MsBehaviour & The Mistress interview Big Buck Bunny. The kind of things you can do with an open source movie.

Free Software Magazine writes "Like the previous Elephants Dream movie, this film pushes the technical envelope for the “Blender” free software 3D rendering and animation application; unlike it, it succeeds as pure entertainment."

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/blender_foundation_big_buck_bunny_peach

Checked out Blinkbox after reading an article praising its business model. "Watch classic movies online, remix scenes and share with your friends." It didn't really live up to the hype.

For starters, the videos didn't play at all on my default browser (Firefox 2). This may be something to do with the Microsoft framework the site is built with but pretty clueless for a start-up to not support the reigning open source browser.

Secondly, the touted remix capability is simply the ability to add a text message to a pre-edited clip.

On the positive side, if you can view the video, the UI is nice and clean and its fun to be able to browse key scenes of classic movies.

However, it remains to be seen if blinkbox can convert this into anything that retains eyeballs. I should be the target audience (certainly all the films on the homepage were ones I knew well and would happily revisit/remix. But the proposition is pretty thin at present. Yet another site touting 'interactive' 'web2.0' without doing a hell of a lot.

It had to happen..Here's a short film competition where budding editors compete to produce the definitive cut of a short film from over 160Gb of rushes. Shot on the RED 1 camera so nice quality material. Go fer it...

http://www.opencut.org/

"OpenCut is a completely open-source film competition designed to encourage people to take professionally shot material and edit it in their own way. As there is no "one way" to tell a story, so too can stories benefit from being re-edited and re-told from many different vantage points and perspectives.

The winner of OpenCut 1.0 will receive a brand new AJA IO HD from Silverado. They will also be recognized as the "editor-of-record" at IMDB and will have their cut submitted to multiple film festivals."

Entry costs US$25

'Videos that mix avant garde edge with pop culture cool'

There is a very fun and free remix exhibition on at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne. This clip from an Ars Electronic commission where Marclay demos just about every way to muck about with a record.

http://www.acmi.net.au

"this is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
to use the site you log in(or on?) and are then given a password.
you can then listen to the available music and download whatever you want to use in your film or video or short.
the music is free as long as it's being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short.
if you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that's generated being given to the humane society.
i hope that you find what you're looking for,
moby"

Based in Philadelphia, Lance Weiler has assembled a great collection of tips and tricks for the indie film-maker. I met the guy last week at the London Film Festival. Onto his third feature film project, Lance is a real DIY pioneer having pioneered all kinds of cool stuff. Check it out remixables...

It was only a matter of time... 300 clips from the Star Wars films have been officially released for playing with on Eyespot.

http://mashup.starwars.com

Start:	Mar 21, '07
End:	Jun 30, '07
Location:	online

"Following on from the success of last years competition, film screening & showcase event, ThinkSync Films has provided a hand-picked assortment of 30 tracks from a selection of esteemed UK Independent record labels available as free downloads for entrants to their short film competition.

http://www.thinksyncfilms.com/

The competition is designed to search out, celebrate and reward creative new independent film making talent, with particular attention to the role music plays. The premise behind the competition being to highlight and encourage the use of independent music within film and the resulting event an exciting, innovative fusion of independent music and film.

The tracks cover a variety of genres and artists from electronic and instrumental through to drum & bass and rock. "

I went to see the premiere of Theda last night, a film by London artist Georgina Starr which painstakingly re-creates film scenes from the silent picture era starring Theda Bara (perhaps cinema's first sex symbol sez the Wikipedia). The London Improvisers Orchestra provided a live soundtrack. Divided into "Prelude", "Act", and "Epilogue" sections, the power of the piece stemmed from Starr's excellent solo performance. Humour restored the balance whenever the "video art" sequences got a bit lengthy for my taste. The 15-strong orchestra bounced well off the visuals, at times a cacophony, always in character. The 45 min film is a great illustration of re-mix culture and why it is so valid for our times. Here we have a contemporary artist re-interpreting scenes from cinema classics, largely from the scripts themselves, less than 100 years after the originals have been lost.

From her web site
"A chance meeting with an eccentric octogenarian film fan introduced Starr to the world of silent screen legend Theda Bara. Once the biggest silent movie star in the world, Bara appeared in over forty films, of which only two still exist today.
Through extensive research into the art of Bara and other neglected silent stars, Starr has reconstructed key scenes from the lost films, with both herself and the film fan taking on the role of Theda. The work will look at the vicarious nature of the cinematic experience and explore the silent film form through image and live sound. Experimenting with performance styles and narrative techniques Starr considers the movie screen as a mirror and how we use film fiction to explore and escape our own identity."

Microcinema International are curators, exhibitors and distributors of the international moving image arts.