How the World of Cinema Strays

Crowdsourcing moves into film -- can the crowd create a movie?

Ruslan Kulski interviews Michelle Hughes from Stray Cinema via email

From the site: Stray Cinema is an open source film. Here you are able to download and re-edit the raw footage from a film we have shot in London. This will provide people from all over the world with an opportunity to create their own version of the film. Stray Cinema will navigate the film experiment out of the online digital world, into the 'real world' with a screening of the top five films in London. The footage shot in London is the first of many open source films to be provided by Stray Cinema.

Ruslan Kulski: What are your contributor numbers? Output etc.?

Michelle Hughes: There are currently 598 registered users on www.straycinema.com, and 31 film submissions from 15 different countries.

Q: Are you finding the crowdsourced model viable/ productive?

A: ”Stray Cinema is a independently funded, non-for-profit project. The reason for this, is that we are asking our online community (the general public) for their feedback and ideas to help grow and develop the project. At this early stage we are seeking contributions from people who genuinely want to better the project for non-commercial reasons. Eventually we would consider taking on sponsorship or partnering with another company that aligned with our vision. Then we could embrace our sponsors, bring them into, and make them a contributing part of our community." (taken from an article on OpenBusiness.cc.

The screening event is extremely important to the Stray Cinema project. With Stray Cinema, we re-integrate the edited submissions into a community based screening event. This event is designed to maximize impact for both an on-site and an online audience simultaneously. We want to navigate our film experiment out of the "digital world" into the "real world." We believe that many film-makers ultimately want their work to reach and engage a live audience.

It is also important to note that many film submissions have come from people who have never edited a film before. We believe that film is an extremely powerful medium to tell stories and communicate with each other, and we want to make it accessible to a wider audience. Free editing software, tips and an editing tutorial can be found on the Stray Cinema Website

There is a political movement taking place on the Internet, which involves the democratisation of media. The idea of sharing film online derives from this movement. It allows an increasing number of people to communicate their ideals, beliefs and tell their stories to people all over the world using the all powerful medium of film.

Editors Note: This is the second round of email questions to Michelle Hughes, they were originally reported here and lay below this note

Q: Where in the world are the contributions for Stray Cinema coming from?

A: UK, US, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Estonia, Spain, France, China... (I’m at the airport, so don't have the full list on me sorry)

Q: What, in your opinion, is inspiring these people to contribute? You mentioned "that many film submissions have come from people who have never edited a film before." What is it about your project that encourages these people to dip their collective toes?

A: Hmm, good question, I don't think we can put it down to one thing. Certainly many people are keen to take part in something that has not been done before – we call it “an experiment in film construction.” Also the idea of joining a creative community of like minded people is appealing to many, and the potential of having your film screened in London, or included in the film festival cut. I think finally, many people do not have the resources (editing software, film equipment etc) or know how to make a film, but perhaps have a story they want to tell. Stray Cinema provides users with free editing software, tips and a tutorial on their Website.

Accessibility is a key word for this project; we wanted to crossover of communities of special interest, and make this make this idea accessible to a wide audience. In doing so we wanted to create our own unique community, one that did not exist anywhere else. The Stray Cinema community is a merger of the following communities of special interest:

- Open Source programmers who are interested in online information sharing.

- People who are interested in the future of the online environment
and Web 2.0.

- Filmmakers who want their film to be screened in a traditional film festival environment. Many of these filmmakers may not be aware of the current film sharing initiatives online.

- Filmmakers who are interested in progression of digital film and the opportunities this is opening up to a new type of filmmaker (our footage this year was shot on a mini digital camera, by first time
filmmakers).

- Artists who are interested in experimenting with different mediums and inter-media art.

- Musicians who are able to make their music available for participants on www.straycinema.com. This is also an opportunity for these creative's to experiment with film editing.

Q: Could you briefly describe the process of Stray Cinema?

A: • Raw footage has been filmed in London on a digital camera and this is available for free download from www.straycinema.com.
• Participants from all over the world can submit a two minute film to www.straycinema.com which has been edited from the raw footage.
• The online community of participants vote for their favourite films.
• The top 5 films will be screened in London (the city where the raw footage originates from) alongside the directors cut.
• A screening event will engage the Stray Cinema online community through live audiovisual webcast of the event, live web-chat, vodcasting and blogging.
• Stray Cinema will be an ongoing annual event repeating this process with raw footage filmed in a different city each year.

Q: Who else would you recommend someone look into in the world of crowdsourced cinema?

A: Nothing so Strange– opened up footage in 2003 and is one of the earliest open source films I have found – more info here.

Elephants Dream, also known as 'Project Orange' before the film title came about. Incorporates actual open source software (as opposed to just open source methodologies) into the creation of content.

Boy Who Never Slept – I found this just after I launched Stray Cinema, claims to be “One of the world's first full-length open source movies.”

Gods Companion Project, a full length 3D movie made using open source software.

The Weblog Project -- the first open-source movie documentary about blogs and bloggers.