I’ve decided Cannes needs to be rebranded as a place that celebrates the art of cinema rather then their current reputation as the heart of the international movie industry.
To be more accurate I think they are actually understand as simply “Everything related to movies and celebrities.”
But who has time for “everything”. In this cacophony I think focus has tremendous power. Not tunnel vision or anything narrow minded but also not all the noise all the time every day.
So I don’t have a singular reason for going to Cannes but instead have a few. One is that it’s an amazing place to spend time thinking about and experiencing the craft of cinema. No where else on earth is going to see a movie treated this much like going to church.
I’m also looking to talk to people about a new model that finances creators even between their crowd funded projects as well as increases the integrity of crowd funding campaigns and honors the human intervention still needed in curating cinema. I call it a model that could work. See long term that film festivals will be nothing but a celebration of the art and craft but in today’s world I’m still tying my reality together with shoelaces and this just simply has to stop. For me and everyone else in my boat. We need a model can work.
So I’ll be talking to different companies and individuals about this new vision of a modern cinema eco system to have a dialogue and refine the vision before typing up and publishing after Cannes.
I will also be looking for films to add to OpenIndie.com which recently got a couple new developers volunteering to further evolve the site.
This video sums up the majority of my experiences on OKC.
I also made a movie & online series that shows the minority of my experience with online dating.
One day I’d actually like to create my own dating app that utilizes augmented reality, gaming, geo caching, life streaming, meetups, social currency, sexual history logs, disease testing logs, cam sex, world travel, sexual voyeurism, open romance and sex-life optimizing algorithms. The whole thing would also be a fund raiser to end sex slavery and human trafficking around the world.
MEDIA (search youtube for link)
Sigur Ru00f3s – Untitled.mp4
Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe Karaoke.mp4
Virus 3D Animation.mp4
PH – Personal Helicopter.mp4
Planet X Crashing Into Earth.mp4
UPDATE_ Predicted Path of Asteroid 2012 DA14 on Feb. 15, 2013 | Space u0026 Astronomy Video.mp4
How a Neuron Fires.mp4
Tom Tom Club – Wordy Rappinghood.mp4
Millionaires HOOCH Dating Service, Bachelorette #604.mp4
AWOLNATION – Sail (Official).mp4
For the past 3 years Christie Strong and I have lived, collaborated and traveled the world together but on January 1st, we decided together that the most powerful thing that each of us could do is separate. We made this decision together over a somewhat epic walk around Chiang Mai Thailand in the morning light walking down streets littered with exploded fireworks.
I was feeling the beginning of a long road of solitude ahead and realized I really needed a new best friend. So I turned to an old best friend. The camera. The new person I can do everything with. We can converse endlessly about any topic. We can each be a mirror showing the other their true self and be together no matter what happens.
I strapped the camera to my red tie, popped in a 32 gig card, plugged-in an all day battery pack and stepped out into the world.
iPad taken self portrait of my Tie Cam… since i”m in Thailand right now I sometimes call it my “Thai Cam”.
So far I’ve realized that a camera is actually not an effective substitute for Christie. However, the experiment has proved interesting anyway.
I have a dream to one day create an epic Sci-Fi film and in the story world the characters have archives of their entire lives that they are able to use in conversations with others as well as to review and even re-edit their history to tell the story they believe they are living.
In the first 9 days of filming I’ve already gotten several ideas for the Sci-Fi project and huge insights into who I am and what I typically do when left to my own devices. I’m also finding a lot of draw backs to this process. I have to be very careful at all times to not talk about people behind their backs and I wish I could say this was easy. I also have to make sure to not do anything illegal or witness anyone doing anything illegal. I also always have to disclose that I’m recording and will put the footage on the internet. I also have to deal with incredibly compromised privacy for myself because in order for this experiment to work I’ve committed to recording when ever I’m talking to anyone or doing anything. I’m not filming sleep, nudity, watching movies, reading or checking social media feeds or private messages but basically everything else is getting rolled on so there may be scrutiny from others who might scrub through the archives and I judge me in the future for something that happened in the past. Part of the experiment is to allow others to join in the process following a tutorial I will post on how I’m doing this and also allowing people to take my videos and use them in in way they wish. Keepvid.com and other tools allow the easy downloading of any YouTube video and I’ve placed a creative commons license on all my footage so by default people have my permission to use what I’ve captured for what ever they like and yes I realize this is incredibly risky.
But all of that is easy. The hard part is actually having to start to have integrity with myself. When I say I’m going to do something the camera is rolling and therefor the moment carries more weight. It’s no longer possible to just let all of my visions fall by the waist side and constantly betray myself. I’m learning a lot about myself already and getting great insights for the Sci-Fi project as well.
So I’ve turned this project into a challenge and have been telling people I will upload raw footage every single day in 2013. Since what I say is now what I have to do… here we are. The playlist below will contain every single day in 2013. I encourage people to not try watch a whole day but instead just pick a random spot in a random video and make a comment on what you saw. It could be just info about what’s being talked about to help catalog or maybe you have something to say that you would have said if you had been there or maybe you have a question or some advice. You can include the hour, minute and second you are referring to in your comment by typing in the counter number such as “1:30:22”. YouTube will make the number in your comment actually be a click-able link to that when clicked will jump to that point in the video. I’ll respond and it’ll be a fairly unique time shifted omni present 4th dimension experience.
If you find this experiment interesting your welcome to subscribe to my youtube channel. My goal isn’t to get lots of people involved but just have a few good people participating from beginning to end. I’m looking to simulate a world where everyone does this with out even questioning it and it just becomes baked into the culture and part of the natural experience of life. This is a world I also believe we will likely live in one day so am very fascinated to explore what we should all be prepared for.
Access to jobs, homes and resources are dwindling and our right to peacefully gather to discuss what to do about it is aggressively being fought by nationwide police coordination. It is a decisive moment on this planet. One option is to keep being occupied with our daily grind and individual struggles. Or we can take control of our collective destiny and design a future worth living. Worth waking up in the morning for. Worth defending. Worth birthing new life into. This movement is not centrally controlled which is what makes it yours. You create it. You bring your talents, your time and your resources. This is the platform for our big ideas. This is the place to find challenges worthy of your passion. Worthy of your life. What is our one demand? You. With strength in numbers there is no limit to what we can do. We need to continue to occupy Wall st. Occupy your street. Occupy this country. Occupy our world. Occupy our future. Occupy Now.
I make films and if SOPA passes then the websites where I share my work have a high risk of being shut down. Because rather then stop piracy this bill will simply stop competition to mainstream media. The independent voice will be squashed in favor for corporate sponsored culture & news. I could have gone to work for Hollywood but I chose to be independent and to create culture that expresses fresh ideas rather then recycled ideas aimed only at profit. Culture creation is about finding a way to express the presently unexpressed. You take that away and you take away society’s ability to grow and expand. So I urge you to stop SOPA and any other future iteration that tries to censor the internet. No civil society would selectively block certain domain names. All domain names must remain open and the existing laws should be the way copyright owners enforce violations of their work. Let’s be proud to be alive and proud of good policies that support humanity. – Arin Crumley
I ask you to get involved by learning more here and then write a letter that speaks to how this would personally effect you. A diverse set of voices demonstrating the real impact is what we can do to make a difference or else we risk loosing the internet as we know it. Not waking up waking one day with a censored internet, waking up tomorrow with a censored internet.
It’s not looking good as of today this huffington post article says both the house and senate are eager to pass it and Google is the only one fighting to keep it from going through.
Download our “torrent” and double click, opening it in the BitTorrent software where it will begin to download.
For best playback results also download the VLC player.
If you’re really excited about the film, hook up a projector and screen it in your backyard with friends. Or use OpenIndie to set up a public screening!
While the established media infrastructure continues to worry about how peer-to-peer affects their bottom line, we’d like to simply embrace the change. The truth is that as independents we have no other choice. The barriers to filmmaking have fallen but the gates around distribution through traditional TV, theatrical and VOD remain locked. So we either innovate using open solutions to distribute our films or we have no audience.
I love their spirit & vision but in practice IFC struggles to do what they contractually promise.
I tried to play the conventional game and signed a TV deal with IFC TV for Four Eyed Monsters in 2008. Not only did they neglect to pay the promised fee, the company continued to sell downloads on iTunes, air the film on television and sell DVDs. There was no choice but to threaten them with a lawsuit in order to reach a settlement and get our rights back. The blessing in disguise was that we are now able to release Four Eyed Monsters in any way we’d like, including peer-to-peer networks.
You guys are the best! Thanks for all the exposure!
What excites me the most about peer-to-peer distribution is that technically it’s the most efficient way to move large, high quality files. The more people who download Four Eyed Monsters the more seeds are created to help others download the film even faster. With peer-to-peer file sharing the load is distributed across the entire network rather than creating bottlenecks on any one server. This is what makes it possible for users to efficiently share feature film downloads with each other at no cost beyond their normal Internet connection. Due to it’s unparalleled efficiency, peer-to-peer keeps growing and growing. If media creators can connect with this worldwide audience and find a way to sustain themselves then there is a real alternative to the mainstream studio system.
Jamie King and the rest of his savvy team have been forging relationships for years with a variety of peer-to-peer networks and have recently launched VODO as an online community and distribution platform that puts the distribution of films into the hands of the audience. People are encouraged to make donations to the films they like and get incentives such as DVDs, posters, mp3s and artwork, but what excites me the most is the Studio. My company, The Co-Create Inc has joined a pilot project hosted by VODO aimed at getting monthly donations from audiences in exchange for access to rough cuts of new work, deleted scenes, scripts, music, storyboards and more. *UPDATE – the pilot project has ended and we no longer are offering the studio experience on Vodo.
OpenIndie was asked to participate in the DIY DAYS incubator on April 3rd 2010 where Kieran & I spent the whole day reviewing the strengths and challenges of introducing OpenIndie to the world.
The tail end of the day was spent preparing and rehearsing this presentation that I then gave to the DIY DAYS participants. It felt great to just let loose with the crowd screaming at the top of our lungs, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” The message was very well received.
Afterwards Kieran detailed the incubator experience saying, “We arent the OpenIndie that went into the DIY DAYS Incubator.” It was a truly transformative experience.
So lets get this ball rolling guys. Lets build phase 2. Lets get investors on board who can fund this effort so we can do it right.
If you know anyone who should be a part of the OpenIndie effort, please send referrals and suggestions along via twitter or email ArinCrumley @ Gmail (dot) com
CREDITS:
Filmming was done by Alex Liss, Mike Hedge & Raffi Asdourian.
The scene is from Network copyright by the studio that owns it and we are using under fair use law.
The music in the “request” video is by our friend Drew Danburry. That video is a part of the Four Eyed Monsters Case Study Presentation we originally gave at Power to the Pixel 2007.
David lynch is pretty set on people really missing out if they try to watch a film on a phone. But this doesn’t mean that smart phones can’t enhance the cinema experience.
Here are a few obvious things I see as valuable in designing a new film experience:
• Discovering near by screenings of movies made by filmmakers you love.
• Engaging in an interactive experience designed to be the pre-show to the film. An example would be the Four Eyed Monsters Video Podcast.
• Managing the screenings of movies you plan to attend as well as receiving alerts when a close friend is going to be going to a screening that you are near.
• Engaging in an application designed to be used in sync with the film. The app could interoperate the wave form of the audio of the film to gain it’s sync. User comments and additional info about scenes could add an interactive layer to the film.
• Interactive advertisements placed on portable apps could be a smart use of marketing dollars and increase discoverability of a film. Targeting could be focused around geographical and other demographic information.
Steve Jobs at Apple Inc recently gave a presentation that I watched online demonstrating all the new features of the iPhone that will be available this summer and will come to the iPad in the fall.
Below are my notes from his presentation.
Making an iPhone, iTouch, or iPad app puts you in front of up to 85 million users.
The new iPhone OS handles multi-tasking.
Pandora has 50 million users. Now in the new iPhone OS you can listen to music while you also check your email. 20 percent of the music they stream is going to iPhones and they expect that to grow.
Skype connects 1 out of every 9 international calls made on the planet. In the new iPhone OS you can get a skype call anytime. Even when the phone is locked and in your pocket. Before you had to have the app launched to get the call.
Background location is now possible in the new iPhone OS which means that for very little power usage the iPhone can figure out if you’ve changed locations and an app can automatically find out you’ve moved.
Task completion is a new feature that allows you to finish an upload while you’ve moved over to another application.
Fast app switching lets applications use only a tiny bit of battery power when you leave the app so you don’t get a sluggish experience.
You can also have a unified inbox now in the mail application and open attachments in iPhone apps.
iBooks is the ebook store that was made for the iPad but will now also work in the new iPhone OS.
Encryption API lets application builders have high security over any information transmitted to an application.
Wireless application distribution means a user could get an application from a company that they work for pushed to their companies iPhone.
They’ve also added a social gaming network. you can invite friends to play a game with you. You can automatically match with others who are playing a game.
iAd is a new mobile advertising platform. “It’s about helping our developers make some money through advertising so they can keep their free apps free,” is what steve jobs said explaining why they are doing this. He made the observation that “people are not searching, they are using apps,” which struck me as apples way of explaining to the ad industry why apple is now in the Ad game. It also made me think of the growing Google vs Apple competition for world domination. Hehe. I personally love both companies. Even though each frustrate me at times.
Average iPhone user uses iPhone app 30 minutes a day. If a small banner add appeared every 3 minutes in the bottom of that app then Steve predicts 1 billion ad opportunities per day. “A huge opportunity”, he says.
Apple will be selling and hosting the ads. They are built with HTML5. Advertisers can show videos, provide a free game, theater listings, provide the user with wall papers and even sell applications or games. You can have the user shake the iPhone to get new random new content within an ad. Ads can also integrate location.
Hiring an iPhone app developer is a way to build an iAd. Developer who makes the app that the iAd is attached to will get the majority of the revenue but apple will also take some. I am curious how an advertiser pays signs up to have their ad appear in apps. I am also curious how an app can define which ads they feel comfortable existing on their apps. Also I’m curious if advertising that doesn’t use the iAd system would violate any kind of terms and service.
Developer.apple.com has the new iPhone development tools. Developing iPhone apps strikes me as a profitable skill for someone who loves designing user experiences.
Today, March 1st 2010 OpenIndie launched in beta to the 100 filmmakers who provided over 12,000 dollars to have the site built by myself (Arin Crumley) and my co-founder Kieran Masterton.
I was blown away by Kieran’s quality of programming and design at launch. The site is truly inspiring to me and I’m glad to have co-designed it and to be bringing OpenIndie to the public.
The first 18 films were added and 7 screenings were entered into the site one of which was We Live In Public, one of the films that contributed 100 dollars towards building OpenIndie. Today the 7 screenings We Live in Public was having were added to the site as part of the effort to promote their multi-city and multi-format release. The screenings were in celebration of the films VOD & DVD nationwide release.
The live Q&A was streamed online from Chicago with filmmaker Ondi Timoner and main character of the film Josh Harris. They bantered over audience questions pipped in from the 5 other cities asking about the authenticity of love that takes place in-front of cameras, the goal we all have with our online identities and the likeliness of Andy Warhol’s promise of 15 minutes of fame in our life times.
Josh Harris gave his predictions of the future of the internet and then explained he’s working on a wired city project of living spaces that are streamed online to interacting participants and mentioned having hollywood support for the project.
Ondi Timoner dissected Josh explaining her assessment of Josh’s tendency to shut off to intimacy and then mentioned she’s working on a film that explores the under exposed solutions to help climate change as well as her first scripted narrative which will be about the life story of Robert Mapplethorpe.
This up coming week for me will be all about further editing the copy on OpenIndie.com, the homepage design, the uploading of films feature and fixing any bugs that arise.
Also of course I’m deep into editing here with Christie Strong and have the support of Niklas Schrimpf who is the causual kinesiologist on the film we are making. More info soon on how I hope to bring that film to an OpenIndie release learning from Ondi’s amazing release tonight. Provided we can get all the powers that be on board. Stay tuned.
This new years eve crystallized some big concepts for me. I wasn’t planning to create new years resolutions but as I let my self sleep in recovering from the catastrophes of the day before the ways in which I’d like to improve came flying into my head.
While coming to terms with it all I also was dedicating all my creative energy into figuring out what I could make for Google. They’d given me the unreleased Nexus One a few weeks prior and asked me to make a video about the phone offering a substantial financial incentive.
So I really wanted to do something that we both would be proud of but literally couldn’t get organized enough to get it done. The result was this video crammed together in the final day before the deadline.
I do sincerely hope that this phone helps me get organized and therfor change my life and I do plan to post in the future more videos like this that explore my progress.
Arin Crumley 