The Celtx Blog

A Swarm of Angels - Registration reopens for next phase of open source movie project

Hey There!

Wanna become part of a 'revolutionary' filmmaking wave?
I'm sure by now you've all heard of Matt Hanson's A Swarm of Angels project... In the past year it has created quite the buzz (see Boing Boing, Forbes.com, Slashdot, Springwise, Screen International, Business Week, Assignment Zero/Wired, Torrentfreak, .net, Adobe Think Tank, Screenhead, Urban Junkies, Wikinews, etc.) as the groundbreaking film event that aims to create a a £1M ($2M) open source feature film using a global community of members. Once the project is completed, it will be available for downloading and remixing under a Creative Commons license.

We've been chatting with Matt and he says they're gearing up to re-open public registration for Phase 3. For details read on, then join up, get involved on their forum, invite your friends and blog forth to spread the word! Here are even a few keywords that may help :) - S

(Keywords:feature film, open source, collaboration, co-creation, creative commons, crowdsourcing, DRM-free)
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A Swarm of Angels has opened pre-registrations for the next phase of our groundbreaking project to create a £1M ($2M) open source feature film using a global community of members. Members get to participate in making the film.

We are about to enter Phase 3 of 5 (at the end of these phases we give away for download, a DRM-free, Creative-Commons licensed film, that anybody can share and remix), and our global member community of over 1000 have already created a trailer, music, poster images, and contributed to 2 scripts (one of which the community get to greenlight when we reach 25,000 members).

We have reopened registration again after it closed once we reached our 1000 member target at the end of the last phase. Our next target is 5000 members, and the phase involves finishing our scripts, and creating teaser trailers and media.

More information:
Phase 3 coming
Changes in Phase 3

Registration is free.
Full membership (which includes posting and voting rights) is £25.
The membership fee is used to directly develop and fund the film production.

More details on the Website and Forum.

Mike Jones joins the International Film School, Sydney as Head of Technological Arts

Our good friend, Mike Jones is shaking it up DownUnder with a career move from his management role at the prestigious halls of the Power House Museum's SoundHouse VectorLabs to the innovative and inspirational corridors of the International Film School, Sydney as Head of Technological Arts.

No doubt the news has generated tears of sadness amongst the ranks at SHVL, while his new IFSS students and colleagues do back flips and shed tears of joy!

With his passion, dedication, incredible breadth of knowledge and insatiable thirst for more, every film school should be so lucky to have a Mike Jones help lead the way into 21st century media and filmmaking.

On behalf of everyone at Celtx, we wish you all the very best, Mr. Jones!!
Exciting times indeed!

Sheila

Read more about Mike and the IFSS on his Digital Basin blog

"Fellowship Swede 5" Chosen as Celtx POW!

This week's POW is a Lord of the Rings inspired film called "Fellowship Swede 5" from Daniel Loyd of Los Angeles, CA.

We caught up with Daniel and he had this to tell us about his about project and the production process:

"I'm a 31 year old producer/editor/director working in Los Angeles.  My friends and I got the inspiration from the movie "Be Kind Rewind", where they take favorite movies and remake them their own way. The point being, not to copy the film outright, but to make a script with only the moments that have stayed with you.  We wrote a 15 page script, hacked it down to 11 pages with lots of description, and started preproduction.

I've been watching celtx since it's first iteration (when it was just a blank page with html!), and was thrilled when it became a more full featured production program.  We used it extensively for our preproduction process, keeping track of our wardrobe, props, script versions and most excitingly, our location photos.  The collaboration was pretty essential as the two writers and I were in three different physical locations during preproduction.  

After three weeks of writing, making costumes and props and general prep, we shot the film over two days one weekend December 2007.  We started in a canyon park, but were shooed away by the locals.  We then moved to another park, and shot all our exteriors in 10 hours. Often going from one clearing to another.  The next day was interiors in my friends house where we turned her fireplace into bag end, her backyard into Elrond's council and her garage into Balin's tomb, the bridge of khazad-dum and Saruman's chamber.

We shot everything to the cut, and had a minimum of footage left over. Overall, two days, 20 hours, 200min of footage.  None of this could have happened without the contributions of everyone in the cast and crew. Film is truly collaborative and everyone left their mark on the finished film.

We shot on DV, the exteriors with natural light and bounce boards.  For the nteriors we had a mole-kit, with a fill and two spots (250k, 500k). 416Sennheiser audio into camera.  Edited on Final Cut Pro, Colored on Apple Color.  Mix on Final Cut Pro.

We debuted on Youtube in January and it's been doing great! You can check out the video on you tube and myspace, or check out more production stills here."

Great job gang! Very entertaining!

Michelle and the C-Team

Venezuelan Mini Series Named Celtx POW!

Happy New Year, everybody! We hope that everyone had a fanastic holiday season!

The first POW of 2008 brings us to Venezuela to meet director, producer and scriptwriter Mauricio Odreman Delgado. Mauricio is the son of filmmaker Mauricio Jose Odremán Nieto (1926-2004), who was one of the pioneers and founders of RCTV. It seems that Mauricio not only inherited his father's name but also his passion for cinema.

"Bolívar Niño" or "Bolivar child," is the title of his latest project which recounts the adventures of Pedrito, a boy who travels through a time portal to 1795, where he makes friends with a young Simon Bolivar.

Simón Bolívar, also known as "El Libertador" was born July 24, 1783 in Caracas, Venezuela. He was a leader of several independence movements throughout South America, collectively known as Bolívar's War. Together with José de San Martín, Bolívar is regarded as one of the Liberators of Spanish South America.

Shot in 35 mm on HD for broadcast television, this 6 part miniseries will be a production aimed at the international market. The film will have adventure, entertainment and promote awareness of the true image of Venezuela. The film is being shot in La Guaira, the historical centre of Caracas, and Avila. It will present both the eighteenth century Venezuela and the modern Venezuela of today.

If you read Spanish, you can check out the script for "Bolívar Niño" on Project Central. If not, no worries, you can find scenes from this upcoming miniseries on Mauricio's YouTube site.

Congrats!

Michelle & the C-Team.