Canada Vignettes are a series of short films by the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...

(NFB), some of which aired on

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...

and other Canadian broadcasters as interstitial programs. The vignettes became popular because of their cultural depiction of Canada, and because they represented its changing state, such as the vignette ''Faces'' which was made to represent the increasing cultural and ethnic diversity of Canada. '' The Log Driver's Waltz'' directed by John Weldon set to the recording of the song by Kate & Anna McGarrigle with, and as part of, The Mountain City Four is one of the most-requested items contained in the collection by the

. A similar series was later produced in the 1990s, however the name was changed to

Heritage Minutes ''The Heritage Minutes'' is a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in History of Canada, Canadian history. Published by Historica Canada the ''Minutes'' integrate Canadian history, Canadian folklore, folklore ...

Conception

The idea for ''Canada Vignettes'' began in early 1977, when CBC's

children's programming Children's television series (or children's television shows) are Television show, television programs designed specifically for Child, children. They are typically characterised by easy-going content devoid of sensitive or adult themes and are ...

department at the CBC approached the NFB about producing short films, five minutes in length or less, to use as interstitial programming. When Secretary of State for Canada

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American jurist serving since 2005 as the 17th chief justice of the United States. He has been described as having a Moderate conservatism, moderate conservative judicial philosophy, thoug ...

announced in the fall of 1977 that $13 million would be given to federal cultural agencies to help promote national unity, the NFB was allocated $2 million to produce films for broadcast on the CBC, similar to CBS's '' Bicentennial Minutes'' in the United States, the previous year. The French-language service of the CBC also agreed to broadcast the series.

Production

Eighty filmmakers from across the country worked on the project over a three-year period. Many of the films were

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

vignettes offering amusing portrayals of

Canadian history The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians to North America thousands of years ago to the present day. The lands encompassing present-day Canada have been inhabited for millennia by Indigenous peoples, with di ...

, while others were produced from excerpts of NFB documentaries. The NFB decided that no film credits would be included, only a title.

Broadcast

The CBC's children's department subsequently informed the NFB that it could not show films longer than two minutes as their needs had changed in the time that it took to produce the series. A quarter of the vignettes were more than two minutes long. As a solution, the CBC main network agreed to make the longer and shorter films available to their

network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or a ...

s. ''Canada Vignettes'' were shown on both in

prime time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

and during children's programming slots. The most popular film in the series to air on Canadian television was ''Canada Vignettes: Faces'', an animated short that depicted the faces of Canada, including that of then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Other Canadian television networks to broadcast the films included CTV,

Global Global may refer to: General *Globe, a spherical model of celestial bodies *Earth, the third planet from the Sun Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 198 ...

TVOntario TVO (stylized in all lowercase as tvo), formerly known as TVOntario, is a Canadian Public broadcasting, publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It operates ...

, and TVA. The series was also sold to international foreign broadcasters in such countries as

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, Italy,

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

, Norway and the United Kingdom.

List of Vignettes

References

{{Reflist

External links

Canada - Images of a Country, Vignettes
at the