The several posts of this blog, and following discussions with  BBC and Brett Gaylor, lead me to write an article.

My question is: what does it really mean to open source a documentary? How can the ideology of free software and open collaboration in code influence a new style of documentary making?

I would like to open the  discussion on this. Please feel free read the article, comment and feed-back. I am not an expert on free software so I might have missed some points… but also I am wondering where to place this article. Is it useful for film makers? Is it mainly academic stuff?

Please do let me know…

here is the PDF: open-source-documentary_sg_60110

The project is a collaboration between researchers and filmmakers at the Infoscape Research Lab at Ryerson University and the Department of Communication, Florida State University.

So far only 10 people are participating – of which three are the initators of the project: Brett Gaylor (the initiator of the Open Source Cinema project & website) plus Andy Opel and Greg Elmer (the co-author of the book Preempting Dissent, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Florida State University, and who I suspect is the initiator of this specific Open Source project). To be frank at the moment there is not very much going on…

Of course I could have started uploading videos on surveillance cameras (the topic of the project) – which I will do soon- but since this was my first visit to the website I was mainly trying to understand how does the whole project work. Since the project itself is quite empty for now I turned to a project that is nearly finished, and that should work with the same Open Source Cinema logic, RIP: a remix manifesto.

I had seen video clips of  RIP in the past, since the documentary is divided in chapters that are downloadable from the web, but this time I was really trying to understand the process of user’s collaboration… how can I participate… and interestingly enough a lot of questions have risen.

How does Open Source Cinema projects’ work?

- you go to www.opensourcecinema.org

- you fill in a profile and log in

- you then choose and join one or several    projects

- once you have selected a project you can upload your content and start remixing

…but then?

I suppose you upload your remixed video

… but where are the remixes that others have uploaded? I could not find them on the RIP screen? This is the screen you get: an invitation to remix plus a blog of people’s comments on the project… but where are the remixes?

The idea of Open Source Cinema is to do to films what Wikipedia has done to encyclopaedias.  In his website Brett Gaylor, the creator of the site, writes “think of remixes as “wiki-films” – they’re produced through continual revision and collaboration” (http://www.opensourcecinema.org/about-open-source-cinema).

But is it really the case? When I add content to a wiki article I can see the layers of participations of other people (by clicking onto the “history” tag) and I work on an open canvas that stays open forever (in the sense that at any moment anybody can change/ add to what I have written). Can I do this in RIP: an open source manifesto?

The way RIP is organised is that it is already edited in chapters, and each chapter has a specific call to participate. If you view a chapter you will see that at the end of it Brett asks people to collaborate on precise tasks (add music mixes on the film trailer, checking if something is missing in chapter 3, add to the voice over of chapter 7 etc…)… so in a way the collaboration is “directed” by Brett – contrary to Wikipedia where you are your own judge on how you want to collaborate.

Once you have decided to add something to the chapter I suspect you upload it, but I am not clear about the following step: do you remix and upload it for everyone else to add on to, or do you send it to Brett – and then he decides if it is a good addition, so that he stays in control of the paste and narrative arch of the film?

This again is an important point if we want to compare it to Wikipedia, since the editorial role is collaborative in it, while it is not clear in Open Source Cinema. If the remix culture is all against copyright and ownership… how transparent is the relation between web collaborators and Brett?

The last point that is unclear to me is the lifespan of the project. A Wikipedia entry is potentially always open to changes. Its life is on the web and, until people will feel interested on it, it will keep breathing. What is the final form of an Open Source Cinema documentary? The version that is on the web is potentially always open, but Brett does show the documentary at festivals… and I suppose he keep choosing “temporarily finished versions”, each of which, though, is presented as a “normal” documentary to its audience – a film that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

If I am right, this would mean that an Open Source Cinema documentary has different bodies: a fluctuating one, that lives on the web, and takes the shape of the last remix uploaded by Brett (or by the web remixers? I am not clear on this) – and a “finished” one, that takes the shape of the last acceptable remix (acceptable for whom? Once again, is it Brett that decides which version he presents to film festivals?).

Since I do not have the answers to those questions I will, as always in my blog, turn them to the people that are might have the answers: Brett Gaylor, Greg Elmer  and Andy Opel.

Their answer is important because I think that the term Open Source documentary is starting to spread, and therefore there is a need now to be clear about its meaning. For wikipedia “Open source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software’s source code.” but, when applied to media and video content, “Open Source Filmmaking refers to a form of filmmaking that takes a method of idea formation from open source software, but in this case the ’source’ for a film maker is raw unedited footage rather than programming code. It can also refer to a method of filmmaking where the process of creation is ‘open’ i.e. a disparate group of contributors, at different times contribute to the final piece.”

Which are the possible logics of production and ownership behind Open Source documentaries? Now that the BBC is flagging that they are also creating an Open Source film (obviously not via opensourcecinema.org, but in their own website and with their own rules – see my blog about BBC’s Digital Revolution and BBC’s answer to my questions!) it becomes essential to understand how far an open source logic can go once applied to video footage.

Can a documentary retain narrative interest if completely open sourced? What is the border, the limit, between author and participators in an open sourced film? Is an open sourced documentary really equally “owned” by its participators? And finally… how “open” can an open source documentary be?

Here is an opportunity for us all to get hands on and to be part of an interactive documentary!!

PREEMPTING DISSENT: OPEN SOURCING SECRECY

An Open Source Documentary Film Project
Call for Videos, Testimonials, Photographs, and other Audio Visual Materials

This project examines new forms of social control including the proliferation of Tasers and the rise of “no-fly” and watch-lists. We are seeking contributions to this project in the form of video, still images, and testimonials. This content will be made available for others to mix and remix into their own documentaries.

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE:

We are seeking video content from those of you who have experienced and/or captured on video new forms of surveillance and social control. Have you been Tasered by police, security guards, or other citizens? Did you witness someone being Tasered and record it on video? Has your name been placed on a “no-fly” list – or similar exclusionary watch-list? If so, we invite you to submit your video footage, personal video testimonials, audio testimonials, photographs, news footage, cell phone videos, mash-ups, and any other audio-visual medium which will convey your story.

To participate in this project, please go to http://www.opensourcecinema.org/project/preempting-dissent

BACKGROUND:

Greg Elmer of Ryerson University and Andy Opel of Florida State University are working with Open Source Cinema, to create a collaborative, open-source documentary film based on Elmer and Opel’s book, Preempting Dissent. Using the Open Source Cinema platform – a collaborative website which serves as a repository for user-generated content – the audience will be encouraged to submit their own media as well as to remix media uploaded by the filmmakers and other users. By publishing a “road map” of production, this project will encourage participation through all stages of production. The project will produce a feature length documentary, as well as enable a non-linear open source cinematic database that will evolve over time through the collaborative contributions of users. The documentary, the producer’s video clips, and user-generated contributions will all be available for remixing.

PREEMPTING DISSENT:
This project is based on the 2008 book Preempting Dissent that critically examines new forms of surveillance and social control. This new logic encourages the suppression of public dissent and mobilizes both “fear” of the unknown and “faith” in government leadership. Elmer and Opel show that this new logic stretches well beyond the realm of airport security and international relations into everyday police techniques, including the use of Tasers, the deployment of “stealth” crowd control, the zoning of protestors and the suppression of public dissent. Drawing on social theories and media analyses, this book reveals the underlying”logic of preemption“whereby threats must be eliminated before they materialize. By addressing the implications of this new logic, Elmer and Opel lay the groundwork for more effective resistance.

Well… they call it an ‘open source documentary’: “It is our ambition to open up the production process as much as possible; to share as much of our thinking as possible, as the production team strive to create a cohesive, accurate and relevant documentary about the World Wide Web. We’ll be blogging as we go; we’ll share our theories; we’ll be putting up rushes from the filming; we’ll be asking for advice and stories from you as we go along.” (quote from the programme’s blog).

From what I understand during pre-production the BBC is in constant communication mode with “us” (blogging, twittering, youtubing, deliciousing… you name it)  and in exchange we can come back with ideas, comments, interviews… but more importantly STORIES (“tell us the stories you think we should be covering”, they say in their website). So… in a way: we help them while they inform us. This is up to a point an interactive process: we are in contact, but is it really an open source dynamic? Our stories suggestions do not directly change the programme (we are not  adding a layer of code to a software) and more importantly we do not know how our suggestion will be used (contrary to what happens to an open source software where any change has been designed by its author to do a precise task). What is happening here is that the control stays in the hand of the BBC: what we suggest is considered by a producer that has the power to do what he/she likes with it. I might be over critical here… but more than an open source documentary this resembles to a partially freely researched documentary!

Obviously the fact that BBC is involving “web people” while documenting the web is laudable… for such a big corporate it is a courageous decision… but the risks are still very much under control, to the point that I wonder how much this open source documentary is a marketing trick more than a real shift of thinking. Brett Gaylor, the creator of opensourcecinema.org, has been experimenting for years now on ways for people to collaborate online towards the common production of a documentary. RIP: a remix manifesto is the result of people sharing footage, remixing other people’s rushes and re-editing material over the web.  Brett’s idea is to open up the entire process of the film production… and not only to ask its potential audience for good ideas…

The BBC too promises to make their rushes available online… but where are they? I have been looking for the rushes of programme one, the first been produced that, following the published schedule, should start its editing on the 28th of September. Now… it is today the 17th of September… I can’t find them… either I am thick, or they are well hidden, or maybe they will be published at the last minute… but if they do not publish them before editing the final programme… how are we supposed to deeply “influence” or “collaborate” in the production process?

Maybe the BBC has some hidden ideas that will make its project a little bit more open sourced – and a little less free sourced…

To be honest though, there is one line on the programme’s blog that seems to suggest that there will also be a parallel interactive documentary:  ” your input, your comments, and your links will be read by the production team and will shape the direction the story takes. And everything will be part of our online interactive documentary that launches alongside programme transmission” (quote from the programme’s blog). What will be the shape, form and intention of such online project is quite mysterious… and definitively unclear (but definitively exciting, don’t get me wrong!).

I am really curious to see how this BBC project will evolve and, since I already have too many questions about it, I think I will address them directly to the production team. Actually, if they could use the web tools, and comment directly on my blog’s entry, it would be a great clin d’oeil to the topic of their programme!

Stay posted, you will maybe have some answers soon…