Carter says that since his firm was founded in 2002, Canadian companies have gradually shifted in their thinking toward using mobile platforms as a means to reach audiences and push messages. Until a year or so ago, he says, many clients simply built mobile interaction into a campaign or particular project as one building block, not as a major piece of the content.Evidence of that shift from tactical to strategic for mobile interactivity can be found in MyThum's work with Canada's two biggest private broadcasters. Through a partnership with Telus Corp., MyThum powers the viewer voting system for CTV Inc.'s Canadian Idol, as well as Case Game, a text message-based competition based on CanWest Global Communications Corp.'s broadcast of Deal or No Deal.Carter also says the firm is diversifying beyond its main interactive SMS business to include mobile video content and "dabble in interactive television, leveraging mobile as a way to control programming," Carter says. "Video will be integrated into what we do more and more, but it hasn't really been a big play yet."Newly founded Vancouver design firm Subject Matter Inc. won kudos - and the Excellence in News, Information award - for its Filmmaker-in-Residence project with the National Film Board of Canada. The project marries embedded filmmaking with blogging to create a content portal with a social conscience."We're very honoured to have worked with the NFB, and we look forward to doing more work with them," says Loc Dao, one of the firm's principals and founders.As Dao explained to Canadian NEW MEDIA in an earlier interview, the four partners making up Subject Matter have a common employment history: they all have either worked or continue to work at CBC's cutting-edge, multi-platform indie music offering, Radio 3.While it may seem odd that practitioners of the oldest electronic mass medium have wound up collaborating with the country's premier incubator and exporter of cinematic talent to make content for yet another emerging medium, Dao says the transition is more intuitive than it appears."We found when the Web came around that it was a very natural fit for radio people to work on Web stories," he says. "I think it's because we were used to drawing pictures with words, so in a way we were working with a visual medium."One artist used to working with a century-old media who believes in a digital future is Jason DaSilva, a young filmmaker who won the Emerging Innovator of the Year award for his works fusing film and the Internet."I think film's dying - I really feel like film is on its way out," DaSilva says, referring more to the old notions of what constitutes cinema than the way it's been adapting to the online era.Interestingly, all three finalists in the category honed their chops at Vancouver's Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. DaSilva, who graduated from the school in 2001, is currently furthering his education with a master's program.As part of his CNMA win, however, he'll also receive $8,500 in tuition for the TELUS Interactive Art and Entertainment Program at the Canadian Film Centre's Media Lab in Toronto. Those courses begin in the spring of 2008."I think the Canadian Film Centre will really help me," DaSilva says. "Film is...a one-way street a lot of the time. The beautiful thing about the Web and other new media is that we can actually have a dialogue that goes back and forth between the user and the person who's creating it."2007 CANADIAN NEW MEDIA AWARD WINNERSMost Promising New Company of the YearHothead Games, Vancouver BCExcellence in Children’sToopy and Binoo/Toupie et Binou, Tribal Nova, Montreal QCEducator of the YearRobert Washburn, Loyalist College, Belleville ONExcellence in News, InformationNFB Filmmaker-in-Residence, Subject Matter Inc., Vancouver BCProducer of the YearMatthew Hornburg, marblemedia, Toronto ONExcellence in Culture, Lifestyle ArtsTerminus1525.ca, Zinc Roe New Media, Toronto ONDesigner of the YearJacqueline Jung, Fjord Interactive/Cossette Communications, Vancouver BCExcellence in Cross-PlatformReGenesis Extended Reality Game II, Xenophile Media, Toronto ONEmerging Innovator of the YearJason DaSilva, In Your Face Films, Vancouver BCExcellence in LearningIndependent Learning Centre, TVOntario, Toronto ONExcellence in the Use of Social Mediacafesonique.com, Winnipeg MBProgrammer of the YearRyan Andal, Toronto ONExcellence in GamingCaptain Flamingo: Uh-Oh Flamingo, Breakthrough New Media, Toronto ONCompany of the YearMyThum Interactive Inc., Toronto ONSpecial Recognition AwardSheldon Levy, Ryerson University, Toronto ON

2007 CNMAs see strong BC showing, new Telus/CFC scholarship handed out

Broadcast | May 30, 2007

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