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Open Source Animated Movie Shows What Can Be Done Today
from the just-think-what-comes-next dept
I had another story planned for our new "case studies" series (see last week's if you missed it), but with the release of Sintel late last week, it jumped the queue, and I put together this quick case study
For years, one of the points we've raised in answering the movie industry's $200 million challenge to us (i.e., "how do you keep making $200 million movies?") is that, in part, it's asking the wrong question. No one asks "how do we keep making $10,000 computers?" Instead, they look for ways to make them cheaper (and better, at the same time). But in the world of Hollywood accounting, there's little incentive to make cheaper movies (sometimes the incentive goes the other way). And, we keep showing how the world is reaching a place where it's cheaper and cheaper to make good movies. We've pointed out nice examples of people making high quality movies for next to nothing. The idea is not that movies should be made for nothing, but that the technology is making it so that movies can be made for less. In fact, with two of the examples of cheap movie making we've highlighted, the makers later went on to score deals to do higher end movies for more reasonable budgets.
Now, lots of people are talking about the excellent new open source, partially crowd funded, computer-animated short-film Sintel:
There are so many important points to make here that relate to stuff we talk about:
For years, one of the points we've raised in answering the movie industry's $200 million challenge to us (i.e., "how do you keep making $200 million movies?") is that, in part, it's asking the wrong question. No one asks "how do we keep making $10,000 computers?" Instead, they look for ways to make them cheaper (and better, at the same time). But in the world of Hollywood accounting, there's little incentive to make cheaper movies (sometimes the incentive goes the other way). And, we keep showing how the world is reaching a place where it's cheaper and cheaper to make good movies. We've pointed out nice examples of people making high quality movies for next to nothing. The idea is not that movies should be made for nothing, but that the technology is making it so that movies can be made for less. In fact, with two of the examples of cheap movie making we've highlighted, the makers later went on to score deals to do higher end movies for more reasonable budgets.
Now, lots of people are talking about the excellent new open source, partially crowd funded, computer-animated short-film Sintel:
- The technology keeps getting better and the cost to do such high quality work keeps decreasing. This movie did cost $550,000 to make -- involving a 14-person team. But, that's a hell of a lot less than it would have cost not so long ago for anything of this level of quality.
- The creators used some crowdfunding: They offered up a bunch of reasons to buy as a way to get people to preorder and pay up front. Note that they didn't just say "please give us money," but provided a bunch of benefits for doing so.
- The release is totally open source: They're using a Creative Commons license that only requires attribution. That is, they have no problem with commercial uses.
- The movie itself is also promoting something else: The movie comes from the Blender Foundation, and helps promote their open source 3D content creation suite, which is helpful for their business. This is a point that we've tried to make many times in the past. All content advertises something, and it's often important to figure out what that is. In this case, Sintel helps "advertise" Blender's tools. It's yet another example of content as advertising, and doing so in a way that's not intrusive or seen as "product placement." If you have content, it's important to realize what that content is advertising.
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Reader Comments (rss)
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I loved this movie.
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Re: I loved this movie.
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Re:
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kevin smith
I believe he wanted a crowd-funded movie. The legal issues are his biggest concerns about it.
this might inspire him
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costs
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Expensive...
While I'm all for supporting the proliferation of open-source projects, charging so much to support a 15-minute short film might deter many from pulling out their wallets.
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I actually suggested this back in 2005 and was told it would never work because of the rights issues of having large numbers of people help pay for the films.
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Re: costs
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Re: I loved this movie.
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Re: Expensive...
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Re:
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Feature film
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Re: costs
Check Elephants Dreams and Bucky Bunny.
Elephants Dream was used by Sony and others to advertise their HD TV's for free at the time.
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My only problem was the ending. It was depressing as hell. I know the story wasn't the main point, but...geez.
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And All Done With Free Software
This is the fourth time (3 movies and one game) that the Blender Foundation has done something like this. Not only do they use Blender heavily, but the projects are also testing grounds for new features added to Blender, just to prove that they are robust enough for industrial-strength use.
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Re: And All Done With Free Software
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Helping people do nifty things
(* I'm one of the devs for Python, which Blender uses as its embedded scripting language: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Extensions/Python)
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Re: Re: And All Done With Free Software
Because the video is all open source.
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Nonetheless film is amazing.
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Re:
I can turn on the news and find a plethora of stories that are depressing. Why bother watching this?
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Re: Re: I loved this movie.
[Through all of that, the original authors (and greatest contributors) will get the most promotion and direct monetary contributions. It's a pyramid kind of thing where a few people tend to get repeat thanks even several generations/forks/derivative works away from the original.]
Anyway, even if you don't want to use the 3d models, feel free to cut scenes from the film and use on your own website, etc. [That's what the copyright license allows.]
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Re: Re:
I tried suggesting that, such as having people sign a disclaimer when they donated their money and I was told that it still wouldn't be possible and that the only way it could be done is if they were selling some kind of product rather than just asking for money to finance the movie(s).
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