Intl. Open Source Film Screening Event In London

Press Release
21/02/07
For Immediate Release
STRAY CINEMA

The international open source film project Stray Cinema is proud to announce the date for their screening event – showcasing the top five film submissions, as selected by the online community. This event is the world premiere screening of the top submissions, and also the director’s original cut of the footage.

“Our goal was to have people from all over the world edit their version of raw footage from a film we shot in London, to tell their own story with it” says project director Michelle Hughes. “We acknowledge that your cut of the footage might be more interesting than ours.”

“We received our 30th film submission today” says Michelle. “Therefore, we can confirm that the screening event will be held on the 21st of August 2007 – exactly six months from the date that 30 film submissions were received onto www.straycinema.com.”

As part of the celebration, the event will also involve VJ's mixing raw video footage from the film to live music. It will engage the online community, by webcasting live footage from the event onto www.straycinema.com, along with live interactive web-chat, vodcasting and blogging.

Stray Cinema is an open source film. Open source is more than simply a method of information sharing – it is a philosophy that is increasingly adhered to by creative people around the world.

To participate, people from around the world have been constructing the version of the film that they wish to make from the available footage. This manipulated footage is uploaded back onto www.straycinema.com, to be voted on by the online community.

“You decide which five films will be screened. We want to encourage the public to visit our website, to vote and comment on their favourite film submissions.” Michelle says.

While there is a strong online component to Stray Cinema, bringing the films to a ‘real world’ screening event is extremely important.

“With Stray Cinema, we re-integrate the edited submissions into a community based screening event. This event is designed to maximize impact for both an on-site and an online audience simultaneously. We want to acknowledge that important things still happen in the real world. We believe that many film-makers ultimately want their work to reach and engage a live audience” says Michelle.

“We have let our community determine when the screening event will be, by waiting until we receive 30 submissions before setting a date” she says.

Stray Cinema will be an ongoing annual event, this process will be repeated with raw footage filmed in a different city each year, by a different director. Each screening event will take place in the city where the raw footage originated.

“We want our online community to participate and contribute to our project in as many ways possible” says Michelle. “We would like to invite our community to provide new footage for Stray Cinema 2008. If you plan to shoot a short film over the next 4-5 months, and would like to make the raw footage available for the Stray Cinema community to remix, then we would love to hear from you.“

The new footage available for remix in 2008 will be announced and released at the time of the 2007 screening event.

About Stray Cinema
In October 2005, a team of six people shot a film in London, none of whom had formal training in the film industry, only related experience.

A handheld digital camera was used to shoot this film, which allowed greater freedom with the location and content of the footage they were able to capture. The main point of interest at this stage in the film project was the accessibility of digital film, allowing different people to tell their story via film, placing filmmaking into new hands.

In October 2006, the raw footage from this film was made available for free download from www.straycinema.com.

Stray Cinema also embraces an online community of independent musicians. Musicians and bands have been contacted via social networking websites such as myspace.com, and have been invited to make their music available for participants to use in the film submissions. There are currently 45 bands from around the world contributing music to the project.

Free editing software, and a tutorial for first time editors, are available at www.straycinema.com/links.

Film submissions to Stray Cinema do not close until four months from today (submissions close 21/06/07).

Spokesperson: Michelle Hughes, Stray Cinema Director and Co-founder
Email: info@straycinema.com

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