We've been under strict instruction to keep this on the downlow for the last couple of weeks, so it gives me great pleasure to Feed you A Swarm of Angels, a trailblazing film-making project by good Friend of the the Feed, Matt Hanson. The concept is simple: 50,000 "angels" each pay £25 to fund a £1 million feature film. Just call it Cinema 2.0.
One of the more interesting elements of the project is that the resulting film will be released under a CC license, and will be developed through feedback from the 50,000 angels who fund it. Matt has signed up Tommy Pallotta [A Scanner Darkly] as a producer, both Warren Ellis [Transmetropolitan] and Cory Doctorow [Boing Boing] are serving as advisors and Protein° will be an official media partner for it. Like the sounds of it? Want to become an angel? You can sign up in batches: first 100, then 1000, then 5000, then 25000, then 50000. At each stage, the angels get to participate in different parts of the film production: script development, teaser production, trailer production, pre-production planning, production, post-production, etc. The first 100 angels are already signed, and Matt's opened the membership again to 1000 more, who get to work on script doctoring and making the first teasers. At √Ǭ£25, it's the cost of a couple CDs, and you get to participate in the production of a major feature film. Nice. Some more hype for those that still need convincing: "A Swarm of Angels reinvents the Hollywood model of filmmaking to create cult cinema for the Internet era. It's all about making an artistic statement, making something you haven't seen before. Why are we doing this? Because we are tired of films that are made simply to please film executives, sell popcorn, or tie-in with fastfood licensing deals." Word to that.
