MF: Should this be done at school? Maybe. But schools are not production studios. They have a mandate to teach, not necessarily produce. The NFB is a production studio and has the chance to offer an experience supported by decades of expertise. These are profoundly different. A school couldn’t do this on its own because no school has the depth of production expertise and knowledge of the NFB. (Note from JD: As a teacher, I can say that time and again I have seen students almost getting “there” in terms of finding something through and in their work that would get them fired up and on the path to their own self-discovery, and not just as artists, only to be forced to drop it — or drop out — in order to keep up with the curriculum. I have also witnessed, countless times, doors being shut on a student’s interest in the name of “we already have enough students working in that ‘style,’ we need to have more students working in other styles now.”)

JD: Where does the Hothouse fit, in the NFB big picture?

MF: … the Hothouse is an ideal complement to the other mandate of the NFB: to build on its legacy of excellence and innovation in animation and to nurture, sustain and challenge a Canadian filmmaking community. The Hothouse films, modest and compressed in production though they are, still must be able to stand on their own feet amongst some of the greatest animation films ever made. No other entity in this country can challenge filmmakers in this way. It’s precisely that balance and that intermingling, between the best and most accomplished of our filmmakers and the rawest fledglings of filmmakers, that effects such profound social change, that produces the best even amongst the youngest and newest, and that challenges and feeds all filmmakers.

JD: How is the Hothouse being perceived within the NFB as a whole?

MF: The Animation Hothouse has become something of a model within some parts of the NFB. And it has generated enthusiasm for the challenges to adapt and evolve that come with such a radically different way of making complete, professional film. I believe it’s a good model because it’s well-designed and comprehensive, with explicit parameters and objectives. Maybe, more importantly, its fit within the Animation Studio is also model, it represents only a modest part of our overall program, and is but a modest part of my own producing dossier. So there is no compromising of our larger, regular program, which remains effectively unchanged.

JD: Is it having an impact outside of the NFB Animation Studio?

MF: Hothouse has also spawned (or emerged simultaneously with) a handful of other programs in NFB studios across the country: Shortz and Picture This in BC [British Columbia]; Nunavut Hothouse; Momentum (documentary) in Ontario.

JD: Where do you see it heading?

MF: This iteration of Hothouse needs time to play itself out to a natural conclusion, so I expect it to remain more or less unchanged for the next year or so. The themes may change (someone has suggested that the next sessions address earth, air and fire, to add to water), but the other main criteria and objectives will remain fundamental to the whole experience.

Conclusion by Jean:
In the next article, we will be looking at the work of the first group of animators who went through the Hothouse experience. I am particularly intrigued by the role and influence of the “mentoring directors,” Chris Hinton for the first group, Janet Perlman for the second one. As I have been working with 12- and 13-year-old budding digital artists for the past four years or so (as a volunteer teacher), I am very acutely aware of the need for programs similar to the Hothouse, and though these programs are an absolute necessity, they are also incredibly rare. This is one more of those precious things that should be popping up right and left, yet I am not surprised it has been initiated by the NFB and found almost nowhere else.

Only in Canada, eh?

Jean Detheux is an artist who, after several decades of dedicated work with natural media, had to switch to digital art due to sudden severe allergies to paint fumes. He is now working on ways to create digital 2D animations that are a continuation of his natural media work. He has been teaching art in Canada and the U.S., and has works in many public and private galleries.