Open Source Filmmaking – Will It Blend?

Big Buck Bunny

Some of you may be unfamiliar with the concept of open filmmaking. Well rest assured I was until I discovered this amazing way of producing top-notch animated productions with the power of open-source filmmaking, and a little program called Blender.

Wikipedia defines open source films as the following:

“Open source films (also known as open content films and free content films) are films which are produced and distributed by using free and open source software methodologies. Their sources are freely available and the licenses used meet the demands of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) in terms of freedom “

So what does this mean for the filmmaker and his audience you ask? It means that not only are filmmakers able to produce films on freely available tools which are open to the public, but their audience has free access to all these tools and production resources at the time of distribution.

Today I am going to be using the Blender Foundation as the key example of open filmmaking at its finest.

These creative guys from the Netherlands have created a monster: Blender is a completely open-source 3D animation software package, with all the features, bells and whistles that enable the it to sit up there with the big guns (such as 3DS Max or Maya), and produce some really stellar content. In fact, the Blender Foundation has been so confident it the abilities of the Blender software that they have produced 3 brilliant short films to date, using the open source filmmaking methodology, and showing us all what can be achieved.

These films have been: Elephant’s Dream (2006), Big Buck Bunny (2008), and Sintel (2010). These were produced by the Blender Foundation in order to show the filmmaking and CGI community, along with the rest of the world, just how capable their software is. And believe me: it’s more than capable! In fact, in a review of their 2^nd open film, Big Buck Bunny, the reviewer even stated that despite the film not quite being up there with the likes of Pixar, the film clearly sits well above anything the Dreamworks Animation crew have been capable of producing, with regards to attention to detail in character and emotion. (see the review here: http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=306).

One nasty... squirrel?

That’s a pretty awesome wrap if you ask me, and I whole heartedly agree with those claims. Big Buck Bunny, in my opinion, is one of the most thoroughly entertaining animated short films I have ever seen. It follows the main character; an oversized rabbit with an apparent heart of gold, who becomes tormented by 3 cruel creatures. When one of the creatures crosses the line, Bug Buck Bunny decides to fight back, enacting a plan of revenge by laying a series of traps in the forest to which the 3 creatures fall victim.

It’s a technically brilliant short film, and I have often found myself replaying short snippits and admiring the sheer attention to detail in not just the environments but the character modelling, rigging and animation. Rarely (if at all) were any subtleties overlooked, with facial expressions perfectly exaggerated, body movements extremely well weighted, and even emotions expressed in such vivid variety.

Why the long face?

But Big Buck Bunny was of course not the first open film by the Blender Foundation. Elephants Dream, a story about two protagonists named Emo and Proog in a completely abstract mechanical environment, was the first film to be showcase the abilities of both the software and the open filmmaking community. In this film the character Proog tries to explain to Emo the beauty of their synthetic clock-work like environment, but Emo refuses to share Proog’s sentiments. Eventually this results in the complete fragmentation of their surroundings. Despite its visual brilliance which stood well and above most other CGI short films at the time, it was criticised for its confusing storyline. It was, as I already mentioned, a very abstract film, but let’s not allow this to take away from such a stellar achievement. It was the Blender Foundation’s first step toward showcasing what can be achieved with the Blender software package. As a tech demo it took things a step further and employed more than just a bunch of clips you’d see in a showreel. In fact, not only were they showing off what could be achieved technically, but they were showing that the ‘open’ approach to filmmaking was capable to carrying a project all the way to a polished end result. I respected this, because it did not simply cater to animators, but to producers of content across all the facets of filmmaking.

Can we keep him?

Moving forward, we arrive at the Blender Foundation’s most recent open filmmaking project: Sintel, which is their third film and is widely regarded as their finest production to date. This film follows Sintel, a troubled young girl who meets and befriends a young dragon. But when her friend is suddenly snatched from her, she embarks on a long and perilous journey to try and reunite herself with her lost friend. This film was the first to be rendered in the 2K resolution (2,048 pixels of horizontal resolution, a standard in many top-end film productions), and after the success of the previous two films it was hugely anticipated and well received. This film is guaranteed to pull your heart strings, with an amazing storyline and excellent character emotion. I personally believe the attention to detail in Sintel falls a bit behind that of Big Buck Bunny, but it’s hardly a fair comparison considering both films are very different. One should see Big Buck Bunny as an example of some great modelling, texturing, colour and effects, and Sintel for its brilliant camera work, story, and overall Hollywood-esque polish.

For each of these films, modifications to the Blender software were made to accommodate many of the techniques required to accurately produce a variety of content and effects. These included improvements to fur, particles, shading, lighting and skinning for Big Buck Bunny, and improvements to sculpting, shading, smoke simulation and the rendering system for Sintel. From this you can see how important these open projects are to not just the audience but also the developers. It enables them to explore possible limitations of the software and make the necessary adjustments to expand the variety and scope of the software and its toolkit.

All of these films also feature a top notch musical score and effects soundtrack by Jan Morgenstern, which couples with the visuals flawlessly, especially with films 2 and 3. Having a music and sound design background (among others) I have really enjoyed having a fiddle with the multi-channel sound design of the film, available to users as part of each film’s downloadable source materials. I regard Jan’s work as being up there with some of the best sound design and music I have seen in the independent short film scene.

A not so wascally wabbit

Moving back to the fact that all of these films have been totally open projects (which hopefully by now you understand what that means) the producers have given everyone complete access to all the production files from each film. This includes (but not limited to): Blender CG project files, uncompressed render farm outputs (open EXR files), uncompressed multi-channel soundtrack, graded image frame sequences, graphics, posters and pretty much everything you’d need to produce, manipulate and rehash the production yourself. It’s the equivalent of having Castle Rock give you the sets, the cameras, the crew and the cast of the Shawshank Redemption, and having them all rock up on your doorstep. Only this time you are the director, ready to shoot, change, and manipulate the film however you see fit. Not that you would, considering that like the Blender guys, Frank Darabont already did such an amazing job… but the option is there if you want to learn the ropes from a completely hands-on and no budget approach.

I wrote a letter to the producer of all 3 films, Ton Roosendaal, expressing my appreciation for making this content so freely available to the public, explaining to him that I was able to learn more about the processes of computer animated filmmaking in a few weeks than I did over 3 years of official study. This was because; unlike when you would be trying to learn the ropes from scratch, you now have access to all the bits and pieces in their most polished form, and have the option of backwards engineering a production, discovering all the right ways to go about creating the content.

Mountains? Yep, we've got 'em covered

Aside from the obvious benefits of having access to the abundance of source content, the software in which it is all developed is also free! You will remember earlier how I said that these short films are regarded as being in many ways superior to those produced by the likes of Dreamworks. We all know for a fact that the big-shots use programs such as Maya, 3DS Max, and other expensive packages to create their content. Blender is not only capable of creating competitive content which sits aside the big guys, but it has a huge community backing, constantly helping to improve and add to this wonderful package… and yet it remains totally free!

Because of this, many animators, filmmakers and hobbyists have already started making the switch to Blender, including myself. In fact, if you visit the blender website you will see an ever growing list of content which other users of the software have created, and they are amazing audiences all over the world.

So what will come next from the Blender Foundation? One can only imagine that with 3 amazing films under their belt, and a handful of awards to boot, the next production is going to once again exceed expectations and show the rest of the world how powerful the open source community can be in producing world-class productions, without the ridiculously bloated financial overhead.

If you have not seen any of the films produced by the Blender Foundation I really encourage you to take the time to check them out, not only to see the films for yourselves, but to familiarise yourself with the whole open filmmaking process.

Shaman knows best

Despite the content being free to watch, you can also choose support them by purchasing DVDs of the films, which come with a heap of source content themselves. So you are essentially not just buying the film, but all the goodies that come with the open source project as a whole, and if you have already gotten your copy of Blender, you can start experimenting right away!

To learn more about Blender, the Blender Foundation or open source filmmaking, visit: www.blender.org

Or to see any of the 3 films mentioned in this article, direct yourself to the following sites:

www.elephantsdream.org

www.bigbuckbunny.org

www.sintel.org

Anyway, that’s it for now. Take care and remember: Never underestimate the power of the creative community!

-Mat.