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Content is going to become even more open in 2008. But how open is open, when does traditional content masquerade as such? Clever marketing ideas like movie clip remix competitions where the remixer has no right to distribute or permission to use their own endeavours don’t really count as open content. So here’s a start at laying out a framework for what truly constitutes open content and open source media. I’m going to talk in terms of film/video, because that is the context for A Swarm of Angels, but it applies to other media like open music and open books too.
With the change in the media climate and distribution experiments such as Radiohead’s In Rainbows (in music), and Four Eyed Monsters (in film) which have open qualities (temporarily available to watch or listen/download for free, for example) but are not truly open content, it is getting harder to tell what you can and cannot officially do with your media.
These are three proposed states for open media, each building on the next:
Tags: ASOA, asoa community, bittorrent, copyleft, creative commons, digital distribution, open source
Very pleased to announce that A Swarm of Angels won the R&D category as part of Britain’s Digital Elite awards, organised by Real Business magazine. The awards recognised organisations that were getting ahead of the competition, through innovative use of technology. Not my favourite activity, photoshoots, but all in a good cause…
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Tags: ASOA, awards, crowdsourcing, digital distribution, event, movie production, publicity
I’ve finished doing the ‘Remixing Cinema’ presentations about the process of the project which gathered pace during the Summer. As an appropriate addendum to that, Arin Crumley (co-director of Four Eyed Monsters) posted a video of that presentation on his blog. I’ve embedded it below, with the caveat that I was fighting a killer flu at the time, hence the copious drinking of fluids during the talk.
The player contains a thought-provoking panel on Adventures in Self-distribution, as well as the Remixing cinema presentation, and others. The series of talks, and particular this panel really threw up some issues over the development of these new pioneering projects. There’s definitely some disconnect for example between the time people expect a project to take on the Internet, as opposed to how long it actually takes in real life.
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Tags: ASOA, crowdsourcing, digital distribution, event, festival, movie production, open source, panel, powertothepixel
I’ll be presenting and meeting some members of the Swarm as part of Power to the Pixel, an industry forum at the BFI London Film Festival, this Friday 26 October.
I’ve got found memories of attending some great back-to-back screenings at LFFs in years gone by in my ‘film critic days’ (thats over a decade ago now!). Splendid that this year’s festival has a digital film conference worthy of the name, and it should be a great event attended by some real pioneers in digital film distribution, marketing and production.
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Tags: digital distribution, digital film, documentary, event, feature film, london, movie production, panel, presentation
We’ve now completed the move over to new more robust hosting, and any minor disruptions regarding this should soon be over (with the DNS transfer).
Despite being only ‘word of click’ the forum and main site struggled to cope with surges of demand from the first Swarm voting day and recommendations from some high-traffic sites.
A Swarm of Angels is now on enterprise-level, dynamically-clustered, load-balanced servers with a reputed 100% uptime. So I can now ask The Kleptones to put the finishing touches to the podcast in the knowledge that we can cope with bandwidth demands. 
Tags: ASOA, digital distribution, technical
We’ve had some great comments and posts on A Swarm of Angels already as the project spreads through word of mouth, and people hearing about it through blogs.
I need to do a comprehensive update of these, but in the meantime I wanted to highlight one of the latest posts which have already brought us some fresh Angels from the filesharing community.
Ernesto from Torrentfreak joined up as a supporter and posted an effusive entry on his blog last night:
“This project truly is a great initiative. It is nice way to show Hollywood that there are alternatives to suing people, and implementing DRM … I encourage everyone to join the project, and if you own a blog or website: Spread the word!”
You can read the full post, and digg his story here.
Although I’ve been turning down offline press requests I did agree to an interview with .net magazine in the UK, because they are squarely focussed on an Internet-savvy audience. They mostly get a handle on our concept, but they did give us our first coverline ,and get my best quote so far:
“‘A Swarm of Angels is a raptor — more agile and quicker thinking — compared to the diplodocus of Hollywood which is ponderous because of its size, and the blockbuster model it has created where films are a big bang or a bust.’ Whether the raptor can really reinvent the future of film, we’ll discover in about a year. Stay tuned…”
You can download the full interview as a pdf.
Finally we had the first leak to mainstream press in The Guardian newspaper a couple of weeks ago, in an Internet column which said about A Swarm of Angels: “the business of putting it together is revolutionary and fun.”
Great to be both these things at once, isn’t it?
Due to spikes in demand, the forums have occasionally been unresponsive. Apologies to current members for this. I am in the process of rectifying this. For those wishing to join who can’t access the regular subscription page through registering on The Nine Orders forum, you can subscribe with Paypal directly, and you will then be manually added to the forum (membership details will be emailed to you). Thanks for your support!
Tags: bittorrent, creative commons, crowdsourcing, digital distribution, digital film, p2p, publicity
Start of the podcast series.
These initial podcasts feature content from independently-minded, often experimental, artists to provide a cinematic soundscape, or visual cues, to inform the development of the project.
All the artists have specifically contributed tracks to support the project. Feedback and suggestions on podcast content welcome.
An electro-acoustic, 3-track, moodcast EP by critically-acclaimed music artists:
1. Max De Wardener - Luster (Unreleased live session)
2. Hulk - We Swam
3. Bare Skin Rugs - Sleaze
More information on artists in following posts.
Podcasts are locked for members of The Swarm for an exclusive time window.
Join the Swarm for this and other exclusive content.
Already a member? See instructions on The Nine Orders board.
Join the Swarm for this and other exclusive content.
Already a member? See instructions on The Nine Orders board.
Tags: ASOA, bareskin rugs, digital distribution, hulk, max de wardener, membership, music, podcasts
The Seraphim logo, Nine Orders triangle, Swarm details and patterns have been kindly created for us by Brighton-based graphic designer Guy Featherstone (Miscellaneous Stimulus). We are releasing the files under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license so they can be freely distributed, shared and remixed.
Download ASOAlogos.zip (810k)
Additionally for reference, we are currently using Futura as the font for the project.
We welcome submissions of illustrations or 1-sheet designs using the source material. If you use this work, please post links to material in the comments to this entry. Or if you are signed up as an Angel then in the Nine Order member boards.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Tags: brighton, creative commons, digital distribution, graphics
A Swarm of Angels is about inventing a radical digital film model. This week I’ll be asking members of The Swarm to contribute on blue sky thinking regarding the plot development, offering them input on my current script outlines for the two scripts that will be developed as part of this process (the final one to go into production is voted on by The Swarm after collaborative input). The earlier members join the more potential for input into shaping the final creative elements of ASOA is available. Join now and help invent the future of film…
As much as I’m a fan of Steven Soderbergh, his simultaneous release of Bubble on theatrical and DVD doesn’t really engage with ‘digital age’ thinking. Where’s the flexible copyright (see Creative Commons) or an engagement with digital downloading? Where’s the collaborative aspects?
I also got the same feeling with Nick Love of Vertigo Films‘ recent announcement this week of ‘pre-selling’ their film through DVD sales to fans. Both films tinker around with release and funding strategies, but no real radical shift or attempt to create a groundbreaking digital-age movie exists. The actual films themselves come from highly traditional models.
A Swarm of Angels is about using the Internet to enable an Open Loop - tapping into the expertise and enthusiasm of film fanatics and media enthusiasts on the web that want to create the future of entertainment. It offers a more active entertainment experience that fans can shape and contribute to rather than simply consume.
Tags: ASOA, creative commons, digital distribution, digital film
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