Last night, the SXSW film festival was rocked by the US premiere of Brett Gaylor's RiP: a Remix Manifesto. Advance tickets were sold out in no time and everyone in attendance was treated to great show. Gaylor has produced an excellent documentary that everyone - even if you don't agree - should watch and really consider what happening in the world of copyright law.
More than any film that's come before it, RiP explains in clear terms what's at stake in the fight over copyright. The documentary personalizes the issue by following one of Gaylor's favorite musicians, the mash-up artist Girl Talk, and examines the costs musicians like him to face to distribute his music. Featuring interviews from outspoken critics of the american copyright system Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow, Gaylor vividly illustrates the constraints existing legislation puts on creativity and issues a call-to-arms in the fight over copyright.
And beyond simply talking about traditional copyright, RiP is experimenting with the way films are produced and distributed. Throughout the production process, Gaylor uploaded his raw footage to opensourcecinema.org and invited anyone who was interested to download, remix, add their own material and upload their work back to the site. Over six years in the making, Gaylor has produced a crowd-sourced documentary featuring many voices from the copyfight.
But the remixing isn't done yet! Gaylor has made the entire film freely available for download in chapter format on opensourcecinema.org and everyone is invited to dig in make their own remix of the documentary. Raincity Studios has been really proud to be working with Brett to redesign the website and enable users to remix his film directly in their browsers using video platform Kaltura. So, just like culture, RiP is a perpetual work in progress, with future incarnations of the film set to incorporate remixed material from opensourcecinema.org.
As a coproduction between the National Film Board of Canada and Montreal-based EyeSteelFilm, Canadian pride swelling among the canucks in the crowd. And it was great to see the enthusiastic response from everyone in attendance (in spite of a few loud people who still don't seem to understand). Lessig was in attendance and took questions with Gaylor after the screening, both passionately speaking about the need to protect the public commons and ensure the future of our collective creative capacity.
We're really proud of Brett and impressed by all the hard work he's put into the film. If you weren't in Austin and missed the screening, don't worry. Check out the upcoming screenings or you can get involved in the RiP's open-source film tour. To learn more, visit ripmix.com and opensourcecinema.org.