A kind of re-use intended to stop abuse

Re-use of footage re-contextualized by heavy video post-production manipulation to make this three videos from Amnesty International.

Quote:
"Amnesty International is marking the 60th anniversary of the universal Declaration of Human Rights with a new online film showing the power of individuals to protect the human rights of people all over the world. Work on the film required the equivalent of 50 days of post production, achieved by a collaboration by Rushes, Framestore and Smoke & Mirrors in London and New York."


Song in the video: R.E.M. - Until The Day Is Done

Previous examples:




I like a lot this videos, but this kind of imagery manipulation only possible because of the advance on digital video post on recent years sure raise many ethical questions. The absence of abundance on relevant precedents create a gap waiting to be filled with questionable uses for this plastic surgery of history, news and propaganda. Maybe medical ethics committees advices on cosmetic plastic surgery are the best place to start...
Link: Protect the Human / Amnesty International / Is Humor Immoral? / Anatomy of Movement

Sew it yourself

Just today, I was able to get to know a project that fits perfectly to the scope of this blog:

The Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake

Quote from the site:

Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake is a participatory video shot by people around the world who are invited to record images interpreting the original script of Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera and upload them to this site. Software developed specifically for this project archives, sequences and streams the submissions as a film. Anyone can upload footage. When the work streams your contribution becomes part of a worldwide montage, in Vertov’s terms the “decoding of life as it is”.

I found it on the Ars Elecronica site, just browsing around.

Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera - Internet Archive

Side note: Happy coincidence my wife makes handmade dolls besides her main work, restoration of pottery and paintings. Occasionally we have to work side-by-side but the connection was not evident to me.

Related articles: The Bigger Picture - Women Editors

Is It Fair to Use It?

This post is a collection of some links of interest, regarding this complicated issue of Copyright / Fair Use when re-purposing media content (also mentioned as "Borrowed Material").

1. Recut, Reframe, Recycle: An Interview with Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi - By Henry Jenkins
   
2. Center for Social Media School of Communication at American University
3. EFF: Fair Use FAQ - Electronic Frontier Foundation
4. Copyright and Fair Use - Stanford University Libraries
5. Creative Commons FAQ
6. Copyright Management Center
   

This list is provided here only as a starting point for research on this topic of copyright / fair use of existing media files on new works. Keep in mind that I personally did not read all the related documentation on these links nor have any legal background to be able to digest it properly.

From what I read there are still plenty of reasons to be confused about, despite the quality of the papers, because of the complexity and subjectivity of some of the issues involved.

I have this "kid like" dream of simplicity winning over complexity on social interactions (or at least in art and media production) and this whole bureaucracy involving copyright simply destroy any creative impulse that is not: Either a consolidated effort or a fool one. I am afraid I fall into the later category...

Self Raising Cinema

One word: IndieGoGo

Basically, it is a tool for project funding, recruiting, and promotion; kind of "Self Raising Cinema".

Still looking for user reviews on this...
Spotted here.

What is Cinema 2.0?

I included in this post a video from the Dropping Knowledge project that in my opinion synthesize much of the power of the new web platform for audiovisual distribution/user interaction. Like the idea or not, they made a case study example of new uses for video on the web.

My point with this video (not really this one video, but the project behind it) is that the line between multimedia/video/cinema is blurred. Like the globalized world blurred so many lines (geographical/linguistic/cultural), video on the web is doing it's own convergence thing that goes beyond the technical side of movie making. It is blending medium, know-how, as well as genres, it fades out the old border lines between cinema-tv, documentary-newscast, cinema verité-reality tv. Maybe I am getting this all wrong and that is not cinema 2.0, but then someone smarter than me should come up with a new name for it because the old label tv/cinema simply don't apply to this new form of communication.

This film is protected by the copyleft dropping knowledge Copyleft License.

Learning how to cook

In this post instead of given you a recipe (which I don't have) for making cinema 2.0, I decided to share a small collection of ingredients and chef's interviews I find interesting to help building some understanding over the subject of alternative ways to produce and share a cinematic work.

These links are not a complete or final resource guide, but only a few I personally find useful.

Filmmakers Seize Control - Arin Crumley's (from Four Eyed Monsters) video on Youtube.
"The Vancouver international film festival invited Lance Weiler and I to come out and be a part of their Forum sessions. This one was called Filmmakers Seize Control."

Fat Free Films - Joel Marshall - Nice podcast selection

Interview with Matt Hanson the creator of the cinema 2.0 project, A SWARM OF ANGELS
on the site The Workbook Project

There are many others. Including some outstanding technical resources like fxguide but these fall out of the scope of this blog because they are hi-end pro ventures that the main focus is on technical skills of big budget movies. But If you already work on the cinema or broadcast field you must be aware of these resources.

I hope people share more links on the subject on the comments section.