Open Source Films

Ok, so this is an idea where basically, a movie is created by the internet at large. The reasoning behind this is that there are many people who are skilled at some part of movie making, but not others. How many times have you seen an amateur video with great special effects, but lousy sound? Or great dialogue, ruined by poor acting? The Open-Source film project would help this. For example, lets say you and a friend just finished choreographing an amazing lightsaber battle, but lack the software or skills to add the special effects. The raw video would be uploaded to the site, freely available to the public. Anyone who feels so inclined can download your footage, add the effects, and upload their edited version. If several videos are added, a voting feature could help make it easy to tell which were the best.

In extreme cases, entire films could be created this way. One person could start by suggesting a plot, then gradually a screenplay would be written, wiki-style, with each change voted on. The portions with the most votes would be incorporated into the final version. Individual acting groups (drama clubs, film students, performing arts groups, or just a bunches of friends) would each film their version, and once again, the highest ranking is the final version. This continues as soundtracks, dubbing, effects, and finally editing result in a finished film, to be released into the public domain. With a dedicated group, some extremely high-quality projects could come of this.

Addendum: For feature length films, this would undoubtedly be better suited for 3-D or animated movies, with the models each available for download. The community at large could help render the project, with their computers spare processing power, similar to Seti@home.

Any suggestions for refinements are, of course, welcome.