Two scripts under development in an open source film project
Elina Shatkin interviews Matt Hanson director of A Swarm of Angels
Photo courtesy of Future PublishingMatt Hanson is a noted British author, filmmaker and film futurist interested in expanding the boundaries of traditional filmmaking. His latest project is A Swarm of Angels, a crowdfunded, open source filmmaking venture that aims to create a £1 million movie with the help of 50,000 participants around the globe.
Anyone who wishes can join the "swarm of subscribers" for £25, and in exchange for their subscription, they will have input on the entire moviemaking process, from the development of two competing screenplays to final distribution. In fact, the movie that ultimately gets made will be given away for free to participants under a Creative Commons license so they can download, remix and create their own works from the media.
Here, Hanson discusses his concept of Cinema 2.0, the fallacy of the mass market approach, and his ambition to bring art back into the business of moviemaking.
Elina Shatkin: How and when did you conceive the idea for A Swarm of Angels?
Matt Hanson: I wanted to distill the ideas I'd been thinking and writing about. How could you really move an image forward into the digital age and make it feel natural? When I'd talk about these ideas to people, they would be like, “We're not seeing it.” I realized I needed to distill it into a simple idea that would capture people's imaginations, then use that as a Trojan Horse for other cool ideas and concepts.
