Some relate the idea of open-source only to software. The idea, however, has much more potential than that. Todays post is not on A.I., but is breathtaking nonetheless and tightly related to computer science: The open source movie project A Swarm of Angels was initiated in 2006, with the ambitious goal of producing a feature length film, raising a budget of $1.9 million USD. They are well underway, and if this goal is met, they will have succeeded in producing the world’s first internet funded, manned and distributed feature length film.

This feature film and associated original media embraces the flexible digital-age copyright of Creative Commons, because we want people to freely download, share, and remix the original media made for this project. You can remix and use the film for any non-commercial purposes. You can also use parts of it for your own commercial work, under the additional Sampling Plus clause.

Or so might read the introduction to the future film “The Unfold” instead of the usual, threatening message from the FBI. “The Unfold” is one of two potential scripts that are being evaluated by The Swarm. The movie and everything related to it will be released and distributed online under a Creative Commons license. The current summary of “The Unfold” is as follows:

A disaffected Musician receives a phone call from his Mother, who everyone believed died a decade ago, triggering a search to rescue her inside ‘The Fold’. He sets off on a journey where he must confront family secrets, a shadowy organisation, Cell Division, and a strange dimensional force that threatens to destroy the world.

Sounds quite interesting, doesn’t it? The image above was created by Palla, and there’s an ongoing contest to create an “Unfold” teaser poster from it (see posters here). What makes it even more interesting is how it’s being written. From what I hear, the scripts are about to be released onto a wiki for the Swarm to collaborate on writing, which I think is absolutely brilliant. We’ve already seen what can be accomplished via online collaboration on Wikipedia, we can only hope a movie script will turn out as graceful.

It’s a really interesting social experiment; what will the movie be like? Will thousands of scriptwriters produce something they’re familiar with (Hollywood inspired), or something completely different? Given the innovative venue the movie’s production is grounded on, I’d root for the latter in any given bet. An interesting gesture of the group is their stance towards offline media attention, which they are deliberately refusing! Focusing on the blogosphere and online newssites, this makes the project even more interesting and its ties to the world wide web all the more apparent. Open source relies on the technology of computer science, but there’s nothing that intrecately binds open source with software. It’s an idea; a set of principles.

But how is the flow from conception to realization? The project is divided into 5 phases — each of which will allow more people to join in. Once the final phase is concluded, we’ll have a movie and over 50,000 participants (the “Swarm of Angels”) who’ve helped create the movie by donating 25 GBP to the production.

The five phases are as follows:

PHASE 1: Proof of concept. COMPLETE
Open to 100 members only. Target: £2,500 Activity: Infrastructure. Develop online presence.

PHASE 2: Early development. COMPLETE
Open to 1000 members. Target: £25,000. Activity: Script and visual development for 2 scripts. Production of teaser and promotional material. Begin user-generated content initiatives.

PHASE 3: Advanced development. BEGINNING SHORTLY
Open to 5000 members. Target: £125,000. Activity: Produce trailer and documentary material. Finalise scripts and complete development.

PHASE 4: Pre-production
Open to 25,000 members. Target: £625,000. Activity: Greenlight script. Scout locations, choose cast and crew, plan production.

PHASE 5: Filming
Open to 50,000 members. Target: £1,250,000. Activity: Production, post-production, distribution, creation of member-only products.

We’ve already seen an open-source CGI short make it in the world (see Elephant’s Dream, 2006). Yet, it remains to be seen what happens with this monster project. Why don’t we both help make it happen? You can sign up on their webpage to be alerted when the next phase begins.

References and Information

• Image Credits: ASOA Poster by Emily Forgot and Matt Hanson. Cityscape poster by Palla.
• All quoted information harvested from Wikipedia and the A Swarm of Angels Project Page
• Open Content Film on Wikipedia
• Elephant’s Dream on Wikipedia