It has long been a dream of mine to release "Nothing So Strange" on an "open source" basis. And now, after some serious consideration by myself and executive producer Brian Clark, we're doing it. "Nothing So Strange" is officially open source.

What, you ask, the hell is "open source"?

Short explanation: "Open source" comes from the software world, where copyright is sometimes viewed with much more flexibility than anyone in the film world, indie or otherwise, can usually imagine. Most of the proprietary software you and I are familiar with (Microsoft Word, Apple's iMovie and the like) hides its "source code" and comes with extreme copyright protection, so you can neither tinker with it (assuming you were capable) nor legally copy it and give it to others. But there is another kind of software, called "open source," that does not hide its source code and allows you to copy it freely. I'm serious--this stuff really exists. In fact, the Internet runs on this kind of software. It is the fastest growing category of software today (you may have heard of Linux, for example), and people are making a fortune from it in creative ways. (For the record, when Bill Gates was alive, he was all but a sworn enemy of open-source software.)

As far as I know, nobody has ever tried to apply the open source idea to film. Given the huge success of open source in software, and given the similarities between our two fields (getting closer and closer every day), I figure it's time to give it a shot. So "Nothing So Strange" has officially declared itself an "open source" project. We are going to release all of the "source code," which is to say the raw footage and other materials that went into making the film, and anyone can use that footage to make their own productions. You don't have to ask for permission, and you don't have to pay any royalties. It's yours. (Our version of "Nothing So Strange" will still be copyrighted, but all the parts of it will be free.)

We have started the process by donating some footage to Citizens for Truth, who have just announced they are releasing a DVD called the Citizens for Truth Gates Assassination DVD. That DVD is a combination of some footage gathered by me (including the trailer for "Nothing So Strange") and a lot of public domain footage related to the Gates assassination that Citizens for Truth put together themselves. When you buy the DVD from Citizens for Truth, you get a license to use all the footage on it. (This "Share Alike" license was designed by the good folks at Creative Commons and requires that you make your derivative works available on the same basis.) [UPDATE: We, er, Citizens for Truth, ultimately decided to use a more liberal license.] It looks like a great DVD, and I highly recommend checking it out.

Later, after I figure out some technical issues (the upcoming new DVD format, which allows huge amounts of data to be burned to a DVD, should help), we will put together volumes of "Nothing So Strange" raw footage and release them ourselves at a nominal price (i.e., typical DVD price--no extra charge for the rights to the footage). [UPDATE: We have since opened the Open Source Footage Store online.] And then you can make your own Gates assassination documentary, or other multimedia project of any kind.

Why would you want to do that? Well, as "Nothing So Strange" is a documentary, there really are many different films that can be made from the footage I gathered. During editing, I made certain choices to follow certain storylines that I determined to be the best for the film I wanted to make. But every one of those decisions had many alternates, some of which are surely just as valid as the choices I made. A doc with a totally different point of view could be made from the same source materials. In fact, I would guess someone could make a doc that a stranger wouldn't even recognize had a direct relationship to "Nothing So Strange." Such is the power of editing.

There are certain cowardly directors--I won't mention any names, but his initials are George Lucas--who are violently opposed to allowing anyone to second-guess their sacred final cut (when a fan called the "Phantom Editor" cut 20 minutes out of "Star Wars: Episode One" and distributed this improvement on the Internet, Lucas threatened legal action). Directors have a tendency to view themselves as gods in this way. One great benefit of digital media is that we can use it to knock these arrogant folks off their high horses. It is getting easier and easier for a non-techie person to manipulate digital media as easily as text. It is simply becoming another language that we can use to communicate with each other--both ways, not just godlike-filmmaker-to-passive-viewer.

But a vital step toward this kind of rich communication is the ability for people to use the cultural statements that are currently in existence, not just sit there and watch them. In the future, I hope a director's character is judged by his or her willingness to allow others to tinker with that precious "final cut." (I also hope to apply the open-source idea more thoroughly to a film project--meaning, from the very beginning, as part of the purpose of the open-source method is to take advantage of massive collaboration.)

But such altruistic ideals do not entirely make up our motivation for releasing "Nothing So Strange" in this way. There's another fact staring us in the face: We don't have a distributor. "Nothing So Strange" is a controversial documentary, and we're not likely to get a major distributor interested at this point. And without the advertising and marketing power of a distributor, it is really, really hard to get the word out about our film. The website and festival appearances can only do so much.

So we're hoping that releasing some of our copyrights to the footage we gave Citizens for Truth will help propagate that footage in a similar way that a band can get attention by releasing an MP3 on a file-sharing network. Is it a long shot? Yeah. But taking risks is about all we've got left as we try to get this movie seen by as many people as possible.

So if you want to help the film, go over to citizensfortruth.org and buy the "Evidence DVD." And then do something creative with it. And then share it.

Best,
Brian Flemming
doc@nothingsostrange.com
Brian Flemming's Weblog