Life Without Wires

A couple of friends of mine shared this movie with me:
Sita Sings the Blues

Its lovely. This is how it should be done. Its Creative Commons, which means its free to share. I love when people go this way with their work. Of course, you need lots of talent. The director (Nina Paley) describes her approach really well:

People have been making money in Free Software for years; it’s time for Free Culture to follow

I can’t wait to download the whole thing and watch it. Maybe I’ll organise a screening…hmmm….

Lisa Salem writes here about how Bob Dylan deliberately built a new audience at a time he needed a change, which he explains in his autobiography Chronicles. The line between music and video is very blurry these days. The tools of the trades are now very similar, and nowadays I’m just as likely to be able to bring a projector and my movie and ‘play a gig’ at a venue as a musician.  I filled in for a musician at Piedescalso Cafe on Saturday by playing Dublin:The Movie, which we projected onto the wall. Everyone there enjoyed it- they didn’t care that it wasn’t music (which they’d usually see). I think its deadly that video art is getting more like music. Its liberating. The tools we use to make and distribute music are converging with the same (or similar) tools for video. Its all art. Those musicians always know what’s best- I’m going to keep following the music. What’s also cool is that video artists (filmmakers) can now ‘practice in public’, like Bob Dylan. Which is nice.

I thought I’d take a moment.

The 4 day movie starts at 12.01 am tonight (technically tomorrow).

Everyone is very excited and the artists involved are looking like they’re up to making something beautiful. I have great hopes for what will come out of this. We’re blogging the whole thing on the 4 day movie blog.

I just looked at the original mindmap i did for the movie. Its a method i was trying out using Novamind to organise my thoughts. Its funny how things have turned out, most of what was there has been very important so far: distribution, legalities of an ‘open source’ collectively made movie, technical guidelines and specifications, who we get to do it in the first place, how to make it beautiful…

So, here are a few links and resources I’ve been using to solve those problems. I’m just throwing them down here for now, i have a feature film to produce, so you’ll understand if i’m brief!

- Creative Commons: this is generally what we’re using as a template for our agreement with filmmakers and artists involved in the project. Unfortunately, we discovered that Creative Commons doesn’t apply in Ireland as it hasn’t been worked out here yet. So we’re doing our best to do something along the lines of the licenses available here.

- Music: we’ve found out a lot about music distribution rights and how to source open or free music for movies. Also how licensing of music works for movies and how to make an agreement with independent artists. Here are the main resources we’re using:

• Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC license
• http://ccmixter.org/
• 8 Bit Peoples
• Moby!
• Penny Distribution: Nick Fitzsimons from Penny Distribution has been amazingly helpful in this area and has a lot of great artists on the site.

The gist of music in movies is that its not complicated if you play fair, give credit where its due and work with artists to find solutions. Which is the way it should be in all things to do with this movie, so it makes me very happy.

- Movie making: our tech guidelines are available here.

- People: here’s the list of confirmed artists taking part.

- the narrative flow: the story of this movie is how its made as much as what’s produced. So the blog, the updates, the myspace, the basecamp headquarters, the facebook group- all are as important as the movie itself. I aim to publish everything i can and document as much as i can over the following four days.

1. All movies are to be shot between 12.01am to 11.59pm on Thursday, June 26th 2008 within the M50.
2. Participants are asked to hand in a complete 3-5 minute movie in digital format before 7 p.m. Friday, June 27th.
3. Deliver your media on a hard- drive please.
4. Our preference is for finished work to be handed in as a Final Cut Pro project with associated uncompressed media. However, this is not mandatory.
5. Deadline for completed submissions is 7 p.m. Friday June 27th. Turn your submissions in to FilmBase on Curved Street, Temple Bar between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
6. All submitted work will be used as the source material for a feature film mixed/edited by Lenny Abrahamson and Declan Lynch.
7. In addition to complete video pieces, we are also asking that participants hand in up to 15 minutes of their raw, uncut footage. If this footage needs to be captured, please also submit the camera you used to record it along with the tape.
8. Make your movie in digital format- please go for the highest specifications possible. We realise that not everyone has access to the best equipment, cameras etc. Be creative and make do with what you have. If it moves we may use it. We are open to everything, from a cameraphone to the latest HD camera.
9. If you must submit WMV/AVI or other formats (MP4, MPG etc) feel free to do so. But please- no weird ones. And please don’t compress your video if you can avoid it. We will do our best to play out anything you give us, but please make it easy on us.
10. All movies submitted for the feature film will be available for use in the remix. This means we will be at liberty to recut, remix and remaster both your completed movie and your source footage. We don’t guarantee that all submitted work will be used in the feature film, however we will use as much as we can.
11. Movie submissions will be returned at the request of the participants. Movies will be held for no more than 4 weeks. Generally speaking, we operate under Creative Commons license for the purposes of this project- you own your movie/digital footage, and we ask your permission before distributing anywhere at all other than the festival. We’d like to have all the movies on the website for example, but only with filmmakers consent. If anyone has a problem with this approach please contact us directly.
12. Try to source original music for your movie. We are looking for creativity and originality. Do not use material that you don’t have rights to in your movie, it is less likely we will be able to use your movie in the final version of the remixed feature.
13. Technical Advice: expect all sorts of equipment failures, sleep deprivation errors, running out of time for your edit to be completed – don’t expect a polished, professional product. Enjoy the process. Submit whatever you have, everyone is in the same boat.

These guidelines are subject to change, which is why they’re published here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d2wq658_25dt4gjdff

MAKE ART BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I’ve reached an impasse.

I asked for a chance to change things, now I have an opportunity, and its hard. Its really hard. I wonder sometimes if I’m up to it.

For the past few years I’ve been involved in promotion and production of collectively made movies. Some people call this User Generated Content. I’ve been calling it various things, from creative anarchy to art.

The collective approach has manifested itself in my life in a few key projects: Fast Forward Film Festival, Octopussy, Chicago Independent Television & Grassroots Media Festival and most recently, Death to the Octopussies & Cavallo and The Birds…

So far, much as they appear to be haphazard and misplaced, these projects define any art I’ve produced until now. As they’re collective, I can’t claim credit completely for their success or failure. All I can say is that there’s a piece of me in all of these projects. I put my heart into all of them. I know what they look like, quit telling me they look cheap and weird. They’re supposed to.

Now as I look at these projects, as low-fi as they are, I’m proud of them and what they have to say. I like the fact that they have been original, that they didn’t conform to expectations and that they brought people somewhere they wouldn’t otherwise have reached. Energy. Human energy is harnessed when you give people a context to express themselves.

So there’s a current in the mainstream, a feeling that there might be something to this collective approach. That the crowds might have something to say, and there might be benefits in letting them say it- in providing a context and an incitement to produce. Some people like the ‘coolness’ of it. And everyone loves the idea of allowing people to make movies. And I confess, my motives are selfish- I want to make movies too.

Two projects have landed on my doorstep:

1. DUBLIN- THE MOVIE (title to be determined)- a feature film made in 4 days for the Darklight Film Festival. June 26th-29th 2008.

2. Fast Forward Ireland, a national event in association with RTE, The Digital Hub and Culture Night Ireland 2008. September 19th/20th 2008.

I’m the producer on both. Neither were my idea. I’m honoured to be involved. Think what I could do with these! I feel bold.

These projects deserve my attention, they could be great. I’ve got a limited amount of time.

But they’re not mine. They’re not mine.

The motives are all over the place. I watch as the 4 day feature film pulls itself into familiar territory. Its risky, but not too risky. We’re already cutting people out of the process, and bringing the usual suspects in. The ones in the bottle of the bottleneck.

I listen to the reasons I’m being asked to run the Fast Forward this time around. Reasons that are not mine. Experiential Marketing, associated cool, new audiences…

These are creative people I’m working with. People I respect and admire. But they have their own approach and I have to either conform or find a way through.

I realise that the fight is harder where it matters most. It can be personal. And I wonder if I have the chops to make it matter. If I can back up what I’ve been talking about all these years. If there’s substance to the approach.

Should I cash in?

The alternative is scaring the crap out of me. Blowing it all open, trying to make something out of it by being up front. Running with it and doing it my way. Blasting and banging through the normal things to create something different. The likelihood is I’ll get eaten up. What do I know? I should just go with the flow and see where we end up…

What’s the harm? It feels wrong.

Right now it would be easier to give up on the collective idea, readjust, and do my own thing. For myself. Is it the end of the road?

Can anyone help? Or am I on my own this time?