Author: Gareth

Sorry that today’s entry is a bit late — I had a lot on my plate today, while also fighting off a cold. Ah, the holiday season.

We’ve looked at tools for writers, for textile designers, for musicians and for game designers — and now we look at a crowd-sourcing tool for Insurgent Creative filmmakers: Wreckamovie.

Wreckamovie was created by Star Wreck Studios Oy Ltd., a group of filmmakers from Finland who had joined with a community of enthusiasts over the internet and released a freely-downloadable Star Trek parody film called “Star Wreck.” The experiences of the group led them to develop a crowdsourcing platform to allow people to share their expertise and help each other make films. The site draws it’s name both from the “Wreck” portion of their original film’s title (and the corresponding name of their production company), but also from their belief that what they are doing is wrecking the traditional model of filmmaking by destroying the barriers and bottlenecks between “Professionals” and “Amateurs”. (In other words, true Insurgent Creativity.)

Film productions (or any form of audiovisual project) are set up on the site, and broken down into Tasks (individual jobs that you need for your film) — for example, maybe you’re not particularly experienced with 3D Computer Graphics, and need some shots of Starships in your proposed science fiction epic. You’d create the design of those ships as a Task, and the particular SFX shots you need as another. Members of the site who possess that expertise then offer their Shots (attempts) at your Task. In addition, you can offer your expertise in Shots at other filmmakers’ Tasks (and are encouraged to do so — the site is a community, with members helping each other out). Whatever the Task is, if you feel like you have something to contribute to it – whether it’s just a small idea or a full attempt, you’re encouraged to give it a shot. Other members can comment on the shot, maybe adding to it, or offering revisions, or just give it a thumbs-up. If the production leader decides to use a Shot in the final film, you get credited. Creatives helping each other.

You can participate on the site as a member, offering your expertise to film productions, or can decide to launch your own production, or both. The site is free. A list of current productions can be seen here, and a list of current Tasks is here.

The biggest success from the site (and still actively posting Tasks) is the movie Iron Sky, a sci-fi film about the Nazis re-invading the Earth from their secret enclave on the Dark Side of the Moon. The picture accompanying this entry is a still from the film, and you can view the latest teaser here:
 
 

 
 
Anyone interested in audiovisual production should take a look at the Wreckamovie site — when we function without gatekeepers, networking among fellow creatives becomes more important than ever. Sites that build community between like-minded folks and encourage them to assist each other are a valuable resource to any Insurgent Creative.

Storm the gates!

We’re now about halfway through our series, and I figured it was time to talk about the resource that has allowed me to make a living for the past eight years: The various sites operated by OneBookShelf.

OneBookShelf began operations in 2001 as RPGNow — a site dedicated to the digital delivery of tabletop role-playing game products. Coinciding with the industry expansion brought about by the Open Game License, which allowed publishers to utilize the rules system for the market-leading Dungeons and Dragons in their own products, RPGnow ushered in the viability of digital delivery as a business model. In 2006, a merger occurred between RPGNow and their largest competitor, DriveThruRPG, forming OneBookShelf. The two sites were maintained as individual storefronts (both a result of brand loyalty on the part of customers, and also in product focus — RPGNow was viewed as more “Indie” than the “Mainstream” DriveThru), although both now operate on the same back-end. Since the merger, OneBookShelf has expanded with additional digital marketplaces: Wargame Vault (devoted to products supporting tabletop wargaming), DriveThruComics (the first digital comics shop online) and DriveThru Fiction (concentrating on genre fiction – specifically fantasy, sci-fi and horror).

The back-end process on these sites are the same — a creator signs up, provides payment information, uploads product, and it becomes available on the marketplace. Creators have full control over every aspect — from descriptive texts, to footers on the page, to cover image uploads, even to activation of the product for sale. The following two-part video offers an overview of the process for new creators:
 

 
 

 
The OneBookShelf sites have, in the past, focused on the PDF format for delivery: Flash-based product previews, for example, require the original to be in PDF. OneBookShelf also offers digital watermarking for those creators who wish to use it, where a file is imprinted with the name of the customer ordering it, and I believe that function also requires the file to be PDF. However, there are no restrictions on file formats — anything that can be delivered digitally is an option: Video, audio, and more. In addition, over the past year, they have also gone live with a Print-On-Demand program (production services provided by Lightning Source) where a customer has the option of ordering a digital file, a print copy via mail, or both.

The marketplace code that runs the sites offers creators dozens of tools: real-time sales and royalty reporting, freelancer royalty management, complete control over product listings, marketing tools to promote your products and more, including instant royalty pay-out (I can’t rave about this one enough — I have this linked to Paypal, and Paypal linked to a debit card. Need some cash while I’m out somewhere? Fire up the phone, browser to RPGNow, dump earnings to Paypal. Use card.). In addition, OneBookShelf can also create self-branded digital download stores dedicated to a creator’s product lines, able to be embedded on your own site. They are a full-service back-end service provider, and their staff is great at offering solutions for anything that comes up.

Perhaps the best part of my business relationship with the OneBookShelf sites since 2003 is that it allowed me to be an early adopter of the digital delivery business model. Now that the model is going mainstream, and as new tools are rolled out every week by services like Amazon and others, they’re often just larger implementations of concepts that I’m already familiar with via OneBookShelf — which means that I’m better placed to exploit these tools; able to jump right into a plan of action rather than having to spend time on a learning curve.

In a very real sense, OneBookShelf allowed me to become what I now refer to as an Insurgent Creative. I’m glad that this blog series has allowed me the opportunity to publicly thank them for that. They gave me the tools and the experience that allow me to storm those gates.
 
 
 

Going a bit outside the box on this entry. When we talk about Insurgent Creatives, we’re usually focusing on writers, artists, musicians… but what about clothing and textile designers? Today, we take a look at Spoonflower.

Spoonflower is a service that started in 2008 and offers digital printing of fabric, allowing designers to create and order custom fabrics for use in the making of curtains, quilts, clothes, bags, furniture, dolls, pillows, framed artwork, costumes, banners or whatever else they can think of. They offer different fabric stock (quilting-weight, upholstery-weight, and organic cotton sateen) at different prices, and print up to 5 yard lengths at a time (although you can order multiple 5y lengths). They take your digital file (JPG, PNG, GIF, TIF, SVG, AI and EPS format), at a minimum resolution of 150dpi and a maximum file size of 40mb, and run the blank cloth through an inkjet printer (which produces finer detail than screen printing of fabric is capable of).

Here’s a video made by the North Carolina Arts Council about Spoonflower:

In addition to producing custom fabric for designers, Spoonflower also serves as a marketplace for designers to sell their fabrics, although this is largely an afterthought: Designers only earn a 10% royalty on sales of yardage of their fabrics. So the focus of the site for designers, really, is for the production of custom fabric for use in your designs — which you then must sell through other means, whether on your own site, or craft storefronts like Etsy.

For an example of an Insurgent Creative using Spoonflower as a major tool in their business, check out the dice bags produced by Lyndsay Peters at Dragon Chow Dice Bags, who has turned her custom designs into an Award-nominated successful business.

Storm the gates!