Extended project's description

Contrary to what is often believed, there are still many areas left to explore. Among these territories, film can be carriers of fundamental information for understanding the spatial organization of our societies and their evolution. Through the environments they represent, films reflect local or national identities, simultaneously contributing to the production of these identities. Films are carrying a geographical discourse structured by the different places they are associated. These places correspond to cinematographic territories that can be grouped into three broad categories: (1) production territories, which includes places of decision-making, shooting and editing; (2) territories of distribution: generally regarded as areas of spatial influence, structured around urban centers, where most cinemas can be found; and (3) diegetic territories, corresponding to the locations in which the action of a film takes place. These can be geographically specific (e.g. a district of Montreal) or more general (e.g. Northern Canada), they may include different types of spaces (e.g. suburb, downtown, border), different landscapes, representing different communities or different socio-cultural backgrounds.

In this research project, we propose to geographically and cartographically study the different Canadian cinematographic territories at the local, provincial, national and international levels, so as to provide some answers to the following questions:

What are the privileged places, depreciated or ignored by the Canadian cinema?

How are structured contemporary Canadian cinematographic territories and what are the links between those territories and geographical space?

How to represent these different types of territories to advance our understanding of their organization?

To provide some answers to these questions, we propose a two-step process. A first step in creating a geographic database of the contemporary Canadian cinematographic territories. While many datasets about production and distribution territories are available, data about the diegetic territories are not available. They must be created from a rigorous and systematic analysis of all films produced in Canada over the past years (2005 and 2006). This analysis will be conducted using a geographical reading-grid specifically designed for this purpose. Once these various data are collected and structured within a geographic information system (GIS), they should be studied in order to show the relationships and trends characterizing these geographic territories. This second stage will require the development of new forms of visual - and auditory - representations, able to stimulate users' exploration, imagination and reflection. The creation of new forms of cartographic representation is made necessary by the tenor of the cinematographic territories that combine audio and visual elements, spatial and temporal scales fluctuating and multiple, quantized and estimated data. The concept of Cybercartography provides an particularly suitable environment for this type of approach, as it seeks to understand the changing nature of maps, looking simultaneously at their technological, scientific and artistic aspects to promote the geographical analysis of new forms of territories. This concept, developed as part of a broad interdisciplinary research program conducted at Carleton University (Ottawa) and funded by SSHRC, will therefore draw the outlines of a new post-national Canadian geography inspired by the systematic, rigorous and original study of its cinematographic territories.

"Google mashup" of Canadian Movie Theaters

The Google "Mashup" consists of the launch of our Canadian movie theaters database (which can be updated by visitors), on a Google Maps background. The term "mashup" here refers to a web application combining content from several sources (ie: database and map backgrounds Googles Maps).

Cybercartographic Atlas

This atlas is experimental. Its objective is to study the way in which cybercartography can expand our knowledge of cinematographic territories and, conversely, how cinema can inspire the development of new forms of cybercartographic expression.

Atlas Videos

In case you don't have a high speed Internet Connexion or a recent version of Safari or Firefox, you can look at 3 videos to have a sense of the content of the atlas.