[Hidden-tech] amazing first days on the Tube Open Movie campaign!

[Bassam Kurdali]

Just two days ago we launched Tube’s major campaign, with the goal of
raising at least $22K as a bare-bones budget for this production phase.
After two days, backing has surpassed our expectations -- already we
are more than halfway to the target! And with further funding we can
work faster,
make greater claims on the time of our amazing crew, hire additional
artists, and finish Tube in 7 months with even more impressive results.
Big love to everyone who contributed, in whatever form -- THANK YOU! If
you can, please spread the word and help us turn this campaign into an
inspiring precedent.

EASILY FORWARDED PROJECT SUMMARY / PRESS RELEASE:

" Tube -- a free/open pro-grade animated film "

Animation with substance. The crowd funds it, the crowd owns it.

Elephants Dream, the original open movie directed by Bassam Kurdali,
proved it possible to make high quality 3D animated films using
free/libre tools in a studio setting. The Tube Open Movie is a new
experiment, this time in distributed collaboration — a love letter to
free software and open culture that marks their convergence with
independent filmmaking.

Tube is inspired by the Gilgamesh poem, which comes down to us as an
incomplete, conflicting set of fragments and variations, the clay tablet
remnants of more than a few ruined libraries. The epic centers on the
Sumerian king that ruled in ancient Iraq, who for his tyranny the gods
teach friendship and loss, and through them, the fear of his own death.
In the end, the immortality he achieves is different to the one he first
seeks. Nearly five thousand years later, Gilgamesh, a woman and a
soldier, rushes into a station in pursuit of a paper blown about by the
passing of trains. In an ever-accelerating vortex, her hero’s journey
becomes the animation’s own frames.

The finished film and its mountain of data assets will be released under
CC Attribution-ShareAlike, meaning that you can use them for anything —
even commercial appropriation — at no charge, but you are required to
allow others to reuse your work on the same terms.

Your support will enable us to complete a movie in which a passionate
volunteer team has invested years of hard labor. We hope you will check
it out and spread the word.

http://kickstarter.com/projects/1331941187/the-tube-open-movie

(Production blog at http://URCHN.ORG)