Open-source film


Open-source films are films which are produced and distributed by using free and open-source and open content methodologies. Their sources are freely available and the licenses used meet the demands of the Open Source Initiative in terms of freedom.

Definition

A definition of an open-source film is based on the OSI's open-source software definition and the definition of free cultural licenses. This definition can be applied to films where:
  1. The license of the movie is approved for free cultural works. Specifically this is true for the Creative Commons licenses by and by-sa.
  2. The materials used in the movie are also available under a license which is approved for free cultural works.
  3. The movie and its sources are made publicly available via an online download or by other means that are either free or with a cost that covers reasonable reproduction expenses only.
  4. The sources should be viewable and editable with free/open-source software. If this is not the case, they must be convertible into such a format by using free/open-source software. The same applies to the movie itself.
  5. It should be possible to re-create or re-assemble the movie using the source materials.
Films or film projects which do not meet these criteria are either not open source or partially open source.

List of open-source films

NameTypeReleasedCC LicenseSourcesComment
Dancing to Architecture – a motion picture about TINADocumentary2002by 2.5 AU
Collaborative production. Vital Focus 2002.
Route 66 - An American Nightmareroad movie / gonzo-documentary12/2004by-sa 3.0 Became popular as Germany's first open-source film. The license changed to CC by-sa in July 2009.
Elephants Dreamanimated short04/2006by 2.5
Created with the Blender open-source software.
Stray CinemaShort Film/ Remix project2006by 3.0
Collaborative project
'contemporary art project2007
A remake of Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" using crowdsourcing / peer production method.
Big Buck Bunnyanimated short08/2008by 3.0
Created with the Blender Open Source Software.
'short film02/2009by-sa 3.0
Sources only consist of the movie without music score.
Sita Sings the Bluesanimated musical of the Indian epic the Ramayana2009CC0 1.0
'full feature01/2010by-sa 3.0
Collaborative project. HD download available
'documentaryin productionby-sa
Collaborative project.
Sintelanimated short10/2010by 3.0
Created with the Blender Open Source Software.
La Chute d'une plume animated short10/2010by-sa 3.0
Created with the Kdenlive Open Source Software.
original source footage of Tears of Steelreference material for easing technical development of movie technology2013-03-15CC-by
This is a first time addressing of the huge lack in available free high quality footage for motion tracking, keying and cleaning testing. The material was recorded with the Sony F65 camera and is formed by roughly 80,000 frames, each in OpenEXR half float files, in 4096 x 2160 pixels. This is 5 times more footage than used in the film. For the movie production the format encoding Rec709 “scene linear” was used in the processing pipeline.