Abstract

Remix Cinema – also called Cinema 2.0, Open Cinema or Open Source Cinema – is a new approach to movie/video making and groups, since 2006, a variety of experiments [1] sharing some form of openness in the phases of the realisation cycle of a movie, characterised by the collaboration of distributed and self-selected groups of people interested in:

(1) participation in the creation of the content (from the script to the post-production); and/or (2) being involved in the financing of the product; and/or (3) being active in the content remixing and distribution/sharing enabled by the openness of some distribution channels.

Our study of Remix Cinema moves from 2006 until 2010: at the two extremes of this time horizon stay two experiences of particular relevance, since they are the only ones to embody all the three axes of the movement:

• the co-creation of content;
• the co-funding of production;
• the remixing/social distribution of movies and work-in-progress.

They are A Swarm of Angels and Cineama:

- A Swarm of Angels (ASOA) started in January 2006: although the development of the project is still officially “on pause to make use of the disruptive innovation and knowledge gathered in previous active phases” and the latest twitter is of 31st of July 2010[2], ASOA actually unfolded in early Spring 2006 and bloomed until Winter 2008 [3]. ASOA is a project aimed at creating a ‘£1 million feature film and [giving] it away to over 1 million people, using the Internet and a global community of members[4]’. The ASOA project began in January 2006 on the initiative of Matt Hanson[5], a 36 year old visionary director, based in Brighton, UK. His idea was to gather people from around the word desirous of taking part in a film-making process. Participation was supposed to be ‘creativity/passion/curiosity’ oriented, as opposed to being focused on profit and ownership. Distribution of the final film was expected to be free, because ‘you can’t control media these days. You need to go with it, rather than fight it. We’re part of the remix generation, with the DIY digital tools to make our own digital media, whether that’s film, music, or whatever.[6]’ ‘Going with the media’, means leaving the video free to flow over the Internet through the continuously improving digital communication medium. This means that the product is ready to be used, not just consumed, and the users can watch or remix it and, eventually, spin the wheel forward. ‘If you look at the Greek epics’, says Hanson, ‘the story-tellers that were recounting their tales always put their own spin on it’.

- The idea of Cineama settled in founders’ mind in Summer 2009 to became an actual project proposition in April 2010 and a company the 15th of October 2010[7]. Now Cineama is starting to gather fellows, partners and friends through a temporary working blog[8] and an intense off-line networking activity, while the actual crowd-sourcing and social distribution platform is expected to go live in Spring 2011. Indeed, the social hub of Cineama is the web[9]. Through a web platform Cineama you would like to offer young screenwriters and directors a chance to see their work professionally carried out, as long as quality is deliverable with less than € 250,000. On the other hand Cineama wants to try out an alternative funding system to the legacy of the sector, giving everyone the chance to play as co-producer and contribute, not only financially, to economic needs of their preferred movie. Finally, Cineama will enable every user to support the distribution of their beloved films or documentaries, on line or off line. Since A Swarm of Angels froze, these three opportunities do not converge in any other service. This way Cineama’s initiators hope to return the film to the social dimension that has been recognized to it since the beginning of cinema history: that will be really effective if the means of production and resources will result to be really rooted in society – unlike now, that are concentrated in niche and oligopolies[10]. The business model is based on fund raising – for the co-production – and flat-rate subscription to enjoy the social distribution channel.

ASOA and Cineama not only share the same holistic aspiration, but they stay each other like the first mover and the follower, the former keeping the everlasting honour of being the pioneer, the latter feeling the privilege and the responsibility to learn from other’s successes and failures. Given the youth of the movement and the fluidity of the innovation curve, in fact, there is no but comparative way to analyse a Remix Cinema case study.

Aim of this contribution is comparing the two experiences at the light of the building blocks of their respective concepts: what are the main similarities and differences, which ones can be seen as premises of Cineama future and what can be a possible framework to analyse similar entrepreneurial initiatives[11].

Author

Name: Irene Cassarino Mail
URL: http://www.cineama.it
Country: Italy
Bio statement: Irene Cassarino, Ph.D., is a freelance researcher and consultant, and a fellow of Nexa Center for Internet and Society, Polytechnic of Turin, Turin, Italy

Notes

[1] See, e.g. My movie mash up – My space (http://www.myspace.com/mymoviemashup); Now the movie (www.nowthemovie.org); Jathia’s Wager Free Science Fiction Movie – Open Source Collaborative Filmmaking (www.solomonrothman.com/solomons-corner/jathias-wager/); The Role Player (http:// www.theroleplayer.it/home_ita.asp); The collaborative web-movie project (http://webmovie.blogspot.com/); The 1 second film (http://www.the1secondfilm.com/); Straycinema (www.straycinema.com). Touscoprod (www.touscoprod.com); Produzioni Dal Basso (http://www.produzionidalbasso.com/); Social Distribution (http://www.socialdistribution.org/); Mubi (http://mubi.com/); MoviePals (http://moviepals.org/); Amazon Studios (http://studios.amazon.com/); View Movie (http://www.viewmovie.eu/); These web sites and all the other referred to in the text were last accessed on 06/01/2011 .

[2] See http://twitter.com/aswarmofangels

[3] See I. Cassarino, A. Geuna, “Remixing Cinema: The Case of Brighton A Swarm of Angels”, Forthcoming in Chiara Franzoni e Cristina Rossi (Eds.), “Open Knowledge and the Cooperative Approach to the Production of Research and Innovation”, Franco Angeli, Milano, 2007. ISBN: 978-88-464-9124-4; Cassarino, W. Richter, “Swarm creativity – The legal and organizational challenges of Open Content Film production”, DIME Working Paper on Intellectual Property Rights, May 2008, (http://www.dime-eu.org/working-papers/wp14/345#attachments); I. Cassarino, A. Geuna, “Distributed Film Production: Artistic experimentation of feasible alternative? The case of A Swarm of Angels”, Report for and edited by the Oxofrd Internet Institute (published from February 2008 at http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/project.cfm?id=45); Richter, W. and Cassarino, I. (2008) Lessons learnt from implementing an open licensing model in distributed film production – The case of A Swarm of Angels. FreeCulture 2008, iSummit, Sapporo, July 2008. See also Section 2 of the extended paper for an overview.

[4] From the ASOA project web site http://aswarmofangels.com. All quotations linked to ASOA and not associated to a specific source, refer to this web site and are attributable to Matt Hanson. Although the web site is currently frozen, it is possible to retrive the history of it from http://web.archive.org/web/*/aswarmofangels.com. The Authors have also a backup that can be made available on request.

[5] Matt Hanson is a film director and has worked in the TV and cinema industries for several years. He has directed and produced over 40 short films and two TV series. He founded the onedotzero digital film festival, which he led between 1996 and 2002. He defines himself as a pioneer of digital films. However, he has never produced or directed a feature film until the ongoing experience of ASOA. In 2004 he published The End of Celluloid, Films Future in the Digital Age (Ed. RotoVision).

[6] Hanson’s comment from the discussions forum on the ASOA web site. All quotations not attributed to a specific source, refer to this web site and are attributable to Matt Hanson a.k.a. Matt within the Swarm. Names of members of the ASOA community, also called Angels, are printed in italic and all quotation unless specified otherwise, were taken from the discussion space of the ASOA web site available at http://aswarmofangels.com/thenineorders/index.php.

[7] Cineama’s trajectory has been drawn by the Authors through several interviews and conversation with team of Cineama founders: Antonio Badalamenti, Federico Bo, Tania Innamorati, Fabrizio Mosca, Savina Neirotti (See section 3 of the extended paper).

[8] See www.cineama.it. The discussion happens mostly in Italian, although the section called “Diario” (Journal) is almost entirely translated in English since it refers to an international audience as well.

[9] ‘The idea of the web was in Fabrizio’s mind also before my arrival: Cinema – the process of moviemaking – in built on relations and Internet, as a multiplier of relationships, fits naturally with it’, Feberico Bo says (personal interview)

[10] ‘Although the movie making process is grounded on collaboration among people representing a variety of skills and competences, at the beginning of all that there is always a single man, the producer, selection scripts mainly according to his background experience and gut feeling, regardless of recommendation from his collaborators. This man – those men at the head of few production companies! – is applying the same criteria for many years. Now he is getting older, and more and more distant from his audience, especially the youngest. Also, he tends to apply conservative rules and to be adverse to risk. He dosn’t either adopt or try a portfolio approach typical of Hollywood Majors to cut off a percentage of risks. I am not blaming my boss, he’s great, the issue is in how the system actually works.’ Antonio, personal interview.

[11] See section 4 fo the extended paper. As a preview, few issues in such a framework are: interpretation of openness in the design process and ways to manage arising ambiguity, relationship between contributors and founders and how it impacts the business model, portfolio vs iconic movie approach, role of the web as a social production platform and links between the online/offline dimensions, rigidity of the timeline, entrepreneurial set up, authorial architecture.