After the last Open Movie Project “Bug Buck Bunny” – Sintel is the next short movie available for free download. Get it here.

“Sintel” is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation suite Blender. With initial funding provided by 1000s of donations via the internet community, it has again proven to be a viable development model for both open 3D technology as for independent animation film.
This 15 minute film has been realized in the studio of the Amsterdam Blender Institute, by an international team of artists and developers. In addition to that, several crucial technical and creative targets have been realized online, by developers and artists and teams all over the world.

“Sintel” commenced in May 2009, with producer Ton Roosendaal establishing a core team consisting of Colin Levy (director), David Revoy (concept art), Martin Lodewijk (story) and Jan Morgenstern (composer). In August script writer Esther Wouda was approached as a consultant, which resulted in her taking the responsibility for the entire screenplay. Esther then worked in close cooperation with Colin, David and Ton to deliver the final script early November. Meanwhile, Colin and David realized the first storyboards.

Based on a public call for artists – with over 150 respondents – the Durian artist team got established in July 2009. They first met in a pre-production week in Amsterdam in August, and all decided to join the project per October 1st. With the final movie budget still unknown, the target then still was to finish the film within 7 months, with a team of 6 artists and 2 developers. At that time the team still had the hopes to be able to realize the script in a 6-8 minute film.

In november, the Netherlands Film Fund approved on a substantial subsidy for Sintel, enough to extend the project to 10 months, with possible 1 or 2 extra artist seats in the final months. It was also by this time that breakdowns and animatic edits showed that the script had to be revised to become more compact, with a story structure using a flashback.

In the months after, Colin’s work on the Director’s Layout – 3D animatic shots – and final designs on the grand finale gradually made the movie longer, from 9 minutes in november, to almost 12 in May. Proper story telling, to absorb an audience with convincing characters and action just takes time!

With the highly anticipated extra funding from the Amsterdam Cinegrid – also funding a 4k resolution version – Ton finally could extend the team with 5 artists and a developer in March 2010. With 14 people the film then was completed for a first screening on July 18th in cinema Studio K in Amsterdam.
Three artists then stayed in Amsterdam working on final shot edits, lighting design, compositing, and on the impressive 2 minute film credits. The movie ended up with a total duration of 14m:48s, 888 seconds!

Watch it now:

Source 1: Elephants Dream
Source 2: Big Buck Bunny 
Source 3: Sintel
Source 3: Sintel Download

“12 months,
a core team of dozens (with a network of thousands)
spanning 3 continents,
4 languages,
5 specialist teams,
countless sleepless nights…

It’s finally here.

Filmed in Sacramento, Portland, and Victoria by the Nine Inch Nails team, edited and produced by their fans, The Gift is a stunning work in 1080p High Definition video with 5.1 Surround Sound, multi-language subtitles, and artistically-driven ethics.”

You’re reading it right: the final production is ready to be downloaded. I am downloading it right now.

It’s a complete Nine Inch Nails live concert in full-hd. Free for all / Not for sale. Get it while it’s hot!

Source: http://thisoneisonus.org

Thanks to a podcast I found a great software for my iPhone and iPod touch. It’s a small tool which does cost less than 3 Euro and it’s served by a server tool which runs on Windows and Mac OS X.

It’s called Air Video and it’s frikin’ awesome! ™

What you do is you install the server software and point it to all your directories / drives that might contain video material. You then take your iPhone and install the client app. If you configured the server to be available over the internet you can now connect from anywhere you want using a pass-pin (which is generated) and a password (which is set by you). And by “from anywhere” they mean “anywhere”. WLAN or 3g didn’t make any difference in my test. You start the client, point to a video file and most of the time you are asked if you a) want to directly play is (if the file is ipod-compatible) or b) if you want to live-convert it and play it (when the file isn’t compatible and needs to be re-encoded live for you) or c) if you want to add the file to a conversion queue which will off-line convert the video for you.

In terms of “finding your video” it does look like this:

Simple, eh? Taping a video will bring up this screen:

As I said – Play directoy, Play with Live Conversion and Offline-Conversion-Queue…

It did work with EVERY Video I tried. When I tried Full-HD Movies my serving PC wasn’t able to handle the load but everyhing in SD worked great which is perfect for me.

Therefore I can highly recommend this tool – it really does work better than anything I’ve seen before.

Source: http://www.inmethod.com/air-video/index.html

This is just beautiful:

It’s been quite a few years (since 2005) when elGono came up with the “Obey the Giant” stuff.

This campaign was subject (not only this campaing…) to a documentation called “BOMB IT The Movie”

“Featuring street artist and top graffiti writers from 5 continents the acclaimed documentary.
Bomb It is the first film to update the story of graffity with a truly international perspective. Each month we will presenting portraits of the artists from around the world in never before seen footage and interviews.”

You can watch the whole documentation online now! For free!

Source 1: http://www.babelgum.com/bombit
Source 2: Obey the GIANT

Die Bits-und-so Adventskalender DVD kam an! Hurray! Und nicht nur die war in der Packung:

I had the chance to interview Steve Teixeira – the Product Unit Manager for the Parallel Developer Tools team in Microsofts Developer Division.

So here is the video of this (my first) interview:

If you click here you can watch it in HD.

Turns out that a new snapshot (unofficial) version of my favourite DVD to iPod Converter is available. With the new version came new features like the one that allows me now to convert almost anything to wonderful iPod compatible movie files.

“HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.”

I tried anything in my library, including some matroska movie files. Just everything worked – amazing!

Source: http://handbrake.fr/?article=snapshot

…almost everything else. You’ll have to print it, fold it, glue it… and then it’ll eventually become:

“WALL-E Paper Model. WALL -E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class) is programmed to clean up the planet, one trash cube at a time. However, after 700 years he’s developed one little glitch, a personality. He’s extremly curious, highly inquisitive and a little lonely.

• Solar Powered Regeneration Unit
• Size 33 All Terain Modular Treads
• Twin Hydraulic Arm Shovels
• Digital Audio Recording/Playback Module
• Low Convergence Head Mounted Laser”

Source: http://paper-replika.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54&Itemid=30

I seriously don’t know why they are doing that – it’s not as if any material released previously came to any notice so far – but what the heck – Radiohead decided to put their current music video (which isn’t bad) and the raw data that was used to create it to the public using the Creative Commons license:

“The animation data used to make the video are licensed to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license at Google Code. This means you are free to use the data to make your own video projects, as long as you abide by the CC license’s conditions. (To be clear, the song and its accompanying video are not under CC license; the data used to make the video are.)”

Source: http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/

It’s not as many of those fance company-blogs like gizmodo have written: not the Xbox Media Center project (which makes XBMC for Windows, Linux, Xbox 1 and OSX) renamed itself – infact only the fork of OSXBMC renamed itself to PLEX.

“The one name that stuck was Plex. I like it because it evokes “cineplex” and the suffix means “comprising a number of parts” which the application certain does. In mathematics, you use the suffix to mean “ten to the power of the number” (e.g. oneplex = 10).

Because there are no four-letter domain names left (seriously, try to find one!) we decided to square the plex, so to speak. Think of either plex^2 or plex squared (the beta logo below tries to connote the word “plex” inside a square that might represent a TV screen). The domain names are plex2.com, plexsquared.com, and plexsquare.com for good measure. They are not active yet.

In the coming days, we’ll be working on the rebranding process, including the application packaging, logo, web domains, etc. In the longer term, we have some exciting things in the skin department as well. Stay tuned, and thanks for all your support; we really are lucky to have such an great community.”

Along with the new name comes a new logo:

Source: http://www.osxbmc.com/
Source 2: http://www.plex2.com

It’s made entirely with free software and released under the creative commons license: Big Buck Bunny is the name of the brand new short movie made with blender, inkscape, gimp and more.

“The Amsterdam based ‘Blender Institute’ announced today the premiere of the short 3D animation movie ‘Big Buck Bunny’. After a production period of over six months, the short film will premiere with a grand party on Thursday 10th of April, in the hip new Amsterdam cinema ‘Studio K’.

Big Buck Bunny is a comedy about a well-tempered rabbit “Big Buck”, who finds his day spoiled by the rude actions of the forest bullies, three rodents. In the typical 1950ies cartoon tradition Big Buck then prepares for the rodents a comical revenge.”

Source 1: http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/

This past Saturday I had the rare pleasure of being the exclusive attendance (along with a friend) for a screening of the movie “Speed Racer”, the new one from the Wachovski Brothers.

To cut it short – it was a 135 minute cotton candy eye overload. Some nice actors (with cameos of German actors), but nothing real and therefore nothing of deeper interest.

Like rumored before in Hollywood: This movie has the aura of a big flop. My experience now confirms that.

Jens Heymann

The most (in)famous action-flick of movie history now has its third sequel, but nowhere a company producing a proper first-person shooter? It’s kind of strange that nobody seems to be interested in picking up a worldwide-known character.

Is it too much guilty pleasure? Too much far-right, political incorrect or just old-fashioned? Maybe it’s the lack of box-office in the US. Or simply no licence is available.

Anyway, back in the Reagan-era these concerns didn’t exist.

The 1985-game with a well-known score by Martin Galway was a huge bestseller.

Jens Heymann

It’s time again for voting: Load down a ballot, make your choices and see tonight (or tomorrow) if you’re an expert.

Home Oscar ballot

Jens Heymann

When today the movie “Earth” aka “Unsere Erde” starts in cinemas around the country you may have the chance to experience something very special: a real cinematic déjà-vu.

Let me explain how:

What many people don’t know for sure: This movie is a best-of of the same-named TV-series previously aired on ARD some time ago and after that on other public stations. So if you are an avid documentation-watcher you are going to pay for something already seen (and maybe even stored at home, not to mention the monthly TV-fees…).

The original series contains eleven episodes of 45 mins (Uncut 48 mins, BBC-airing). It’s not difficult to sum up and recognize what’s missing (of course) in the movie-version.

You still may say: But I wanna enjoy it on a big screen with a crowd and once in my life it’s ok paying for old stuff.

Then I better say nothing about “Deep Blue”…

Jens Heymann

seems to have a nice blot somewhere this year. They really nominated “Norbit”. It’s only one nom and in a lower category, but with such decisions the Academy does itself no service.

At least the counter award – the Razzie – is on track as every year. This time they cracked down on the it-girls. Lindsey Lohan (of course), Jessica Alba (earned) and Jessica Biel (assumed) all got their nominations. Personally I would have added Megan Fox and some others, too.

Jens Heymann

Praised by the critics I was eager to watch this movie. Afterwards I can say that it’s not sophisticated compared with all those other action flicks.

Mark Wahlberg plays a gifted sniper who gets cheated and consequently seeks revenge. Now bullets and bodies are flying around.

An interesting setup ends in standard-type action. First Wahlberg gives us some nice knowledge about sniping, but then he just mows the enemies down in series. Neither big psychology nor character developing. That may be the purpose of the movie, but it is nothing special anymore this way.

If you combine the terms “star-vehicle” and “drawing board” you know what’s behind of this production. Mark Wahlberg “is doing a movie” instead of “a movie that features Mark Wahlberg”. The lead actor is simply more important than the script.

Next you have Michael Pena as the (usually funny) sidekick who delivers the cues to the main actor. Kate Mara serves as the nice-to-look-screaming-must-be-rescued female with merely 20 mins of screen time and nothing much to say.

The only things elevating this film a little bit are the not so meaningless intro action sequence and the zero-tolerance finale. Overall too straight to be outstanding.

Jens Heymann

One of the most spectacular and grossing movies of ’07 and finally I have seen it, too. Last spring people invaded the cinemas like the Persians Greece, spent some money and went home again.

The story of the 300 mighty Spartans, who defended a narrow pass against the superior numbers of Persians until death should be familiar to everyone around. Also uncontroversial are the well-made CGI-backgrounds as well as the entertaining ability of the whole thing.

But:

Is it pro-Bush and assists on his war in Iraq or (possibly) against Iran?

A clear no, because too far-fetched. There are no politics in it. The big box office is also no indication of a widely hidden pro-war predisposition among American viewers. I guess, it’s rather the recent popularity of Frank Miller and his comics.

Is it fascistic?

That is a typical European critic, but the martial quotes and looks are fortunately paired with just as much irony. Lastly, the Spartans lived this way despite some SS-like “blood and honor” jabbering.

Is it really better being a “free” Spartan than a “slaved” Persian?

My impression was the Persian acted much more like the so-called decadent occident. Lots of tolerant and hedonic people, who didn’t get discriminated because of their religion, looks and behaviors, or? Xerxes didn’t deny the wishes of Ephialtes, e.g. The Spartans by contrast with their euthanasia and their strict living kept unfamiliar to me all the time.

Millions of Persians?

This is of cause pure fiction. How can someone supply such an amount of soldiers even only one day? The whole Persian food production would had to accompany them.

Are the Arcadians cleverer than the Spartans by withdrawing from the lost battle?

I would say yes, and there you see why a civilian might be a lesser tough warrior but superior when it comes to thinking.

Let’s hope (for the sake of mankind) that nobody in the world (especially the thin-skinned Iranians) takes this comicesque movie at face value.

Jens Heymann

What happens when something rare gets rarer – you’ve read it an article below. But it’s also interesting to watch what happens when the fate twists to the opposite – a “strictly” limited edition gets a second one.

Limited Edition of 300, first release

That took place in context with the Limited Edition of “300″. Every fanboy and collector got his copy and had been happy, proud and (I guess) felt also a little bit arrogant – what a great divinely thing he owns and others not.

Limited Edition of 300, second release

Now everything is different. The big exclusiveness has gone. More fanboys can have their limited edition and doesn’t need to feel inferior any longer. Additionally this new version is different from the first one.

The reactions?

The previously exclusive owners of the first limited edition moan, that it’s only a rip-off of customers. In reality they are annoyed about spending much money for something (perhaps via bidding or third-party usury) that simply was not worth it.

All the other ones are happy and satisfied.

Jens Heymann

So maybe you are on the ever cruel pre-Christmas present hunt. And maybe you have to satisfy some wishes for DVDs. Usually you have a great choice because there are often many new items available for the Christmas sale. But the case gets serious if you are looking for the special one – the brand new 5-disc Blade Runner Ultimate Collector’s Edition.

Fans have been waiting for years for this to come. Consequently the huge response and the fast sell-out. In recent days I have been witnessing the price-development, a fine example of how the mechanisms of supply and demand work:

Amazon.de offered the set for 43,95€ on its web site. Many bought. Some marketplace and ebay-activities for about the same price or slightly below.

Then the sell-out. What happened?

1. No more primary supply, but plenty of demand left.

2. Amazon-marketplace increases the prices to an average of 90€.

3. Hefty ebay-auctions for about 70-100€.

Suddenly, Amazon is back in the game – again for 43,95€

4. The marketplace prices collapsed to 42€.

5. Analogously the offers at ebay.

It’s sell-out again, because the sudden availability was due to cancellations.

6. Quickly every item below 60€ is gone from the marketplace – the rest now in the 90€-range.

7. Adjustments also at ebay – biddings exploded.

The end of the line? Well, we learned that DVDs can be traded like shares at the stock-exchange. All you need are enough panic people who want the same thing under their Christmas tree. And we didn’t even take a look at the LIMITED Blade Runner set.

Some information by the way if you are considering a buy:

- It’s a patience game. Wait until after Christmas (OK, this would be too late for Christmas itself.).

- Look at the UK: Half the price and with German audio track (except the workprint).

- Look at the US: Even cheaper and every edition available (English only).

- The 5-DVD set is NOT limited. There will be a new release soon next year.

- Watch your other DVDs first.

Jens Heymann

Oh boy – what a movie this has been: A soldier takes out an Al-Queida-camp, returns to his home via IranAir and begins his new civilized life – until, yes of course, some bad guys (coincidently) capture his wife. Now he is on the mission again. Following up are big explosions, masses of bullets and bodies of pure muscles.

That’s the world of “The marine”.

In the manner of typical 80′s action flicks (Schwarzenegger and co.) the plot combines various mass destructions, “funny” one-liners and the lack of sense or talent. John Cena, a wrestler, doesn’t even get close to his obvious models. And Robert Patrick as villain – so there are good movies, and there are bad ones, too. The role of the wife has no real purpose, save the showing of some flesh and being helpless (but nevertheless sexy).

The last thing you should ask for in this type of movie is logic – some examples:

- They keep firing a thousand bullets on the car and it doesn’t slow down.

- Neither they hit the driver (character shield I guess…).

- And while they are firing, the driver protects himself with a flak jacket against direct strafing.

- Which he is holding up with his one hand – the other one drives.

- The people continually slap each other, but no one carries any visible damages.

- The hero is simply indestructible – not with a fire extinguisher in his face or a sledgehammer on his body.

- Even a gigantic wall of flames cannot burn a single hair from the hero’s head.

All in all, this film is extremely(!) dumb, but it can work for you if you are able to level down your requirements for being entertained under the movie’s threshold. Otherwise you’ll know what this “thinking can be stressful”-thing means.

Jens Heymann

Loving or hating this movie is decently biased by your political attitude. The plot wraps up Ernesto “Che” Guevaras and his pal Alberto Granadas trip through the countryside of South America. This all occurs prior to Che’s guerilla activities in Guatemala, Cuba, Congo and Bolivia, but shows his impressions of the people he meets and hence his “social” awakening.

For my review of this film I put aside all those political aspects and concentrate on the story. When Ernesto and Alberto travel through the countries it’s a little bit like watching an episode of Lonely Planet. Nice places, nice talks and then again on the road.

The ever-horny Alberto only thinks about the next woman, meanwhile Ernesto – you know what he became…

Overall an edged movie with nice pictures, but also with a bizarre historical back-end.

One detail of this movie I couldn’t get: They always say that they have no money, but how did they pay for the gas for the motorcycle? Or didn’t they pay?

Jens Heymann

Mel Gibson’s second movie in a foreign language tells the story of some mayan people in the pre-Columbus era. The main actor and his fellows are captured in a raid by other mayans and are brought into their capital, where they serve as human sacrifices or as trade bait. Our hero has left his pregnant wife and his son back in a hole and now tries to escape and get back to them with hunters on his trail.

The first thing to recognize: Why does the movie look so strange when in motion? The answer: It was filmed digitally.

The second thing: Life in the jungle can be dangerous. The movie shows us that you can die of jaguars, frog venom, snakes, rocks or even man-made traps. So watch out next time in the forest!

By the way: The last act reminds me a little bit of Rambo II, where Rambo hunts the Russians.

Overall not a bad movie, but to be a real epic it is too short and tells an unimportant story.

Jens Heymann

Another remake of a classic(?) movie (I haven’t seen the original yet…), another million dollar box office bomb. You are not wondering why? Me neither.

A group of unlucky oil workers are on their way from the mongolian desert back to the civilization. But they crash during a giant (CGI-) sandstorm in the middle of nowhere with no help in sight. After hesitating for a while they start building a new plane – the “Phoenix”.

Sounds interesting and claustrophobic? That could have been it but during the whole movie you never have a bad feeling about the characters bright future. Because they simply have all they need – material, tools, water, food (although only canned peaches) and someone who can construct planes from scratch. But rather to agree on it quickly they talk and talk and talk (and that’s already the first half of the movie).

This film is pretty mediocre – little tention, little innovation, some nice pictures. Don’t expect too much of it.

By the way: The crew mirrors of course some kind of political correctness and standardizations: You have the good (white) leader, his funny (black) sidekick, the (oh surprise) not-to-ugly wants-to-be-teased single woman, the nazi-blond constructor and other minorities. But the important messages are: The whites are leading, the minorities are following, the woman is adoring (the white leader) and the nazies are bad, but nethertheless for the glory of America useful people.

Jens Heymann