Opening address at the 4th Rencontres internationales du documentaire and Franco-American co-productions

Montreal, Wednesday, February 7, 2007

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First of all, I would like to thank Yves Jeanneau and Jean Cressant for inviting me to say a few words to introduce the “General-interest Channels and New Platforms” forum to open these fourth Rencontres Internationales du documentaire, which decided Montreal was the perfect place for its launch in Quebec and Canada.

Of course, I am also here to represent my wife, the Governor General of Canada, who sends her warmest regards and hopes the Rencontres will be very successful.

I must confess that, as a filmmaker and documentarian, I am pleased to see a number of colleagues and partners in the room today with whom I have had (and continue to have) the great pleasure of making films or taking part in the Rencontres Internationales du documentaire de Montréal and the Canadian Documentary Network for the past seven years.

For over twenty years, documentaries have given me the chance to go places I never would have gone had I not been making films examining identities, nationalism, exile, revolutions, barbarism, the relationship between artists and politics, freedom, tolerance, racism and mutual openness. I have learned that documentaries let us discover what “Other” really is; they are about knowledge and sharing with the public.

I have been on a similar path since we arrived in Ottawa in September 2005. We have tried to create new forums for reflection and dialogue within the institutional framework, the non-partisan office of the de facto Head of State of Canada. We are testing these new democratic models of communication by using—and developing—our Citizen Voices (en français – À l’écoute des citoyens) Web site, which we launched in September 2006. For the first time, the Governor General of Canada can speak with the people of Canada directly by “chatting.”

New information technologies are unique tools to enhance citizen dialogue. Their development is inevitable, but traditional media outlets and politicians clearly do not fully understand the challenges of this radical shift.

As Joël de Rosnay said, after the mass media, these are the new platforms that constitute the media for the masses; they emerge quasi-spontaneously, stimulated by the latest information and communication technologies. These transformations, more or less implicitly, drive the development of new esthetics and new economic models.

These new platforms are currently changing the relationship between politics and the citizen. Individuals have less and less affiliations, like free electrons… they have fewer ties to the Church, to the family, to the State, and therefore to politics. Little by little, people are gathering in communities of like-minded individuals. We see it on our Citizen Voices Web site… people create networks around and spark debates about very specific themes. We are only beginning to measure how these significant changes impact civil society, political life and culture.

But with regard to the subject at hand, the documentary, how can we make an assessment and paint a picture of the future?

New “professional” tools enable people to move from being simple consumers to being creators, some even referring to themselves as pro-ams (professional amateurs).

New technological devices allow them to create perfectly viable—and distributable—digital content with image, sound, graphic, video and text quality that rivals the quality standards that, until now, only the mass media could attain.

These new technologies and new platforms therefore have a real impact on production and distribution, which, up to now, were exclusively reserved to the mass media.

Last November, Rideau Hall, the Governor General’s official residence in Ottawa, hosted the first of its Art Matters (Point des arts) discussions, which take a detailed look at creation and its future in Canada. This first discussion focussed on the audiovisual arts and new technologies in the field. For example, representatives from homelessnation.org—a Web site for homeless Canadians—told us about the videos they make and then post on the Internet, thereby creating thousands of short films and testimonials. Using new technologies, and with very little money, people without a real address, people who are rarely heard, now have a forum and a means of speaking out.

In our information society, the economy of scale is faltering, shaken by new technologies in its autocratic, monopolistic model. It costs almost nothing today to reproduce digital content and distribute it, not only instantly, but globally. We cannot escape the fact that funding, creation, production and distribution models for documentaries need a short-term review and restructuring.

If we believe Joël de Rosnay’s observations in “La révolte du pronétariat,” it is the actual creative process that changes with new technologies and the resulting intellectual behaviour: [Translation] Collaborative or interactive creation requires collective intelligence networks and not pyramid-like human organizations.”

We will therefore witness (and are in fact already witnessing) a confrontation between those who have the means of producing and distributing information and those who, until quite recently, we believed belonged to the category of viewers and readers, those we considered passive users.

But times have changed: the relationship between the creator, the work and the viewer is undergoing a transformation.

There is a new category of digital network users who are capable of producing, diffusing and even selling non-proprietary digital content.

A recently-published article in the Le Monde—dated Tuesday, January 30, 2007—indicated that YouTube is considering paying its subscribers. On January 27, Chad Hurley, one of the community site’s three co-founders, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that they were considering sharing revenues with their users. Over 70 million videos are viewed daily on the site, which might start paying its subscribers within the next few months, mostly to develop the site’s content.

Obviously, this is the issue at hand and what is forcing us to think quickly, before we pull the plug on conventional television.

In the context of this ever-changing information society, it would be useful to know what drives the Web generation, for whom YouTube and Daily Motion are a daily source of exchange, information and distribution.

John-Paul Lepers, a French journalist who left conventional television to launch the Télé-Libre Web site, offers a partial answer. He said that the Internet is essentially a democratic media, whereas, in a way, television is a totalitarian media.

Another example is those seasoned Washington Post journalists who left their renowned paper to create the “The Politico” Web site. They said they wanted to practice a different kind of political journalism.

In the same spirit, Karl Zéro, another French journalist who defected from television to the Internet, said that the Web represents a new kind of freedom, far from the censors, ringing telephones and pressure from management.

The Web certainly eliminates the constraints of space and time that determine the organization of programming and formatting of production. The Internet is clearly a new possible form for television. But will (and more importantly, can) this new form replace the television that we are familiar with today?

Currently, the economic model for the new television is embryonic; it has not really been defined, we cannot move any further ahead until it has.

For the time being, its attraction lies in that seductive euphoria of freedom (editorial freedom, freedom in terms of time and format) and on a promise of democratic ethics that give voice to those without one and thwarts censors.

If he is able to sort out the rights, this is how John-Paul Lepers is counting on broadcasting his movie Madame on his Télé-Libre Web site. Canal + refused to air the film, dedicated to Bernadette Chirac, because they found it irreverent.

So, is the Internet a democratic media? Perhaps, it is promising and the utopia is working for now. However, we should remain cautious. Does it not risk imitating television in the medium term? Or is it still too often required to be the support, a promotion tool for conventional television when it provides Internet sites? In order to distinguish itself, it will have to invent new formats, a different writing style, and it will especially have to take into account an alternative economy. There is still a ways to go.

Either way, the excitement of the Web and these new platforms was shocking (no doubt in a good way) to conventional television, before introducing a resistance and interrogation movement that is in keeping with the inventions.

In fact, after the threat, today the Internet seems to be a trendy branch of conventional television. We will no doubt have a chance later to recall and discuss the various experiences of a number of channels in Canada and abroad, the representatives of which are here in the room.

YouTube is very popular in Canada. However, Radio-Canada has created and developed its own Web site and the NFB, a veritable Aladdin’s cave of animation and documentaries, has made a part of its treasure trove available on the Web, and created a specific site, CitizenShift/Parole Citoyenne that has had undeniable success. It is making an increasingly big impact as an interactive public network model, open to documentary filmmakers and national and even international dialogue.

To this I must add the Rideau Hall example. During her installation speech, the Governor General defined the nature of her work and her mandate in three words: breaking down solitudes. With that, she began a pan-Canadian and international discussion that I felt was completely compatible with the democratic potential of the Web. With the advice and expertise of Patricia Bergeron and Yves Bisaillon, who designed and administer CitizenShift for the NFB, I was able to put together a small team with whom I set up the interactive Citizen Voices site, which, in a few short months, allowed the institution we represent to trade in a communication and public relations model that was barely out of the 19th century for an interactive network that belongs in the 21st Century. With this site, we have been able to breathe new life into the role and institution of governor general and Canadians are paying attention like never before.

So, does that mean that good old television is not long for this world?

Technically, it is true that innovations are happening at a mile a minute. Digital is growing globally and analog will soon disappear from our screens. 3D will radically change our perception of images. Already, French presidential candidates created virtual, animated campaign headquarters in the game Second Life, and anyone could visit them right on their computer screens. High-definition is gaining ground and most homes already have digital entertainment centres. Downloading is increasingly changing the habits of those who purchase images and sound.

The mobile culture (iPod, iPTV, iTV, Mobisode) has radically altered the way music and films are received and used. Mobile media is not only wireless, but it also has no ties to space or time. The spectator is no longer a captive of the movie theatre or living room. Products can be viewed anywhere and at any time of day.

So how can we take into account all the places and times the spectator will consume the content?

Interactive television is changing how we watch television, with features such as playback and programming on demand, in connection with video on demand, which frees the viewer from the constraints of a schedule.

At this stage, it is certain that conventional television no longer has a choice and has only one course of action, as stated by my friend André Caron, director of CITÉ at the University of Montréal: [Translation] “Television has no choice but to form an alliance with the Web if it wants to maintain its relationship with the public and its influence on future generations.”

Otherwise, it is dying, or already dead. Jean-Louis Missika wrote: [Translation] “Television is drowning in a sea of screens, terminals, networks, laptops and cell phones. It is everywhere and yet nowhere.”

I think a television-Web partnership could bring new life to conventional television, maybe even revamp it completely. There is also the possibility of a revival in documentaries.

It is therefore better to think of our father’s television as dying a peaceful death and then being reincarnated as a result of the Web. This partnership is unavoidable and will allow the best of television to be saved: its ability to rally us together, to participate in major event, witness historic moments and important debates. Television will continue to meet the spectator’s need to sometimes be a passive observer, filled with wonder; but on the other hand, in its partnership with the Web, television will have the chance to develop into a medium for sharing, exchange and dialogue.

However, it will consequently have to share time, space and money with other broadcast platforms, platforms that may be complementary or competitive. Television will be one broadcast platform among many. And it already is. We will have to rethink how programs are made, and, as for us here today, how documentaries are made, produced, directed, shown, and distributed. We will also have to re-examine how to respect cultural diversity, administer rights and protect the works themselves.

We therefore need to invent new ways of accommodating and funding the documentary while protecting its uniqueness as a creative work that is based on analysis and reflection. Because what matters to those who create on the Internet is not the recognition of their work as art itself, but the recognition of the message, and therefore recognition from the community. In order to show works to people who are used to new esthetics, will this movement force film professionals to unlearn how to create images?

The Internet and digital revolutions call into question how content is produced, written and diffused. On the whole, they question our relationship with the image, images, the imaginary, the true, the false, truth and lies.

Where is reality? Who takes the time for analysis, to step back? Who guarantees the truth of the image? We see more, but are we able to better understand?

Are we headed towards a world in which the growth of the virtual world will drive us, not towards an openness to one another and the world, but towards a withdrawal into our fears and skeletons?

Do the democratization of meaning and the strengthening of ethics go hand in hand with giving everyone access to the use of the image to express themselves, to create, communicate, exchange, as well as challenge, question and denounce?

Because the issues of meaning and ethics—and not only the issue of the means—are behind the social and cultural challenge of the new productions made possible by the combined support of new technologies and new platforms.

To discourage the worst from happening—withdrawal, isolation, virtual confinement—and to encourage the best—improved socialization, participation in democratic life, the humanization of humanity—we must invent new ways of bringing together people, energy and talent, in new networks of meaning, around new economic models for alternative funding. Because in order to maintain the role and place of the documentary—which is as vital to democratic societies as oxygen is to the ecosystem—we must protect authors and preserve the duty and role of creators.

The expertise of conventional television in this field is important, its successes as much as its failures, if you will forgive me this partisan opinion.

It is also urgent that television, already terribly bombarded by the multiplication of specialty channels, do a quick reassessment in light of the Web revolution. Some stations are already leading the way, after realizing that the Web could catapult them in to the 21^st century. They could also invent (or rediscover) the initial general-interest mandate they lost along the way, mistreated by the grip of entertainment at any cost as the ultimate solution to their audience crisis, one final plea before self-destructing.

So, why shouldn’t the Web be the future of television? And, if I may suggest, a new way of making documentaries?