Hi all
A member of our chapter and friend will be making a documentary on Free
Culture for his assignment. Collaboratively we have created a script and he
will begin production next term. I am pasting below the "treatment" or
summary of what it will be about.
Ideas and comments are welcome :-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Video Systems
Treatment
"The History and Philosophy of the Free Culture Movement"
Expected Length:
About 15 minutes depending on the interviews
Documentary overview: This video is aimed to raise awareness over issues
regarding the effects of copyright laws on spreading culture and modern
mediums of information. Culture spreading is in fact not free as people
would think but extremely limited by over-restrictive laws that benefit the
companies instead of the public good. The documentary will follow the story
and development of the Free Culture movement, explaining its point of view
on the matter and the alternatives proposed to the current system.
Interviews with personalities involved in the movement and simple computer
graphics will help the viewer to understand the concepts that create the
basics of Free Culture philosophy. All the photos and the music used will
be under CC license in order to be coherent with the theme treated.
Outline: Intro/Part 1 - After a brief sequence showing the title screen the
VO will start by giving a definition of "what is culture". A simple
animation will run, together with the VO, showing thumbnails of elements
that compose culture (e.g. a book to represent literature or an atom symbol
to represent science) grouped together. The animation will quickly
illustrate the concept of how inventions or arts are possessed through
copyright laws and subsequently reduced to product by copyright holders.
Hence, the VO will raise a question to the viewer. Is our "freedom to know"
and "freedom to invent" limited by these laws? Are these laws
over-restrictive? Having stated the problem, the aims of the Free Culture
movement will be explained briefly in simple bullet points: to shift the
possession of whatever means culture from the private to the public sphere
and to obtain the freedom of manipulation and non-commercial dissemination
of the existing cultural material through reducing the legal restrictions
of current laws.
Part 2 - With a sequence of photos from the internet and quotes printed on
the screen, the history of the Free Culture movement will be presented
starting from its founder, Lawrence Lessig, and his book titled "Free
Culture". A couple of case studies will be very briefly summarised, just to
prove the points of the previous section (cases will be about Fox and
Napster). Next, an animation will explain the concept of "creative commons"
as an alternative proposed by Lessig to complement the copyright system.
The animation will consist of bullet points, under the two opposed logos,
explaining the differences between the two. Finally, another important
concept will be explained, the case of "open source," which applies to
software. The animation will consist of a sequence of computer screens
showing some examples of open source software.
Part 3 - The Free Culture Movement has a student representative body, SFC,
Students for Free Culture. The SFC has various "chapters" in North America
and UK. Andrea Fassina is the leader of the Free Culture Society in the
University of York. He will be interviewed about the role of SFC and about
what has been achieved in York so far; the concept of "open course" will be
particularly covered. The Head of department, John Robinson, will be asked
to express his opinion on the "open course" subject and resource sharing
between universities' researchers. Eventually he will be asked about the
project itself, whether we will have the permission to post this video
freely on the web or if the university will own every right of it. The
first part of this section will consist of footage of the university (e.g.
shots of buildings, lake, ducks, etc.) that will serve as background to the
VO. The first interview will take part in the PC lab at the Electronics
Department (some b-roll of open course example will go behind the
interview); the second one will take part in an office.
Part 4/End - The Free Culture movement has his oppositions. Tom Gregory is
a Master student in York who defends the right of a developer to own every
right of commercialisation of his work and the right to deny or permit the
use of his work. He will be interviewed on this subject wherever he will
accept to do it, possibly a lounge or a living room. Finally the VO will
summarise the video portraying the Free Culture movement philosophy not as
a replacement but as an alternative way for artists/developers to share and
promote their work for the benefit of human culture
END OF TREATMENT
_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
