Interview with Stray Cinema

OpenBusiness talks to Michelle Hughes, project lead for Stray Cinema, an open source film initiative that screens in London, 2008. Stray Cinema is an exploration of the possibilities of the information-sharing age. It aims to become a continuing community that uses the potential of modern info-sharing technologies and paradigms to create movies that are then screened and distributed in the real world.

OpenBusiness: There are a growing number of initiatives that are attempting somehow to employ communities to produce, create, and remix film, what do you think has led to this? How is Stray Cinema different?

Michelle Hughes: I think that visual media is one of the most significant & important forms of communication today. The fact that it is so accessible (i.e cell phones, digital cameras) means that most people can participate in creating it. The wide-spread availability of the internet allows most to participate in watching or consuming it. Finally it’s a really expressive way to correspond with other people all over the world via the internet. There are lot of websites leveraging off this idea, and building up huge online communities.

Our main point of difference from any other online film sharing/ remixing website is our acknowledgement that important things still happen in the ‘real world’. Many people still want to see their film screened on a big screen, and have live audience interaction and response to their work. People like to too see, talk to and touch other people. It’s in our nature. That’s why we are navigating the film experiment out from the online world and into the real world with our screening. Stray Cinema is a complete journey that touches on different ideas each step of the way. This project is more than us releasing a whole lot of raw footage online to anyone who wants it. We want people to bring back what they have made from the footage, and hopefully (if they are one of the top five films) journey with us into the real world and have their film screened alongside our own cut, contributing ideas and feedback along the way.

OB: What do you believe the main factors are for young film makers to become involved in projects like Stray Cinema?

Hughes: I think the London screening will be a big incentive. Our community will decide when the screening will be (six months from the day we have 30 entries into the competition). It will involve the outdoor screening of the top five film submissions (voted by our online community) coupled with VJs mixing the raw footage to live music. We aim to use interesting techniques to involve our international online community, such as footage from the event being web cast live on straycinema.com, along with music, live chat and blogging.

Another incentive for participants to make a submission is the opportunity to self promote on our website. We ask people to enter their own website address when submitting a film. This URL will appear on their film page on the Stray Cinema website.

Finally, a lot of people are excited by unique ideas. Stray Cinema is a unique idea, and I would like to think this is a significant reason for people to want to get involved.
The project is an experiment, and they themselves may want to see and be a part of the result.

OB: You have described that you are against seeking funding or sponsorship for Stray Cinema right now because you are looking for support and guidance from your community. Do you believe that open source communities are somehow put off by government or corporate support?

Hughes: Hmm, in all honesty I probably don’t know enough about the running’s of an open source software organisation to make that call. We have just borrowed the open-source software ideals and ethos, and applied them to film.

From my point of view, open source is about drawing on the knowledge and skills of your community to better the product at hand. This is our first year running, and we are very open to our community helping to shape and develop our project. For this reason we want to make sure that the right people are contributing, and for the right reasons. We don’t want Stray Cinema to be shaped solely for the financial benefits of another company.

In saying that, we are open to working alongside another company next year, when Stray Cinema is a strong and more developed concept. Then we could be on more equal terms with a sponsor, and do what’s best for the community. For example, we would really like to pay the airfares and accommodation for the top five contestants to come to the Stray Cinema 2008 screening. It would provide a great opportunity for those who couldn’t normally afford to travel to such an event.
OB: What income possibilities do you see for stray cinema in the future? Do you foresee the project making money?

Hughes: In all honesty, I don’t know. Eventually we would like to make enough money to support a small team of people to work on the project. But at this stage I am happy to fund the project myself at a loss. Personally I am doing this out of interest, I want to see what the outcome of this film experiment will be.

OB: You told me last time we spoke about a form of ‘user generated advertising’. Can you tell us more about it?

Yes, this is an incentive we have created, to encourage people (especially the Press and Bloggers) to spread the word about Stray Cinema. For every film that is submitted into the Stray Cinema competition, we ask the person who is submitting their film where they heard about us. If it was from you then “user loves www.yourwebsite.com” will appear on their film page.

It is also another way we can hand the reigns back to our community. They can choose who is promoted on our website, and because the link is on their page beside their work, the source should be reputable.

OB: Where do you see the project in a few years from now?

Hughes: David Lynch shot the footage last year, and there are 1000 Stray Cinema community members around the world that can boast they are editing his film.

Meanwhile the footage for the following Stray Cinema is being shot in the virtual world by the Great Ringmaster Rita, who is a flying unicorn filmmaker in second life.

I hope to attract a diverse range of new and interesting film makers to create our footage, giving our community an exciting new challenge each year.

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