Participative cinema = first vote results

The further we get into the evolution of A Swarm of Angels, the more I think we’ve found a third way between ‘old media’ and ‘user generated content’. Think of it as participative media: a model where filmmaker and fan get closer together as part of a member-only entertainment community.

Unlike user-generated content the director drives the process and vision of the project, and members get to guide and input into the creative process along the way (eg. a collaborative script doesn’t mean everyone edits it with equal weight, but everyone has the option to submit material to it which then gets filtered and either rejected or accepted). Members of the Swarm already know this but since we’ve just been slashdotted, I thought it worth reiterating.

A case in point is the recent voting day. With over 50% of the vote, a deep blue version of the Film project poster won the day - and I’m getting some samples printed right now for the limited edition run for members (winning image below). The more marketing and spin-offs we can get chosen and endorsed by Angels the better. Expect more in the limited edition poster series as we progress.

We also had a vote on the project tagline: Remixing cinema won (37%) with People-powered cinema coming second (23%). The vote was more spread out on this one, I think mainly due to the number of project innovations suggesting lots of hooks. But the original tagline has enough support to stay for the current time.

Because A Swarm of Angels is based on Creative-Commons and open source principles it was really important to get a strong result in terms of how to direct any excess profits from the project: 43% of members wanted this rolled into the next bigger film project, with 22% liking the idea of an open movie foundation.

The most surprising and interesting result in many respects was the vote on how members should be rewarded for tasks completed as part of the project which aren’t directly crew-related. Overwhelmingly 76% voted that the more mysterious option of ‘rewards’ be the winner, sidelining the idea of the dry straight-up money options of bounty and bonus. This endorses the idea of an ‘entertainment model’ focussed on giving participants surprising rewards and entertaining spin-offs rather than shares of profits and financial incentives. This has fascinating implications for crowdsource models: Not everything is about the money.

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Tags: ASOA, asoa community, crowdsourcing, membership, vote