How do you get a project voted/considered fora future open project?

How do you get a project voted/considered for a future open project?

What about BA open projects?
Should that be a thing?

Voted on by the community, and executed by staff(cg cookie?)+users? hand picked?

Raise money for development etc?

also it would be a excellent way for people to learn about flow/practices of modeling.

The hard part about doing a community project is as follows…

1). How will the funding be done?
2). How will you encourage artists to stay on board?
3). Who will choose what people provide the voices, sound effects, live video (for green screening ect…)?
4). What could you do to ensure that a large enough group drop their existing projects to work on the BA open project?
5). Do people get paid or is it volunteer only, if the latter, how much freedom would they have and what can they do?
6). Who has control over the plot so as to make sure it’s all coherent, or would you simply roll the dice and use a design by committee approach?

This isn’t like the Blender Institute where they have a professionally-run studio and an infrastructure built up over many years to help them handle the many moving parts inherent in such a project. Tread carefully, this forum is littered with threads by dreamers who were confident that they could create the next big Blender project only to fail in the end.

I’m assuming this is another Maya-like project or something that Blender doesn’t currently have.

Never understood why people waste so much time waiting for features to develop. Alternative software are available for everyone to use. All you need is to save some money and buy the appropriate product you need.

Developing software is not a walk in the park. It takes years, decades.

Such Projects dont interest anyone. Noone wants to work for free or waste his time on such things.

Careful on generalizing like this, or you would have to give an alternate explanation as to why FOSS even exists (which even Blender has a lot of code contributed by volunteer developers).

Also be careful generalizing that all open projects are done for free.

@BluePrintRandom - to answer your original question.

The barrier of entry is very low for anyone wanting to start an open movie - so if you propose to start one, what can you offer that anyone else couldn’t setup in a weekend?

… If the answer is “not much”, then the likelihood of the project succeeding is very low, since skilled artists probably have their own ideas for projects they find more interesting.

Lots more has been written on this, also worth a listen:

People working for free may or may not have an obligation to the users. If you use money as an incentive, throwing money at a non-BF developer could work but without approval from the BF (Ton), there is no guarantee it will get included in the trunk.

Side note: Even with a commercial product, it’d be the same experience but in that case, you can’t do squat about it.

Asking for a feature to get implemented is mostly pointless, but can help to generate further ideas. so it’s more beneficial to the community to throw ideas out there and discuss them rather than explicity request them to be implemented which eventually turns into endless debate.

If you really want a feature, you gotta do it yourself or hope that a developer really wants it as much as you do.

Strange that nobody’s mentioned http://www.wreckamovie.com/ yet. That is for this kind of thing.

In terms of how projects are originated at the BI, doesn’t Ton usually come up with a seed idea himself which implicitly includes a few technical targets then throws it over to a writer/director of his choice? (Not sure if anyone has ever shown up to the Institute and said “We want you to make a movie out of our idea and here’s a large pile of cash to do it with.”)

right.

I can’t speak to the details, but IIRC it has happened, but if they fund the movie, they want exclusive rights (ie - not creative commons). Which isn’t really aligned creating open-content.

Many ideas exist out there, some of them completely ridiculous.

Once there this guy that had an idea about a movie , about people fighting with swords that glow and use a weird magic that can read minds and push people or do all sort of weird things. If that is not ridiculous enough listen to this, it a sci fi, a serious sci fi and its not to be targeted on kids either but on grown ups. Can you believe this guy ?

But George Lucas made this move and he became a legend. Because even the most ridiculous ideas can become an awesome success if the execution is good enough and that is all that matters. Any idea has a huge potential, the question is who will the person that is stubborn enough to take this idea to its full potential.

If it’s another movie project, then you know the first thing you should do – come up with a story, then a complete, detailed script. I would suggest that you publish the concept story online and have it critiqued. It also should fit the current Blender development plans or roadmap. You can’t add battle scenes, for example, with massive crowd movement in the story.

I’ve railed about this in the Gooseberry project. Work on the script a year or so before actual funding and development begins.

Anyone can start an open project on their own. It’s finishing that’s the challenge (and that’s a monumental understatement). There aren’t very many (admitting, of course, the dubiousness of the list in that link… Wires for Empathy isn’t on there, for instance), and there are fewer that are animated. That’s just movie projects, of course, but it goes the same if you’re talking about doing an open project for a game or a music video or a comic book.

You have to do it in such a short amount of time that people won’t mind helping for that short period (like a weekend, at most) or you need to provide some form of real compensation (money, education, travel, FOOD) to ensure that people stick with it for as long as you do… or you need a strong succession plan for when those people inevitably drop from the project.

As well as bringing ideas, you need the right people to make an open movie happen - someone who has seen one or more quality projects through to completion, someone who knows their stuff, is good to work with and fits the team, dependable in a tight spot, all that. Ideas are one thing, but people can come up with more ideas. Not to mention nobody wants to be in a position where they have to rely on incompetents, flakes, liars, etc to get a movie made - especially not when budgets are tight.

Interesting to note that Andrew is now hiring for Colin Levy’s latest short film, and is asking for volunteers.

This is symptomatic of the larger problem of an internship culture in the movie industry. It favours rich people and teenagers. You can start your own project, but if you expect to attract and retain talent, think very carefully about how you fund it. Otherwise it will just be a hobby and may never get finished.
There are success stories that buck the trend, and if you manage to do a high quality hobby project you will learn a lot and wind up with something for your portfolio.
If you are starting out and aren’t up for doing your own project, projects like Colin’s or the BF’s next project are definitely worth doing if you can afford to work for free or at minimum wage.

In light of that, what should people look for in a small project - as signs that it’s worth working on, or as warnings that it should be avoided?

Off the top of my head…

  1. a really good script and/or concept (in the case of a game)
  2. time requirements - If they aren’t paying, or if they’re underpaying, they shouldn’t expect your full attention.
  3. engagement - if they don’t answer your emails, forget it
  4. copyright - if they expect to own the copyright, they should pay you or offer something else in return.

If they act like they’re doing you a favour by letting you be involved in their precious project, RUN AWAY! They don’t respect you and will be difficult to deal with.
If they want you to work 24/7 for no pay, on the condition of a profit share, RUN AWAY! As the producer it is their job to secure funding. If they haven’t done that properly, they haven’t done their job. (You can bet they want you to do yours, however)

In general it is better to get together with a group of friends and do your own project. Any time someone asks you to work on their project it is time you aren’t spending on your own stuff. Remember this!

Bit of a disorganised rant, sorry about that.

Good points, but suggest another to @freen’s list of things to avoid.

  1. People who’re all-talk (no-action), check the quality of the projects they finished previously.
    … is there any evidence they can successfully organize a team to get stuff done?
    (if their first project is to organize others to work for little/no wages… RUN AWAY :slight_smile: )

we are working on this atm > http://repto108.com/news/

looks nice,

my own project grows slowly, as I am coding it, animating and modeling it.
But I won’t give up.

I think that a project needs to reach a tipping point before expieranced members will work for free.

the idea with my own project is to work for free, to make a game that raises funding for bge development.

we have made a walking ragdoll, and physics based motion controllers, and modular door systems so far.

Even if the project goes nowhere, I have learned coding, animating, game design and modeling and rigging…

Come up with a good idea and a realistic plan to execute it. Explain why people should want to work on it or fund you. And then make it happen.

If that sounds hard and vague, that’s because it is. Nobody will take your word for it that you know what you’re doing, either.

I’ve seen plenty of people with small talent and smaller skill think they’re going to make a full-length movie. Sometimes they even finish them, and they’re still not very good movies.

Do you just want to be able to say you made a whole short film or movie? Or do you actually have an idea and plan that’s so good, you feel you must carry it out? If not the latter, forget it.