Feature film goes open source on straycinema.com

Press Release

19/10/2011

For immediate release

Feature film goes open source on straycinema.com

Stray Cinema is an open source film project. It is a unique experiment in film construction and distribution, allowing many movies to be made from one source of footage.

Raw footage from a feature film has been made available for the public to download from the Stray Cinema website. The film was shot in Melbourne by Brothers Young Pictures, directed by Ryan Alexander Lloyd.

To participate, people all over the world can download this footage and create their own version of a film - which can then be uploaded back onto www.straycinema.com. All films are voted on by the online community.

The top five films and the director's edit will be navigated out of the 'digital world' and into the 'real world' at a multimedia screening event, tailored for an online and real world audience.

“Traditionally films are created by a tight network working towards a singular vision, and the footage is only released when its owners can control how it is interpreted. We want to allow more people - different people - to tell their stories with this footage," says Michelle Joy Hughes, founder of Stray Cinema.

Stray Cinema is also an experiment in film distribution. While the filmmaker's raw footage has been released online, Stray Cinema will screen the director's original edit called Beginning, Middle and End. It will also promote the original film’s cinema and DVD releases to the online community next year.

“Audiences are no longer satisfied with just consuming content, they want to participate. In this new world we have to be smarter about how we distribute and make money from our films, so let’s start experimenting,” says Michelle Joy.

The Stray Cinema screening event caters to both a real world and online audience, with footage from the event being webcast live onto straycinema.com, along with music, live chat and blogging.

“We want to acknowledge that important things still happen in the real world. We believe that many film-makers ultimately want their work to reach and engage a live audience,” says Michelle Joy.

Stray Cinema has been running since 2006, year on year they aim to increase the quality of the raw footage used, this is the first time they have released feature film footage.

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The End.

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