''Highrise'' is a multi-year, multimedia documentary project about life in residential highrises, directed by

Katerina Cizek Katerina Cizek is a Canadian documentary director and a pioneer in digital documentaries. She is the Artistic Director, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technolog ...

and produced by Gerry Flahive for the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

(NFB). The project, which began in 2009, includes five

web documentaries A web documentary, interactive documentary, or multimedia documentary is a documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—video, audio, photographic—by applying a full complement of multimedia tools. The interactive multim ...

—''The Thousandth Tower'', ''Out My Window'', ''One Millionth Tower'', ''A Short History of the Highrise'' and ''Universe Within: Digital Lives in the Global Highrise''—as well as more than 20 derivative projects such as public art exhibits and live performances. In March 2013, the NFB and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' announced a partnership entitled ''A Short History of the Highrise'', which resulted in four short documentaries about life in highrise buildings, utilizing images from the newspaper's photo archives for the first three films, and user-submitted images for the final film. Until mid-2015, Cizek collaborated with the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

's OpenDocLab unit on developments for the ''Highrise'' project as part of MIT's Visiting Artists Program. In June 2015, ''Universe Within: Digital Lives in the Global Highrise'' was launched as the final installment of ''Highrise''. In addition to awards won by individual webdocs in the series, the ''Highrise'' project received the

Canadian Urban Institute The Canadian Urban Institute is a not-for-profit organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is mandated to pursue both national and international urban issues. The institute operates in several fields related to urban planning and is involve ...

's 2013 Global City and Innovation Urban Leadership Award. The total budget for ''Highrise'' was CAD$2.8 million.

''The Thousandth Tower'' (2010)

The first production in ''Highrise'' is a

citizen media Citizen media is content produced by private citizens who are not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, participatory media and democratic media are related principles. Background "Citizen media" was coined by Clemencia Rodriguez, who ...

project by six residents in a multi-cultural highrise complex in the Toronto neighbourhood of

Rexdale Rexdale is a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located north-west of the central core, in the district of Etobicoke. Rexdale defines an area of several official neighbourhoods north of Highway 401 and east of Highway 427. Rexdale was orig ...

. Project participants were found after a year of research and worked closely with facilitators: Heather Frise, Maria-Saroja Ponnambalam and Katerina Cizek. Residents were provided with digital cameras and a blog and met weekly with filmmakers over a six-month period for training in lighting techniques and writing. The residential complex was a test site in the City of Toronto's plan to renovate and beautify highrise residences.

Release

''The Thousandth Tower'' premiered May 12, 2010 at an event at

Toronto City Hall The Toronto City Hall, or New City Hall, is the seat of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Viljo Revell and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened i ...

''Out My Window'' (2010)

''Out My Window'' is a web documentary exploring the lives of families living in high-rise buildings in 13 cities around the world. The website is produced by

as part its collaborative documentary project ''Highrise''. ''Out My Window'' was shot in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

, Phnom Penh,

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of his ...

, and

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

. Cizek spent one year researching the project prior to starting production in August 2009. To locate characters and stories, Cizek and a team of researchers (Heather Frise, Maria-Saroja Ponnambalam, Paramita Nath) worked with a network of journalists, filmmakers and photographers around the world, directing them remotely from

via

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

and

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

. However, not all communication was so instantaneous: a story from Havana had to be hand-delivered by the photographer, months after it was commissioned, without the chance for any direction from Cizek. Overall, 22 stories had been commissioned, with 9 stories dropped for various reasons during the production process. Photos were digitally combined to create 360-degree scenes, in which viewers can explore the lives of apartment inhabitants, browsing interiors or navigating deeper to view embedded stories. Imaginarius, a

Kitchener, Ontario ) , image_flag = Flag of Kitchener, Ontario.svg , image_seal = Seal of Kitchener, Canada.svg , image_shield=Coat of arms of Kitchener, Canada.svg , image_blank_emblem = Logo of Kitchener, Ontario.svg , blank_emblem_type = ...

-based multimedia production company, collaborated with Highrise Technical Director Branden Bratuhin and worked with over 1,000 photos to produce the 360-degree effect. In Toronto, Amsterdam and Havana, Cizek also used a five-lens, 360-degree camera created by Amsterdam-based tech company Yellowbird to shoot interactive music video sequences.

Release

The site went live in October 2010. ''Out My Window'' was also presented at

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tic ...

in November 2010. It has also been licensed to the

SBS Australia The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from the Australian Government. SBS operates six TV channels ( SBS, SBS Viceland, SBS World ...

website.

Awards

''Out My Window'' received the inaugural IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling. In April 2011, it received the International Digital Emmy Award in the category of digital program: non-fiction. In April 2011, the web documentary was nominated for a

Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories includ ...

for Best Use of Photography in the Websites category. On May 10, 2011, ''Out My Window'' received the New Media Award at the

One World Media One World Media is a non-profit organisation, registered in the UK as a charitable trust. It is based in London. The charities mission is to support strong vibrant and independent media that empowers citizens, promotes justice and contributes to in ...

Awards.

''One Millionth Tower'' (2011)

''One Millionth Tower'' is a 2011 NFB interactive web documentary by Katerina Cizek that gives people living in residential skyscrapers the opportunity to work with

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s and

animators An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games ...

to reimagine their homes in 3D

virtual space Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), edu ...

. The project focuses on two high-rise apartment buildings in

Etobicoke Etobicoke (, ) is an administrative district of, and one of six municipalities amalgamated into, the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the city's west-end, Etobicoke was first settled by Europeans in the 1790s, and the municipalit ...

. The webdoc allows users to navigate through their high-rise neighborhood, displaying the current state of urban decay, then activating features to show how residents would change their world, such as an animation showing where a new playground or garden would go. ''One Millionth Tower'' also features images from

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and profession ...

Google Street View Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive panoramas from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expan ...

s and real-time weather data from

Yahoo Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...

. According to

transmedia Transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling) is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. From a producti ...

creator Anita Ondine Smith, NFB interactive projects like ''One Millionth Tower'' are helping to position Canada as a major player in digital storytelling. ''One Millionth Tower'' was originally planned by Cizek as a linear

animated documentary The animated documentary (also known as anidoc) is a moving image form that combines animation and documentary. This form should not be confused with documentaries about movie and TV animation history that feature excerpts. History The fi ...

about reinvigorating urban housing complexes, showcasing residents’ ideas for improving their homes in the tower, but evolved into an interactive project in 3-D space. ''One Millionth Tower'' was influenced by the NFB's ''

Challenge for Change Challenge for Change (French: ''Societé Nouvelle'') was a participatory film and video project created by the National Film Board of Canada in 1967, the Canadian Centennial. Active until 1980, Challenge for Change used film and video production t ...

'' program for participatory media, which put media creation into the hands of citizens in the 1960s and 70s.

Technology

''One Millionth Tower'' was created using

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...

WebGL WebGL (Short for Web Graphics Library) is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelera ...

, Three.js and other open source JavaScript libraries, and utilizes

Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...

's Popcorn.js technology to add interactivity to its online videos. Utilizing Mozilla's Web-based graphics library, ''One Millionth Tower'' is the first 3D web documentary to not require an

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...

plug-in.

Release

''One Millionth Tower'' premiered simultaneously on Wired.com and the Mozilla Festival in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

on November 5, 2011. Beginning January 2012, excerpts were being screened in

Toronto subway The Toronto subway is a rapid transit system serving Toronto and the neighbouring city of Vaughan in Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It is a multimodal rail network consisting of three heavy-capacity rail ...

stations.

Awards

''One Millionth Tower'' was named Best Original Program Produced for Digital Media, Non-Fiction at the

1st Canadian Screen Awards The 1st Canadian Screen Awards were held on March 3, 2013, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television, and digital media production in 2012.

Release

''A Short History of the Highrise ''premiered as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, i ...

Convergence program on September 30, 2013 and online at NYTimes.com in October.

Awards

In April 2014, it received a Peabody Award. In June 2014, it received the Sheffield Innovation Award from the 2014

Sheffield Doc/Fest Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest), short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The Festival includes film sc ...

. In the fall of 2014, it received a

News and Documentary Emmy Award The News & Documentary Emmy Awards, or News & Documentary Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Scien ...

. In February 2015, ''A Short History of the Highrise'' was named Best Original Program or Series produced for Digital Media - Non-Fiction at the

3rd Canadian Screen Awards The 3rd Canadian Screen Awards were held on March 1, 2015, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television, and digital media production in 2014.CityLab ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

''. The project hired 14 residents in a Toronto highrise complex who went door-to-door to neighbors about their digital lives, and found that 80% of households had Internet access either at home or through their mobile device, despite their low-income status. This led Cizek to conclude that "there’s a real, invisible story here that we’re not seeing in the media or even in academic literature about how the digital maps out in the vertical, so we went to over 20 locations around the world, to speak with eople– through local journalists and photographers – and to find stories of how the digital and the vertical intersect in really intimate, personal and political ways." ''Universe Within'' users are asked to choose between three avatars who discuss their own personal histories and guide viewers through the story based on their input. Cizek has called the project is what the director calls "a whole larger than the sum" of previous ''Highrise'' installments, combining the international aspects of previous projects with deeper community-based research. ''Universe Within'' incorporates research by Deborah Cowen, an associate professor of geography at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

and colleague Emily Paradis, a senior research associate whose work focuses on economic disparity, to look at how residents in low-income highrises use technology to combat isolation and the digital divide. Stories include a person with ALS in Tokyo, an ex-convict in Harlem, a Saudi woman comic and a UN-sponsored refugee in Toronto, as well as residents in

Worli Worli (ISO: ''Varaḷī'', �əɾ(ə)ɭiː is a locality in South Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is one of the four peninsulas of Mumbai while the other being Colaba, Bandra and Malabar Hill. The sea connects it with Bandra via the B ...

, a Mumbai neighbourhood, who resist the expropriation of their homes in the

Campa Cola Compound Campa Cola Compound Case is based on the judicial process, and the controversy over the Campa Cola Compound, an apartment complex in the southern part of Worli in South Mumbai, India. History The residents claim that they bought the apartme ...

. ''Universe Within'' took Cizek and the NFB four years to make and cost CAD $628,000.

Technology

Cizek has stated that ''Universe Within'' is the most technologically advanced of all the ''Highrise'' projects, using

point cloud Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Poin ...

data to create the avatars through a collaboration with Highrise Technical Director Branden Bratuhin and Toronto-based digital agency, Secret Location.

Awards

On March 8, 2016, ''Universe Within'' received the award for Best Original Interactive Production Produced for Digital Media at the 4th Canadian Screen Awards. At the 2016 Webby Awards, ''Universe Within'' received the Webby for Online Film & Video/Best Use of Interactive Video.

References

External links

* (requires

) * {{NFBwebdocs Architecture websites Documentary web series Residential skyscrapers National Film Board of Canada web documentaries Peabody Award winners Peabody Award-winning websites Canadian Screen Award winners Webby Award winners