Every minute of every day successful, talented, intelligent and often technically brilliant people give up their extremely limited free time to contribute to open source software. In August this year there were 1.2 Million code pushes to social coding site Github. Since 2008 open source operating system Linux has powered over 60% of web servers on the Internet. And, as of today open source blogging platform Wordpress host 13.9 million blogs and have a further 13.8 million active installations of their self-hosted package.

In a post on our blog last week OpenIndie announced that I am to begin work on an open source self-hosted version of our request and screening tool. While in this post we discussed some of the benefits of taking this approach we did not explore in any great detail what open source is and what it means for a project such as OpenIndie. The numbers mentioned above are incredible, people are clearly passionate about contributing to and using open source software, but why is this and why have we decided to release OpenIndie in this way?

First up, what is open source? The term open source has come to mean a number of things but at it’s heart it describes a process of production where the source materials are made publicly available. In the case of my examples and OpenIndie this means the software’s source code is publicly released. However, the term has also come to stretch across many mediums from video and music to knowledge itself with Wikipedia. However, for the purpose of this post I will be focusing entirely on the term open source as it pertains to software production.

Unlike proprietary software there is less specificity in the agenda when developing open source software. There may be many concurrent but differing ideas about the agenda of a given project. Therefore, the emphasis is upon collaboration and democracy during production. Projects differ in terms of how they are organised and the process for contribution. However, all are alike in that you or I are as welcome to contribute bug fixes, original code or ideas as the project creator(s).

As you might imagine this lack of a central impetus can often cause disagreement in terms of a given software’s road map. This is what causes project forks. When a project is forked a splinter group of developers break away with a collective vision for the project. The original project continues alongside the new fork and as a result of their different visions they serve different needs. For example Drizzle is a fork of the extremely popular open source relational database MySQL. Drizzle’s focus is upon providing a lightweight SQL database for cloud applications. I imagine this mission was born out of a frustration with MySQL’s heavier components and reputation of scaling poorly.

So, in a nutshell open source software is code that is produced in a collaborative fashion, with many agendas and distributed without cost for anyone to use. That isn’t to say that open source software can’t be used commercially. There are many models that allow for a business to turn a profit and still open source their software.

Popular Linux distribution Redhat have for many years given their product away while charging for commercial support and training. Likewise, blogging platform Wordpress are successfully making money out of open sourcing their software. Automattic the company behind Wordpress offer two options. First, Wordpress.com a hosted solution for ametuer and pro bloggers alike. Wordpress have a freemium model for this option. They offer add ons at an annual or monthly cost such as domain mapping, or advanced customisation. This option is aimed at users looking for simplicity and peace of mind that Automattic are dealing with hosting and securing their blog. For non-technical or first time bloggers this is a great solution.

Automattic’s second option is called Wordpress.org and this is their open source option. The same software that powers Wordpress.com is released free of charge on their .org website and the code is made available so that anyone can contribute. This balance of open source and commercial means that Wordpress’ future is secured by the support of a commercial entity. However, it means that those contributing to the project are still able to steer its direction and fork the project for their own needs at any time.

It is this model that OpenIndie is adopting. By releasing a self-hosted open source version of the site it means that developers can contribute to the project and the filmmaking community can steer the road map for the project. This model will allow filmmakers to take an new specially adapted version of OpenIndie and deploy it on their own hosting package. There will be no OpenIndie branding and filmmakers will be able to skin the install to look exactly like it’s part of their existing site. All data will be stored locally to the installation and filmmakers will therefore have total control over the information they collect. Additionally, filmmakers will be given the option to broadcast information back to the Openindie.org API which will make the film appear in our listings on the site and should help drive traffic to the filmmakers site.

The impetus behind open sourcing our code is as practical as it is philosophical. As a one man development team my impact is limited but with the support of other dedicated developers we can finally begin to iterate on a regular basis and grow OpenIndie into something fantastic for indie filmmakers. Our passion for open source is born out of a belief that many of the greatest pieces of software in the world have been developed in this way and that it is a genuinely exciting opportunity for both us and our users.

Finally, I want to assure current users that this does not mean that OpenIndie.com will cease to be or will be the poor relation to the open source distribution. In fact OpenIndie.com will grow as a result of the new features and updates contributed by the open source team. The service we delivered on the 1st of March 2010 will continue and will be improved upon. This decision makes OpenIndie a more flexible, adaptable and in many cases viable option for many filmmakers who want ownership of their data and want to grow a following around their own site.

I hope that this post has given you some insight into the world of open source software and how it powers some of the Internet’s incredible resources. I will leave you with this quote from the creator of open source web framework Ruby on Rails and partner at 37signals, David Heinemeier Hansson:

“My core philosophy about open source is that we should all be working on the things that we personally use and care about. Working for other people is just too hard and the quality of the work will reflect that. But if we all work on the things we care about and then share those solutions between us, the world gets richer much faster.” — DHH

Recently, I’ve found myself a bit obsessed with the concept of lifestreams. Granted the concept has been around for awhile but what I’ve found most interesting is how a lifestream could be applied to the discovery and promotion of films.

The term Lifestream is associated with creating a digital timeline of your life. They usually include blog entries that you’ve written, photos you’ve taken, text messages you’ve sent or received, bookmarks that you’ve favorited, music you’ve listened to, books you’ve read or movies you’ve watched. Constructed from a collection of RSS (really simple syndication) feeds – most blogs, photo services, social bookmarking sites, and certain social services allow you to pull a feed. RSS is an open standard that is a pull based model – subscribe to a feed and receive updates when they are made without you having to travel back to the original site.

So by collecting a number of RSS feeds you can start to assemble a snap shot of what your life online and offline looks like. Sure this could seem obsessive but what it also points to is an interesting simple open media discovery tool.

For instance, here’s a sample of a lifestream that we established for the discovery and distribution festival that we’re working on called FROM HERE TO AWESOME. This particular lifestream consists of over 20 festival staff members. As the festival rolls out we’ll be creating a more detailed lifestream that will provide a snap shot of what filmmakers and audiences are interested in. In a sense this is an extension of an earlier Workbook Project experiment that we started over a year ago called FestMob.

But looking ahead I think what interests me most about the concept of lifestreams is that they could become a simple filter for the likes and dislikes of a large group or a select number of trusted friends.

The tools and services to enable a discovery stream are everywhere these days and most of them are free. Social sites and services provide a variety of feeds that you can aggregate.

Twitter for mobile SMS
Del.icio.us for social bookmarking
LastFM for music
Spout, Flixster and Netflix for movies
Flickr for photos
Social Networking sites like Facebook have feeds for your status but it takes a bit a digging to find them
Qik for streaming video directly from your phone
A wordpress, blogger, tumblr or a movabletype blog all provide RSS feeds

And that’s just a sampling of what’s available. But one has to look beyond what is currently a collection of closed widgets and multiple feeds. How can these feeds be aggregated in ways that fosters discovery and promotion of films? There a variety of lifestream services and plugins popping up such as lifestrea.ms, profilacitc, and escaloop that get close to the management side of lifestreams but they are limited in their customization and support of feed enclosures (the ability for a feed to include of audio, video, images and links)

But what’s missing from this simple open discovery stream of likes and dislikes that a filmmaker can use? This is where I think some discussion is needed. In order for filmmakers to harness the power of feeds in a productive way there needs to be some original development. Of course the various lifestream services can be used to promote one’s work in a simple way by providing a snap shot of what someone or a group finds interesting but that is just scratching the surface.

It seems to me that the following are key components to developing discovery streams for films.

• The need for a standard way to label and identify media.
• The adaptation of tools that can easily read standard enclosures around feeds
• Visualization of the data that allows for customization so users can prioritize based on personal and group recommendations.
• Portability of the streams and simple sharing tools
• A clear value proposition. For instance the more you make your stream visible the more you discover. Similar systems have been used with success within private torrent groups.

There is a large interest in the concept of open social, data portability and the ability for social graphs to travel with a user. A type of discovery stream could create a direct connection between a filmmaker and their audience and it might just be a start to helping filmmakers cross-pollinate their audiences.

Related Resources

Lifestream Blog – a great resource on all things dealing with streams.

ReadWriteWeb’s primer of lifestreams

Lance Weiler is a filmmaker and a self distribution pioneer. His films THE LAST BROADCAST and HEAD TRAUMA are distributed in the United States and in over 20 countries around the world. Lance often lectures on filmmaking, technology, media consumption and distribution. He’s spoken at the Sundance, Berlin and Cannes Film Festivals in addition to numerous Universities and film societies. Lance is currently working on a number of new film, tv and cross media projects. He is also working on a book entitled “Putting the Mass Back in Media” which will be released in 2008. He currently sits on the board of the IFP, is the founder of the Workbook an “open source social project” for content creators and a co-founder of the discovery and distribution festival FROM HERE TO AWESOME. For more on Lance visit www.lanceweiler.com

* PROJECTS

Esther Robinson’s debut feature, A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory is a touching and deeply personal cinematic journey. The doc centers on her Uncle Danny who was a talented filmmaker and Andy Warhol’s lover. In 1966, Danny mysteriously disappeared. The film’s subjects include Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Paul Morrissey, Brigid Berlin, Billy Name and what may be the earliest known footage of the Velvet Underground.

WHY: The film raises many interesting questions about Warhol’s factory. One of the strenghts of the doc are Danny’s own films which are finally given the showcase that they deserve. Movie opens in NYC on Dec. 14th

*WEB 2.0

When it comes to discovery, social bookmarking service StumbleUpon can be down right addictive. A simple addition to your browser that allows you to “stumble” across the web. The more you stumble and tag what you like, the more the service recommends new sites.

WHY: A simple and fun way to find and share things that interest you. StumbleUpon is an interesting services that has some great value for audience discovery of films if they would just open up their API, and allow people to extend the functionality. If you happen to be on StumbleUpon make sure to friend me.

* EVENT

FROM HERE TO AWESOME, is a discovery and distribution festival that enables filmmakers to reach global audiences while retaining their rights. Filmmakers will have a variety of distribution opportunities at their disposal with a direct return of revenue to them.

There are no traditional programmers. The audience will program the festival based on ratings, volume of comments and the number of times a project is favorited. The festival will showcase 10 shorts, 10 features and 10 virtual panels.

WHY: DOES NOT charge any submission fees or sales fees. Offers filmmakers a variety direct distribution outlets such as; theaters, living rooms, online outlets, mobile and live events. All transactions are handled directly by the filmmaker and the outlet. For more information visit FROM HERE TO AWESOME

* TOOLS

RSS (really simple syndication) feeds are a simple way to stay up to date with site updates, news, and media. They pull the content you are interested in directly to you. There are a variety of ways to read feeds – browsers have feed reading options, google and bloglines offer free online feedreaders. When it comes to rich media feeds FireAnt and Miro are great free solutions. Feedburner is a solid free service that is rich with features that can assist with the creation, promotion and management of your feeds.

WHY: RSS is an amazing open standard that does the heavy lifting for you. It is an excellent way for an audience to stay up to date with a project and is a lot easier than having to manage an email list. Feedburner just makes RSS easier.


* WEB 2.0

For those looking for a simple way to create deeper engagement around a site or blog with an audience, Cover it Live offers an interesting free solution. Users schedule a “live session” that can be embedded in a blog or site. Once embedded the user designs a session and sets a time. Sessions can have video, audio, live chats and comments. Once your live session is over it can be archived and played back at anytime.

WHY: Creating a rich media real-time discussion with an audience is a great way to build community. Could be used for Q&A’s, news updates or just to gather socially with a group of people.

We are pleased to welcome Brian Chirls to the Workbook Project. Brian is a filmmaker and technologist living in NYC. From time to time he will be contributing his thoughts on tech and filmmaking. This week he sets his sights on site design and flash. —

More and more frequently, filmmakers ask me for feedback on their film websites, and I keep seeing the same thing: heavy, multimedia sites built on Flash. I keep seeing site navigation all in a full-screen image representing some iconic place in the film; animations of design elements flying or fading in on every page; music playing automatically; long loading screens; and the dreaded splash pages. This seems to have become the standard. Hollywood does it. (See: Beowulf, Lions for Lambs, American Gangster.) The indies do it. (e.g. Margot at the Wedding, Eagle vs. Shark, Weirdsville). It’s awful, and it’s so Web 1.0.

We are well beyond denying that a film website is the most effective and often the only entry point to discovery of your film. The audience has to jump an increasingly absurd number of hurdles to see your movie in the theater. The website is an opportunity to introduce the film as quickly as possible, provide the detailed information your audience and the media are looking for, to engage your audience repeatedly, and to make it ridiculously easy for fans to promote your film for you.

Below, I’m going to explain why this ancient model fails and suggest a few starting points for an alternative approach.

Why Flash sites fail

• Flash sites are heavy and slow. It takes extra time to download and process all those big graphics and sounds, and you can’t afford to make the casual web browsing fan wait. Many of them may be browsing on computers a few years old or spotty wi-fi connections. That “loading” progress bar isn’t part of your story, is it? Nobody likes it.
• Flash sites give your site a non-standard interface. Where did the right-click menu go? How do you copy text to the clipboard? Where does that link go? Does it open in another window? What does the “back” button do? Where the hell is the button that stops that loud music? Nobody wants to re-learn how to browse the web just for your little movie.
• Flash is not searchable. If you do it right, many visitors will find your site through a search engine. With Flash, that all disappears. It also prevents searching within the browser.
• Most of these sites don’t allow deep-linking. That’s the trade-off for not having to reload the whole flash file every time you go to a different section. This is important for encouraging links to your content. See if you can find a direct link to the trailer on the Lions for Lambs site.
• Flash can’t be syndicated. RSS and Atom feeds are becoming increasingly important as easy tools for people to follow your updates through news readers, such as Google Reader.
• Those animations keep repeating. They’re cool the first time, but don’t make me watch your menu fly in every time I go to another section of your site.
• You’re tied to your designer. Most Flash sites don’t allow you to easily change around your interface without going back to the busy, expensive Flash contractor you hired to build your site. What if you want to change one little menu item? Or even redesign the entire layout without losing all the content? Even another Flash expert could have a hard time tracking down the original source files and scripts. Same goes for jpg image map interfaces.
• Most Flash sites, like the examples cited above, give the impression that the site is finished forever, that there’s no reason to keep coming back for new content. Even if there’s a news section, it’s much harder and more expensive to implement in Flash than in other HTML-based options.
• No need to re-invent the wheel. Web browsers are good at laying out text and images and performing all the functions that go along with it. Flash requires you to re-implement all that, and more often than not you’re not gonna cover all the bases.

That’s not to say that you can’t solve any of the above problems within a Flash-based framework, but it’s a lot harder.

Easy Alternatives

Set your film site up as a blog. It’s that simple. They’re searchable, deep-linkable, syndicate-able, re-designable, subscribe-able, modular and allow easy user interaction through comments. Get yourself Wordpress on your own server or on theirs. You can also try Livejournal, Blogger or Moveable Type. For the most part, they’re all free. Do a comparison.

Most blogging software will double as a content management system. So even if your main purpose is not to blog, you can easily set up fixed pages to give the basic information about your film. You may still need help from an expert to fully customize your layout, but they all come with multiple themes that should be enough to get you started.

See Four Eyed Monsters as an example. There are some things I would do differently if I had it to do over again, but for the most part, the site was a success. I wish I knew more examples of film sites that I like. If you know of some, please comment on this post.

When Flash is okay

There are some things that Flash is much better at than HTML, and I encourage using it for those specific purposes. The best example is for embedded media players, such as YouTube or any of the countless other video hosting sites. There are also good embedded audio players, like the one in the Audio Player Wordpress plugin. (See it in action on Lance’s site.) Flash is also great for games or animation, as on Homestar Runner.

The other reasons I think it works so well in those situations are that the non-standard interface is within a confined space of the specific media player and because the specific, compartmentalized rich-media experience makes it worth waiting for the download. (More on that another time.) Otherwise, lose it.

Brian Chirls is a filmmaker and technologist in New York. He has worked on the film Four Eyed Monsters as Manager of Distribution and Marketing. Brian is currently consulting on the distribution of John Sayles’s latest film, Honeydripper, while continuing to develop and write about ways for independent artists to create and distribute their work. Brian has also produced and directed a number of short films, video blogs and a bit of machinima.

Before becoming a filmmaker, Brian built financial software and worked in construction management on subway stations and highways. He graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania and is the least successful member of his graduating class.

To learn more about Brian’s work, see chirls.com.

With the advent of the Internet, we make instant judgments on something after viewing its website. Especially movies. Before making films, Josh and I both worked for a software company managing websites. Between this and numerous things we tried to do on the side, we learned how to design websites and master web marketing. This, in my opinion, is one of the keys to our success. The following is a list of ways we’ve used web marketing and an online experience to help with our success:

1) Design
I’ll go into this more below, but the design of your website is critical. When making a movie, your brand often starts with the website. Eventually, if you have the luxury of getting picked up by a big distribution company, they’ll control all of this. But when you are distributing and creating awareness for your project, it’s critical to make something that looks like it could have been produced by a distribution company which has $30,000 to spend on web design. Because of our backgrounds, we were able to absorb this cost ourselves. If you have no web skills, I’d advise learning them. It’s not too hard to hack something together based on a borrowed concept. Or find an amigo who can do this stuff and entice him/her to work on the project with either profit guarantees or some other creative payment scheme.

2) Blog/Vlog
This one is obvious, but it’s very tough to do it right. With a good blog, you’ll get about 100 of your friends to come check up on you every once in awhile. Below with email marketing, you’ll see how to grow your base of ‘friends’ and hopefully get them to come to your website more often than once a year. People will go to your website initially to learn about you and your product(s). After they establish an initial impression, they’ll very quickly determine whether or not they should ever bother to come back. If you provide consistently good content, you may entice them to come back on a regular basis. This is getting trickier, though, as thousands of people start a blog everyday. What’s encouraging and discouraging at the same time is that 90% of those new bloggers and vloggers won’t succeed in generating a growing audience. What’s key to remember with producing a blog and/or vlog, is that you are creating the tools to help you tell your story and give insight to your product(s). If you do this right, people will come and the big blogosphere will pick up on what you are doing, saying, and showing – and you’ll see your traffic start to grow. My suggestion (and again I haven’t mastered this): have a strong personality, don’t censor your thoughts, and publish often.

3) Database
I hate this word because for some reason it reminds me of those banal afternoons where my eyes felt droopy, a migraine teased me, and the square footage of my cube felt like it was shrinking. But building a database is probably one of the most important things for any business endeavor. Yes, making films is business. It’s very creative, but if you don’t think of it as a business, your odds of success are free fallin’. When we set out to make 10 MPH, we started by traveling across the country and calling our experience ‘America at 10 mph’. We didn’t know much about databases, but had some web friends set something simple up for us. We collected email addresses and people’s locations, so we could get in contact with them when we came into their neck of the woods. We also had a form on our website where people could tell us they wanted to meet us. After we got picked up on Yahoo Picks and NPR Weekend Edition, we had several thousand people access our forms. We collected a lot of information from this and that in turn started a relationship with the people that would eventually buy our movie and support our careers. Start simply – get all the emails of your friends and close connections. Once you start emailing them on a regular basis, you’ll need to follow CAN-SPAM regulations and make sure you give them a way to get off your lists. But I’m assuming most of these people (if you were honest about them being friends or close connections) will want to support your endeavors and stay up-to-date on what’s going on.

4) Email Marketing
After shooting 10 MPH, Josh and I were dead broke & in debt up to our ears (sounds like a typical filmmaker, eh?). So I started working full time at an email marketing agency. I learned a lot about email marketing and also realized the entire world was starting to do it. Before 10 MPH, we had some experience with email marketing at the big ol’ cube farm that we worked in. No one was emailing back then. But it’s so cheap to do that companies are figuring out how to do it and do it often. Hence the problem we face with spam. But, if you are growing your database right and offering valuable and interesting information in your emails, you should get respect from your list. They will hopefully actually read your email and not just delete it right away. We use Vertical Response to send our emails, but there are many options out there and if you know someone who knows how to program, you can actually set up a script to use your own web server to send emails. The problem is that these may be more susceptible to getting caught in spam filters or could ultimately get you blacklisted which would mess up all your outgoing email. There are challenges to growing lists and marketing to them; Everything from providing content that interests your customers to not having to spend too much money on the emails. When you are making a movie, you often have to wait years before you can make any money off the product. So if you are sending an email every month or so to your audience, costs will add up. But if you do this right, these costs will pay themselves back 10 times over (at least) when you release a product. Making films is an eternal investment. But, once the cycle starts to pay, it’ll get a little easier.

One other thing – make sure you take the time to get a nice HTML template for your emails that showcases the brand of your film(s) or production company. We’ve tried some experiments with text-only emails and HTML emails seem to consistently perform better. Many email vendors provide metrics on all the links in your email and open rates. One more thing (last one, I promise; this topic deserves a book) – when we launched our film, we found that every time we sent an email to our database (which we started 1.5 months before the DVD release date), we’d sell DVDs. I kept wondering when our database would grow tired of these emails. We definitely saw a few people unsubscribe, but ultimately people sometime need 7 reminders to buy your film before they actually do.

Looking back, I think one of our keys to getting this online experience off the ground was by developing a production that was a lot more than just making a film. We set out on an expedition that lasted over 100 days and wanted to share this experience online. An old-school notion in film is to keep things on the down low. You don’t want a big studio to snag your idea and run with it. Or you don’t want too many people to hear about your project, which might ruin a big release when it goes through a traditional big festival launch. These are risks, but I think they are pretty inconsequential and often stifle the potential success you can generate by opening up the experience and manifesting your own viral energy around your ideas. When you weigh the chances of getting into the main festival circuit with creating success on your own, I think the direction is obvious. And the best thing about having a solid online experience is that everyone experiences it: prospective film festival programmer, prospective press, prospective sales agent, and your prospective fans.

Design & Brand

When we started ‘America at 10 mph’, we initially called it ‘American Segue’. Segway (the Company that makes Segways) took offense at us trying to use a word that sounded like their brand, so we changed the name of the project to ‘America at 10 mph’. Thank God for Segway’s idignant response. Segway scooters travel 12.5 mph, but we figured with stops to change batteries every hour, we’d average 10 mph. Can you imagine if we went forward with ‘American Segue’? – just the spelling of that word alone makes me cringe.

As we worked on the expedition and project, we started to develop a look & feel for the film that we would eventually make and when we started post production, we decided to shorten its name and call it 10 MPH. This was our branding process and if our next film (10 Yards) gives you any clues, we like the number 10 and may do several (or 10) films with this in the title. In addition to finding a catchy name, we decided to use red, white, and blue as our prominent colors for the logo, website, and t-shirt design. This Americana feeling seemed like a natural fit for our brand. But, brand extends way beyond title, colors, and logo. It incorporates a feeling of who you are or what your project is about.

Because 10 MPH tells some of our story, we felt our brand should represent us. And we wanted to emphasize beautiful design (Josh has got mad skills here) and bold photos that captured America (mostly taken on our expedition). I have been shooting photos for fun since I was about 13 and it’s interesting to see how this has really been useful in developing brand with 10 MPH. Brand is also communicated through writing and spoken word. When I got interviewed by Liane Hansen on NPR Weekend Edition for the first time, I was nervous as all heck, but I babbled a bunch of stuff and got done with the interview. Little did I realize that interviews like this (and for all types of media outlets) shape how people perceive what you are or what your product is. After awhile, interviews got much easier and I found myself saying things that I’d said many other times.

Articles and interviews help define your film (your brand) and it’s especially helpful that the press will most often say exactly what you tell them to say. More PR later. Like I mentioned in the online experience, I can’t emphasize the importance of the look & feel of your film and product. I always hear about those film productions where they didn’t shoot production stills. Make sure you get great shots, because often these images will help define your brand. And make sure you invest the money or time to get a good logo and look for the title of your film.

Next Week: 10mph DIY part 3 takes you inside the world of Festivals and how to gain press for your film.

Hunter Weeks made his feature-length directorial debut with 10 MPH. He’s also the mastermind behind the creative marketing and distribution efforts that led to national recognition and critical acclaim for the film. Photographing the world since the early nineties, Hunter Weeks has developed an eye for capturing moments of humanity in off-the-beaten-path places, like Croatia, Morocco, and Indonesia. His photography background influences his work on documentaries, which currently focus on American pop culture subjects. As the follow-up to 10 MPH, he’s working on a documentary about fantasy football, currently titled 10 Yards.