Open Source goes to Hollywood
By Leslie Poston
A company out of Finland has developed an Open Source movie platform to help makes movie success more attainable to the masses. It is called Star Wreck Studios and they want you to Wreck A Movie with them. The release that gave them the idea for the project was called “Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning“. The first Wreck A Movie feature is Iron Sky, an implausible future based vehicle featuring Nazis and space travel.
One of the new online studio’s board members, Peter Vesterbacka, has openly come out stating the purpose of the new Open Source studio model is “wrecking the Hollywood model”. He also said: “Hollywood only distributes 700 films a year, but there are 100,000 people in Hollywood with film ideas.” Of course, that is partially because there are many films that really shouldn’t get made (think Showgirls for an example – who let that out of the gate?), and partially because there are hundreds of thousands of people with great movie ideas trying to capture the attention of studios who can’t see beyond the phrase “huge box office hit”.
The new web based platform (found here) allows anyone with an HD video camera and an idea to make a movie at little to no cost. This means that budding producers can get an earlier start on their careers. It is just one more way the internet is changing how our media is made and delivered. By removing the middle man and lowering the cost, more ideas can find a home with the public, and only what is truly popular or truly good (or, when we are lucky, both) will make it. It makes the film making process much more democratic.
Will making the process more democratic make film makers automatically more talented? No. Just owning a camera does not make you a great director, any more than owning a computer makes you the next great author. It does level the playing field so that those that are great but struggling can find an audience. It has worked for Star Wreck… Will you be the next Open Source box office hit?
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