[Fsf-friends] Elephants Dream : Worlds First Open Movie released

[Tinku Sampath]

*' ELEPHANTS DREAM '*

' Elephants Dream ', worlds first Open Movie which was finally realized
using powerful graphic rendering engine such as Blender is released to
public under Creative Commons license. The short film was created by the
Orange Open Movie Project studio in Amsterdam during 2005/2006, bringing
together a diverse team of artists and developers from all over the world.

You can download the movie in different formats. Sound tracks and images are
also available. A video documentary is also ready for download.

I am including the official press release.

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*Press Release*

*May 18, 2006
For Immediate Release*

*Elephants Dream, internet release of the first 3D 'Open Movie'*

(Blender Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - The 3D animated short
'Elephants Dream' will today be released as a free and public download. This
is the final stage of a successfully completed Open Movie project which has
been community-financed, using only Open Source tools, and opening up the
movie itself as well as the entire studio database for everyone to re-use
and learn from. The movie and production files are licensed as “Creative
Commons Attribution 2.5", which only requires a proper crediting for public
screening, re-using and distribution.

In the past weeks, the donating sponsors have received the dual DVD set of
this project in their mailbox. This DVD set remains for sale via the
blender.org e-shop as support product for future Open Movie projects. The
Blender Foundation is committed to start working on similar projects soon.

The movie files and download mirrors can be accessed here:
http://www.elephantsdream.org/download

Elephants Dream is the culmination of the Orange Open Movie Project,
produced by the Blender Foundation and the Netherlands Media Art Institute.
The project was conceived to help develop and establish the capabilities of
the Blender 3D open source tool for the creation of cinema quality
animation.

The film tells the story of Emo and Proog, two people with different visions
of the surreal world in which they live. Viewers are taken on a journey
through that world, full of strange mechanical birds, stunning technological
vistas and machinery that seems to have a life of its own.

'Elephants Dream' features the voice talents of renowned Dutch movie actors
Tygo Gernandt and Cas Jansen, as well as an original score by German
composer Jan Morgenstern. The short brought together the talents of a team
of artists from countries as diverse as Syria, Germany, Australia, Finland,
and the Netherlands. In addition to the performances of the cast and
creative efforts of the lead artists, Elephants Dream has had the assistance
of hundreds of individuals across the world who contributed a variety of
work such as programming additional functionality for Blender, creating
textures used in some of the scenes, and providing international
translations for the DVD release.

The files have been released on two DVDs with the movie in PAL, NTSC and HD
formats, a making-of documentary, and all of the studio files. The DVDs were
shipped in early May 2006. As promised, shortly after, the movie and
database of source material is now available for public download as well.

Studio Orange team:
Director: Bassam Kurdali (Syria /USA),
Art Director: Andreas Goralczyk (Germany)
Lead Artists: Matt Ebb (Australia), Bastian Salmela (Finland), Lee Salvemini
(Australia)
Technical Director: Toni Alatalo (Finland)

For more information:

http://www.elephantsdream.org
http://www.blender.org

Contact:
Ton Roosendaal
Chairman, Blender Foundation
Email: ton(at)blender.org

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- Tinku Sampath



-- 
Tinku Sampath