''Welcome to Pine Point'' is a 2011 interactive

web documentary A web documentary, interactive documentary, or multimedia documentary is a Documentary film, documentary production that differs from the more traditional forms—Documentary film, video, Radio documentary, audio, Documentary photography, photograp ...

by Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge, collectively known as The Goggles, formerly creative directors of ''

Adbusters The Adbusters Media Foundation is a Canadian-based not-for-profit, pro-environment organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia. Adbusters describes itself as "a global network of artists, activis ...

'' magazine. The website explores the memories of residents from the former

mining community A mining community, also known as a mining town or a mining camp, is a community that houses miners. Mining communities are usually created around a mine or a quarry. Historic mining communities Australia * Ballarat, Victoria * Bendig ...

of Pine Point, Northwest Territories, as well as how we remember the past. The project was produced in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

by 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 fi ...

Production history

Simons and Shoebridge had planned to do a book about the decline of photo albums when they happened upon a website called ''Pine Point Revisited'', created by ex-Pine Point resident Richard Cloutier. Cloutier, who had been known as something of a bully in the community when younger, had since developed

multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This ...

and was dedicating himself to keeping the memory of the now-vanished community alive. Simons had a personal connection with Pine Point, having visited it at the age of nine to attend an

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice ...

tournament. They met with Cloutier who put them in contact with other former residents, known as "Pine Pointers." ''Welcome to Pine Point'' was their first interactive media project. ''Welcome to Pine Point'' was produced by Adam Neilson, with

Rob McLaughlin Rob McLaughlin is a Canadian journalist and digital media producer who is currently the executive producer of the National Film Board of Canada's Digital Studio in Vancouver. McLaughlin was announced as the head of the NFB studio in May 2016, hav ...

as executive producer.

Multimedia

''Welcome to Pine Point'' combines photographs, sound and video clips, interviews, music, and voice over from several characters.

Soundtrack

The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes ( ) are a Canadian indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Formed in 2003 by the husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, the band also includes Kevin Laing (drums), Richard White (guitar), Sheenah Ko (keyboa ...

wrote and performed the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrac ...

for ''Welcome to Pine Point''. The collaboration came about when band member

Jace Lasek Jace Lasek is a Canadian musician and producer living in Montreal. He and his wife Olga Goreas are the principal songwriters for the Montreal-based indie rock band The Besnard Lakes. Lasek plays guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. He is also the ...

was approached by Simons, a high school friend. The soundtrack includes their reworking of the Trooper single, "We're Here For a Good Time (Not a Long Time)." On September 20, 2011 the group released their score for ''Welcome to Pine Point'' as a twelve-inch EP entitled ''You Lived in the City''.

Release

The creators presented the web documentary, using pre-recorded sound for the narration, at the

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 ti ...

. In May 2011, the web documentary won two

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 ...

s, for Documentary: Individual Episode in the Online Film & Video category and Netart in the Websites category. As of June 2011, ''Welcome to Pine Point'' was viewed over 150,000 times. It also won the Sheffield Innovation Award sponsored by

BT Vision BT TV is a subscription IPTV service offered by BT; a division of United Kingdom telecommunications company BT Group, and was originally launched as BT Vision in December 2006. As of the end of June 2019, BT TV had 1.9 million customers. ...

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 s ...

in June, also in 2011. On December 7, 2011, ''Welcome to Pine Point'' was named Best in Web series at the

Digi Awards Digi may refer to: * Short for "digital" as in digicam, digiscale, digiscrap, digibee * Digi Communications, a Romanian telecommunications company in Romania, Hungary, Spain and Italy *Digi International, an American electronics manufacturer *Digi- ...

in Toronto, formerly known as the Canadian New Media Awards.

References

External links

*
''Welcome to Pine Point: An interview with The Goggles''

blog
''Pine Point Revisited''
* {{NFBwebdocs National Film Board of Canada web documentaries Culture of the Northwest Territories Community websites History websites of Canada History of the Northwest Territories Webby Award winners