Open Source Pu...er, Crowd Sourced Animation

Scott Kirsner comes to the plate with this post and knocks it out of the park:

" Sony Pictures is going to handle theatrical distribution of a crowd-sourced animated short called "Live Music" this November, from the start-up company Mass Animation. The budget was about $1 million (spent on what, exactly?), and 51 people around the world contributed shots; each was paid $500 (that adds up to about $25,000 of the budget) and will get a credit on the film. Here's the press release, the Mass Animation Facebook page is here.

Open Source Entertainment is happening, kids. Daddy is excited and can't stand up right now.

Remember When VHS Destroyed the Movie Biz?

I have another column up over at The wrap.com...

In the midst of my stuttering writing style take away the fact that things have changed before and they will change again...and again.

Budda Budda Buck!

Produced in a classic Dick Calkins style no less! (with a heaping spoonful of SKY CAPTAIN thrown in for good measure).



From the YouTube page:

This is a 5 min. short film I did for my Intermediate Editing class at the Art Institute of Colorado where I am majoring in Visual Effects. The movie is inspired by the way Buck originally appeared in the early Twentieth Century,and has several nods to my fav movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow by the awesome Kerry Conran. This film took a total of four weeks to complete from start to finish. Everything was filmed in front of a green sheet thumbtacked to my living room wall, and the models/animation was done in the 3d studio max. Compositing was done in Adobe After effects.
The Buck costume was based on the soon to be released Buck Rogers 1/6 figure by Gohero.com's Steve Forde. Major kudos to Steve for reviving Buck as he first appeared back in the 20's/30s.

Gee- what will those kids do next?

Speculations..

I was watching the documentary Dreams on Spec (which you can watch here if you are in the United States) which traces the lives of three spec screenwriters here in Los Angeles.

I haven't watched the whole thing but after ten minutes it appears pretty bleak for our three "heroes." It's painful to watch because you realize what sort of crap shoot the writing games is in Hollywood...

That is, how it used to be played.

All the time people ask me how I came to wrote the Scarecrow movies. I tell them that I only co-wrote them and I was in the right place at the right time with a good sample of my work. I knew enough to streamline a lot of the narrative (which amazingly got inserted back into the film anyway) and had enough production experience to make some script changes that enabled the film to be shot on its initial 10 day schedule.

If I hadn't already been close to the production or wasn't prepared with a script that people thought was a good read - I wouldn't be writing this post. And because there is so much chaff surrounding the good wholesome wheat of scripts here in Hollywood - I would be speccing with the rest.

Fortunately, I was invited (ordered, commanded?) to come up with more characters and stories my employers to exploit. I did so gleefully, accepting my checks for my creativity on top of my regular salary. I was hired by other production companies to rewrite scripts and concepts they had in development. I then wrote several short stories which were published...and so on.

But...

The crap shoot could just as easily gone the other way. They could have laughed at me and said,"Hell No," and I could have been stamped, "Denied."

And where the hell would I be?

Exactly. Same place two of the guys in the documentary are - unproduced (A word which has this stench of failure stuck to its shoes that gets all over the carpet).

My advice? Treat your writing and filmmaking career like any other bit of employment. You have to build it. You have to build your work experience and your field of contacts. You have to get good by doing it every day. You have to kiss that Better Idea right on the mouth, and take her advice when she tells you to take out the trash in your story.

And thankfuly the web is right here to help you do that.

Podcasting Goodness for Pulp Filmmakers

Scott Kirsner links to a host of podcasts from SXSW that are informative, insightful and all on the internet.

We are rapidly approaching or have already touched down on "open source" film making. Literally you'll be able to make a film anywhere, post it online with free software and storage and display it online to recoup your costs. If you open that up you can have teams of editors, sound designers and digital VFX artists working on your film --- from anywhere in the world.

As we discover that most of our work is going to be shown in 5 minute segments (or less) and laced together in a serial or pseudo-television format, then structure, character, and design will have to change accordingly. Let's add the whole social networking component to the storytelling and we have a beast that must be tamed or it will never be able to pull the internet entertainment cart where we want it to go.

Guys, we're going to need more podcasts and vidcasts like the above. Lack of information is our single greatest enemy so get online and share your experience.

Make it so.