Jathia’s Wager: Open Source Cinema

Maybe because films remain glamorous to some, applying open source ideas to cinema seems to be a perennial favourite. Here's another one, Jathia’s Wager:

Jathia’s Wager is a science fiction story about a young man living in an isolated community of humans, who must make a life changing decision about his future and his species.

Details of its open process:

Step 1: Initial Script is put online, press releases are issued and project is announced to the world (COMPLETED )

Step 2: Script changes and alternative versions are submitted and “hashed out in the forums.” Community votes (hopefully via digg if the community embraces this) on the scripts they like the most.

Step 3: Top 5 scripts are chosen from voting and resources (if you add tons of impossible effects, but no one donates resources to create those, then there’s not much we can do) and posted on the site.

Step 4: Casting / scene scouting starts in Los Angeles (of course everyone is free and encouraged to shoot their own versions as well). Videos and casting stuff will be posted online for the community to contribute to.

Step 5: Shooting, all raw video files are uploaded for the community to edit.

Step 6: Post production, editing, finishing touches, DVD authoring.

Step 7: 5 official versions of the same film are released. Links and posts to all derivatives will be posted in the forums and we’ll have successfully made a collaborative, open-source film that anyone can remake, reedit or reinterpret.

OpenSourceCinema.org

Here's a meme that pops up now and again, an open source film. But this one comes with a twist - it uses a wiki for the script:

This is the script for the film. I'm laying out everything I plan to do or hope to do.

This film is not finished - this film will never be finished [that's what we've been saying for 4 years!]. This writing is not meant to be perfect - instead it is meant to be dynamic. I am not editing myself as I write. I am being open. I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away.

I'm begging for help! Any page in this wikifilm can be edited. If you want to add something you think should be filmed, or that you have filmed, STEP UP! Wise man once say about this site: MORE BOOTY SHAKIN', LESS COUCH POTATIN'!

If thoust thinks the wording can be improved upon or otherwise ameliorated, then thoust must act to change at once!

Every page, except this one, can be edited. (Why? Because this page generates the Table of Contents).

We will create a feature documentary from this wiki. It will play in theaters and on TV. Everyone who contributes will get a credit. So choose your handle wisely.

Below are the chapters of the film as I see them. Please - comment, change, act, create. Changing is not breaking - changing is evolving. Structure is dissolving. Music is revolving.

Tapping into the Digital Tipping Point

For some reason, the idea of open source film is one that exerts a strong fascination on people. I've written about it before, and here's another one:

The Digital Tipping Point film project is an open source film project about the big changes that open source software will bring to our world. Like the printing press before it, open source software will empower average people to create an immense wave of new literature, art, and science.

...


The first DTP film will follow my individual personal growth from being an attorney who feared computer technology to being a community activist who picks up technology tips while shooting this movie, and brings that technology back to a local public school.

So far, so dull, you might think. But more interestingly:

We will make as many films as the open source film community would like to make. The DTP project will actually be many, many films made about free open source software. We are giving away our footage under a Creative Commons license on the Internet Archive's Digital Tipping Point Video Collection.

There's another aspect to this. The 300 or so hours of interviews that have been conducted for this film will form an invaluable record of some of the key people in the open source world, a resource that future historians will be able to tap.

Which reminds me: I really must put online the hundreds of hours of interviews that I did for Rebel Code six years ago: it would make an interesting foil to the present material.

Open Source Cinema in the Raw

The idea of open source cinema, where anyone can hack around with the final version is not new: I've written about it couple times before. But the charmingly-named Stray Cinema is a little different:

Stray Cinema is an online community where you are able to download and re-edit the raw footage from a film we have shot in London. This will provide people from all over the world with an opportunity to create their own version of the film. Stray Cinema will navigate the film experiment out of the online digital world, into the 'real world' with a screening of the top five films in London. The footage shot in London is the first of many open source films to be provided by Stray Cinema.

The footage is under a CC licence. (Via LXer.)

Blender - Star of the First Open Source Film

Blender is one of the jewels in the open source crown. As its home page puts it:

Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.

It's a great example of how sophisticated free software can be - if you haven't tried it, I urge you to do so. It's also an uplifing story of how going open source can really give wings to a project.

Now Blender is entering an exciting new phase. A few days ago, the premiere of Elephant's Dream, the first animated film made using Blender, took place.

What's remarkable is not just that this was made entirely with open source software, but also that the film and all the Blender files are being released under a Creative Commons licence - making it perhaps the first open source film.

Given that most commercial animation films are already produced on massive GNU/Linux server farms, it seems likely that some companies, at least, will be tempted to dive even deeper into free software and shift from expensive proprietary systems to Blender. Whether using all this zero-cost, luvvy-duvvy GPL'd software makes them any more sympathetic to people sharing their films for free remains to be seen....