Why Gooseberry, the open animation film, matters

http://gooseberry.blender.org/why-gooseberry-matters/

by unwind • 12 years ago

111 39 12 years ago

gooseberry.blender.org

nwatson• 12 years ago

> There's a real growing unrest out there about how a few greedy people control [the movie] business - making their billions

Those greedy people understand the importance of "story." The Gooseberry trailer showed no promise there. The industry story telling isn't always that great but I could see none in the Blender trailer.

If this is just a technical showcase label it such. The early pixar public demos were such but their stories were so great audiences looked forward to the five minute delay to see them before the main feature.

Ygg2• 12 years ago

Wait, what about Sintel? Didn't it have a story?

panzi7• 12 years ago

Of course, but it wasn't really strong.

watt• 12 years ago

The quote goes on and in fact references the "Rhythm & Hues" VFX company that won the Oscar for work on "Life of Pi" visual effects. While at the same time filing for bankruptcy and firing 238 employees. (Life of Pi made $609mil worldvide on budget of $120mil.) Those greedy people.

k-mcgrady• 12 years ago

Isn't that just bad business? It sucks they went bankrupt but if you're working on a film of that size and can't make a profit you've either spent a huge amount of money and the profits you get from the film don't cover it or you've worked out a shitty deal and you get very little profits from the movie.

panzi7• 12 years ago

Besides the problem illustrated in LIFE AFTER PI I think that AutoDesk seems to buy up all/most of the competition is a bit worry some and every bit of more competition is a good thing.

berkut3• 12 years ago

Well, Rhythm and Hues used their own proprietary software for just about everything other than texture painting (Mari), so that doesn't really apply here.

jscheel• 12 years ago

Yep, Autodesk just recently announced that they were shutting down Softimage, after promising they would not shut it down post-acquisition. They are a plague on the VFX software industry.

pbhjpbhj• 12 years ago

Did you mean this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfezG5M2ICg, teaser when you mentioned a trailer?

I think you do it a disservice to say that it showed no promise - a mysterious force has transformed cartoon sheep in to other things, they don't know why, or who they are, one expresses a desire to go home. What happened, how, why; how will that cute little lamb get home? Seems to be on the right lines for a framework for an animated story: I assume what I linked was directed mainly at creatives rather than consumers.

pekk3• 12 years ago

Whatever the hype, Gooseberry is a demonstration of technical and economic feasibility.

Stories are cheap, lots of people are out there who have great ideas for movies but just can't realize them for technical and economic reasons

sosborn• 12 years ago

Ideas for stories are cheap. Fleshing those ideas out to a great story/film takes rare talent.

qq66• 12 years ago

I don't know what you mean by "stories are cheap" but popular movies with great, unique storylines are extraordinarily rare (yes, that's equally the audience's fault). Most top grossers are sequels or derivative of other properties (comic books, teen fiction, etc).

jbarrow• 12 years ago

One of the Blender video projects that I really liked was En Passant[0]. Although it was a short movie (only around 15 minutes) it tells a powerful story, and shows some of the impressive capacity of Blender.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7HI1Ujx7B8

melling• 12 years ago

Here's a podcast interview of the Gooseberry director: http://www.blenderguru.com/podcast-interview-with-gooseberry...

stuaxo• 12 years ago

I hope they get better writers than the one they made with the robots.. I know it's important to show off the tech, but make it fun to watch too!

mpnordland• 12 years ago

I enjoyed Tears of Steel, a little crazy and wacky with the robotic romance stuff, but then I like a little crazy now and then.

shankysingh• 12 years ago

IIRC Yeah they did, they got back write of "Sintel" back. She and director "Mathieu Auvray" and still churning on the story. src: http://www.blenderguru.com/podcast-interview-with-gooseberry...

milliams• 12 years ago

Or, formatted nicely on the website: http://gooseberry.blender.org/why-gooseberry-matters/

unwind• 12 years ago

Thanks. I learned of this from the Blender developers' mailing list, didn't think to look for a website article.

vertex-four• 12 years ago

So, I got all excited about funding this, and went to their page[0] to see what funding options are available. Unfortunately, there's nothing there that's reasonably priced and exclusive. I'm not a film maker - I'm a film watcher - but I'd love to see more open technology for making films come out and reduce the barrier to entry, so that I can find more of what I enjoy. I just can't justify giving away a significant amount of money without getting something in return. $25.60 to get to see a film a few days before everyone else is not worth it.

Compare that to something like The Mechanisms's new album's Kickstarter[1]. If you pay anything more than £15, you get unique stuff that ties into the world, from patches and t-shirts to toys, books and bags. The point is that you won't be able to get this stuff once the album's finished.

While I get that Gooseberry is likely to be a large and extremely ambitious project, I think that if it's to meet its goals, it needs to provide something compelling for the majority of people who have no intention of making a film.

[0] https://cloud.blender.org/gooseberry/ [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1985371014/record-high-...

ben0x539• 12 years ago

Usually if I feel like donating money to a project, I prefer that it goes into improving the project rather than into retail prices for t-shirts and toys etc. ymmv :/

panzi7• 12 years ago

Well, there are t-shirts: http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/default_becool.php

But it is not directly linked with gooseberry. It's just a general blender "donation".

photex• 12 years ago

I understand your point but the goal here is to get a better Blender and hopefully a successful demonstration of a new production model. These are the artifacts that tie into the world and hopefully that would mean you would see more entertainment and fun created for you in the future.

akuchling• 12 years ago

The price point is just too high. I'd give $5 or $10 without a thought, even if there were no benefits at all, but $25 is too much for an impulsive donation to a project.

mikecupcake• 12 years ago

The last option lets you pick an amount, I almost didn't see it myself.

fidotron• 12 years ago

I've been attached to the Blender community since 1998 or so (had it running on Irix at one point, and still have one of the original manuals).

The slight rise of it, but mainly the consolidation of Maya, 3DS Max and Softimage all under the Autodesk roof has been curious to watch. (It's a more extreme variant of the stagnation resulting from Adobe's now dominance of DTP, especially after effectively killing Freehand). What was a space in the mid 90s where software would cost tens of thousands per seat has experienced massive decline, despite the growth in consumers of end product. Those historically high barriers to entry protected the VFX studios of the era, granting them a degree of stability they haven't had since about 2000.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I have no idea what it is.

userpasswd• 12 years ago

Maybe that FOSS is slow and steady, but slow and steady should win the race... Eventually.

bayesianhorse• 12 years ago

I already pledged. And it is sad to see the campaign failing. Baring some very large scale donors, the progress is not enough to reach the goal...

Why Gooseberry, the open animation film, matters

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