Open Film Making News Portal Website

We are toying with the idea of forming a team to develop and maintain a news website about open source film making related topics.

Basically a website like nofilmschool.com or libregraphicsworld.org but with a focus on the free/libre/open source/DIY side of film making and media creation which is currently not being covered anywhere.

Outline

The idea is to create a news website and maintain it with content like news/blog posts and articles about open source film making, related current events/topics for pros and pro-sumers. Reblogging or linking to videos is a good way to raise the amount of content but in general we will produce mostly exclusive original content like:

• release of new open source software versions related to film making (eg. Blender, Celtx, Ardour, Opendcp, Gimp, etc)
• news related to open film projects (open movies, open content, remixing, creative commons films, collaborative films, etc.)
• news related to internet services relevant for film making (vimeo, 3dox.org, etc.)
• visually stunning artistic motion picture projects (not necessarily narrative film) that use open source software/hardware or a collaborative way of working
• Industry news (NAB, IBC, etc.) related to Open Source, or global events (eg. death of Bryce Bayer - inventor of Bayer pattern)
• Linux related topics (even if it includes closed source products, eg. Davinci Resolve, Lightworks, etc. on Linux or Hollywood Studio render farms based on Linux: Renderman, etc.)
• new product (hardware) releases if they are related to Open Source or Linux
• Tutorials (both software and hardware)
• DIY guides for creating film making gear (DIY - sliders, dollies, lamps, grip, cranes, jibs, special effects, etc.)
• In-depth feature pieces about the state of the industry or speculation about a specific products
• Critical analyses, SFX break-down or reviews of interesting memorable film sequences

Implementation

A good clean design and layout is important, and making it clear how people can find specific content will help - using tags and categories so people can very easily find archived content.

• blog like CMS (probably Wordpress or Drupal)
• dedicated editor team (paid per article if we can afford it later on)
• ads (google ads, sponsors, etc.)
• guest authors (payment per article later on if we can afford it)

Domains (suggestions)

• opensourcefilmmaking.com
• openfilmmaking.org
• osfilms.com (already taken)
• osfilmmaking.com

Sustainability

To cover this endeavor long term the website has to run on advertizement, either paid banners from sponsors or Google adsense. This money-flow will start from a very little amount in the beginning and grow over time as the website grows in size and audience. Firstly the money will be used to cover domain and hosting fees. Later the income would be shared between writing editors and contributors (either on an per-article basis or we find an even better way like ad clicks tracked per article and editor), but its clear that this website is not a for-profit thing - the money will always be given to those who actively supply the website with content.

So this plan needs the people to carry it. Who would be interested in participating in such endeavor? We need content writers as well as graphics designers and website administrators. Some people from the apertus° team are interested but we definitely can't do this alone, we need you!

Contributor Mailing List

I created a mailing list (Google Group) so interested parties can discuss the collaboration to create this website easily with low entrance barrier.
Are you interested? Join this group with your email address:

Visit the group: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/open-film-making-website