Eldon Rathburn: They Shoot... He Scores

When William Shatner gets a Lifetime Achievement Award from Canada's Governor General, he shows appreciation as only Shatner can. In this short film, the most famous space cadet in showbiz takes helm of our heritage and treats us to a memorable rendition of Canada's national anthem.

Produced by the National Film Board of Canada in co-operation with the National Arts Centre and the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards Foundation on the occasion of the 2011 Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.

Watch more NFB comedy here.

These provocative 20-minute movies made by high school students provide an insider's look at youth culture. Made by four 17-year-old directors with help from a professional crew, Salt is a four-part filmzine: four films, four flavours, four windows into youth culture that explore alternative education, Montreal's flourishing independent music scene, the troubling practice of self-mutilation and a quest for the punk subculture.

This feature doc tells the story of the improbable friendship between acclaimed Quebec singer Félix Leclerc and the intriguing Frank Randolph Macpherson. A chemical engineer from Jamaica, Macpherson immigrated to Quebec in 1917 and was the inspiration for the popular song that Leclerc named after him. But this is also a story about memory: it was animator Martine Chartrand’s memory of this song that compelled her to create the striking animated short MacPherson, made by filming paintings on glass using 35mm film. A sympathetic look at an artist at work, Finding Macpherson takes audiences on a personal journey, exploring the imperceptible yet powerful connections that bind us to each other.

This short documentary takes a frank look at the difficulty of filmmaking before the digital era, when takes were precious and few. It’s pure havoc on a pier in the Halifax dockyards as a National Film Board crew attempts to film 1000 Halifax school children playing I Believe in Music on their ukuleles. The crew's efforts are confounded by two destroyers, one helicopter, several tugboats, bullhorns, walkie-talkies, and a rather critical lack of bathroom facilities.

In this animated short, filmmaker Chris Hinton and composer Michael Oesterle leap back and forth between picture and sound. The dynamic movement of Hinton's visual art dances in syncopation with the bold musical strokes of an original modern classical composition. Without words.

This abstract film, full of rich colours and textures, was created thanks to an inventive use of digital technology. It grew out of an unusual process of interchange between the painter Jean Detheux and the composer Jean Derome. The result is a rare meeting of images and music. What we get is an intense meditation on a world in constant renewal, where every form that emerges is immediately engulfed by the next one. It constitutes a sort of diptych with the film Rupture, which follows. A film without words.

In this short animation film, the "boogie" is played by Albert Ammons and the "doodle" is drawn by Norman McLaren. Made without the use of a camera, Boogie-Doodle is a rhythmic, brightly coloured film experiment.

This animated short from Malcolm Sutherland is an engaging dance of shapes and sounds. The "game" is played by opening the box, unfolding the board and placing shapes on it that you manipulate with your hands. There are no winners or losers in this game; the fun is in the creative way the forms unfold. Features a score by Luigi Alleman and music by Ravi Shankar.

The Wobble Incident is an erratic journey through layers of cinematic illusion. When the First Sound rings out in a silent cartoon world, two characters experience momentous change as their universe goes bananas. NOTE: While the original version of this film is a 3D animation produced on Sandde, the streaming version is available in 2D only.

A gay fantasia of patterned sound in which Norman McLaren salutes the West Indies, painting the spirit of fiesta on film to the lively beat of an island tune by Trinidad's Grand Curacaya Orchestra.

Luigi Allemano is an animator, musician, composer, teacher and sound designer. In this workshop, he presents several short animation films in various stages of music production, demonstrating the process of creating music for animated film. Using interactive exercises and discussion, Luigi offers musicians some tricks of the trade for composing music for animation. This master class is also aimed at animators, covering effective ways to communicate, collaborate and create with music composers