Open Source Cinema

The 'sphere has been humming recently to chatter surrounding open source cinema: The Basement Tapes Project, Stray Cinema, The Digital Tipping Point, Swarm of Angels and The Open Road Trip being amongst the most buzzed about examples.

I'm very interested in film and loving the democratisation of production and distribution that YouTube and the other commercial web 2.0 services  have supported. Open source cinema is looking to push this a little further and can be characterised by one or (usually) more of the following criteria:

• Collaborative writing, editing and decision making processes
• The use of OS software such as CinePaint and Blender to produce films
• The release of footage or films under free content licenses or under less liberal licenses that encourage sharing, remixing and reusing (for example, creative commons licensing)

 

Creative Commons UK is currently running Mix & Mash, a remix film competition, sponsored by Google UK, the Arts Council, and Avid. Submissions are being accepted now until the very rapidly approaching 10th of March, so if you do want toenter you'll have to get your mix on pretty darn quick. The four best entries win professional film editing software and hardware (not mention of how open source the bundle might be, my guess is, not).

"Remixing digital content is the basis for this competition. Digital pictures, sound or films licensed through Creative Commons and Public Domain material need to be used. Entrants can use their creativity to remix the work of others with their own. The result will be a collage of original and re-used material.

Submissions can be made under the theme: Britannia Rules / Britannia Sucks – No work should be longer than three minutes."

Comments

[BenP]

We wanted to let you and film enthusiasts know about a new service for all filmmakers and film students that can be seen on www.mymovienetwork.com We are running film contests right now for cash and prizes and we have a place for filmmakers and film festivals to promote their work, events, have a profile and portfolio, use scouting features, write blogs, interact with others through private messages and much more.

[Josie Fraser]

Thanks for letting me know about the site Ben!