SpiralTruth

My German isn’t that great, but with the help of Babelfish and this update, I gather that the reasons we are not currently enjoying the first Creative Commons licensed, full feature length HD film already are as follows: (a) The December 2008 date was intended more as an internal deadline, not an absolute release date. They now have 2009 advertised as the release year on their site. If you’re like me, and have been waiting 15+ years for Chinese Democracy (finally released this November), it’s not a really big deal to miss a release by under 12 months, so I say we cut them some slack. (b) Sounds like they still need a bit more funding, possibly via sponsorships. They also have a donation form set up on their site that is currently $9K short of their expenses for the film. So if you want to see the movie out, a donation would probably help. That said, I think if this sort of model is to actually flourish, it can’t rely completely on a donation model, so hopefully other forms of funding, such as sponsorships pan out. Perhaps they could also offer to list all the people who donate in the credits of the movie. Let’s face it. Pure altruism is hard to come by and there’s nothing wrong with trying to find a win-win situation for people donating to your project. The economic crisis isn’t helping, of course. Isn’t it a shame that we’re bailing out all these companies who have been mismanaging like crazy and yet these guys are actually making something cool and can’t get their hands on a few thousand. (c) Time needing to be spent on other projects by the same people working on this one. I imagine those other projects are likely ones that pay. Sounds like things are coming along, though, and I think we really have to give these guys props for even attempting a project like this for a Creative Commons release. I’m looking forward to more news and the eventual release.

In today’s world of increasingly fast-paced information, a good acid test for freshness is the lack of a wikipedia article. I was amazed more than anything, after watching the trailer for “The Last Drug” at the lack of information about it. This is, according to the site, the first full-length feature film, shot entirely in HD, to be released under the Creative Commons license. The company releasing it is VEB FILM, based in Germany. They previously released a Creative Commons licensed film called “Route 66 – An American (bad) Dream”, which I have yet to watch. Apparently, they did well enough with Route 66 to warrant another experiment with the Creative Commons. I find this wildly exciting, not only because the idea of the Creative Commons is so appealing to my inner utopian idealist, but also because of the quality. I can honestly say I’m more excited to see this film than any completely commercial production over the last few years. Yes, even more excited than I was to see The Dark Knight. I’m not saying it’ll stand up to Hollywood standards. But then, sometimes Hollywood doesn’t stand up to its own standards. There is a lot of crap produced every year that we’re more than willing to pay for. But make up your own mind. Check out the following trailer and see if you’re as intrigued as I am about the movie:

The site’s description of the movie is: “Three backpackers cross South America searching for one of the world´s most powerful drugs. The self-experiment turns into a race against insanity, in a world, where the mind transcends the senses.” My guess from the trailer is that we’ll eventually find out that the person hooked up to the IV has taken the “last drug”, something which probably transcends the reality of this world in an almost Matrix like way. In fact, I expect this movie to be a lot like the Matrix, without all the gratuitous violence – choosing to explore the philosophy rather than simply use it as the backdrop to an action movie. But that’s just my guess. It may turn out completely different. The cool thing about it being a CC movie is that if it does disappoint me enough, I could always remix it! Finally, I’ll note that I did eventually find a wikipedia entry about it, albeit in German. If you happen to spreken ze deutsch, you can read about it here. The entire film is supposed to be released in 2008, and we have only three days left in the year as of this post, so I’m hoping to be posting an update on the actual content of the film very soon.