Ajax mine video won’t be an Oscar contender

A lot of people are saying the Ajax video produced by the company is totally useless.

I’m of a different view — it is not totally useless. It’s only mostly useless. Which means it’s a little bit useful.

Maybe it’s because I didn’t have my 3-D glasses on when I watched it — several times — but it looks a bit fuzzy to me. (They do claim it’s 3D, but it’s actually a combination of regular video, geo-mapping and somewhat primitive animation).

KGHM Mining Inc. – The Video isn’t going to be an Oscar contender.

Don’t think you’re going to watch this three-minute short and learn everything you need to know about the impact the project will have on Kamloops. My advice is to put it on pause and then advance slowly through it, frame by frame.

Pause, for example, at the disclaimer, where the viewer is alerted to the fact that “the information in this presentation is not a substitute for detailed investigation or analysis,” and that it contains “forward-looking statements” – in other words, statements that may or may not prove out over time.

The key part of the video is the illustration of sight lines from six points: Batchelor, Aberdeen elementary, Dufferin, Pineview, Coach Hills and Knutsford Hill Road.

Only Knutsford Hill Road reflects a significant visual impact, where the east dump of the mine will provide a looming, ugly contrast, forever, to what’s left of the grasslands.

What we need is more information on those parts of the city from which the mine will be visible, rather than a focus on places where it won’t.

In its defence, the video is better than nothing at all. Along with the narration about what a fine project it is (did you really expect anything else) it does give some scant indication of the size of this thing. But it falls down completely on providing a comparison of the mine’s foot print with that of the city. Neither does it indicate anything of the city’s growth — it attempts to show how the mine will expand over 23 years, but not how the city will expand towards it.

To sum up, the plot is weak, the dialogue uninspired, and the cinematography is rudimentary. No red carpet for this one.

The only thing that will satisfy people on the visual impact of this behemoth is a proper scale model. Such a model would do nothing to assure the public on environmental issues, but it would help people know what they’ll be looking at. In a forward-looking manner, of course.

On the first day of the video’s release, Norm Thompson was announced as the new community relations manager for the project, succeeding John Froese, who left the position a few months ago.

Thompson, a former finance director with B.C. Lottery Corp., spent part of his first couple of days fielding comments and questions about the video, though he says feedback was “light” and the tone was “mixed.”

Some people were pleased the video was made at all, others wanted it to show more perspectives.

An actual model is a possibility, said Thompson, but the company will have to ponder scale, size and how much land area to include in it.

“We’re expecting to hear more from people. What people want and what we can provide is what we have to try to do.”