Blog

  • Aiming for the middle ground.

    Has the script for this documentary ever evolved. A year ago, I started working on a film that was meant to bring coverage to what I perceived to be a really misrepresented issue. I believed that mainstream media was doing a poor job of explaining just what was going on with piracy, and relying too heavily on corporate press releases to form their opinions. I wanted to use the documentary to voice the opinion of the consumer-activism side. Naive, I know.

    But somewhere down the road, I grew up (thank god.) I started interviewing people, and I realised that the agencies within the industry were extremely misunderstood themselves. Interviewees outlined their very valid justifications, and explained the reasoning behind their logic. I found that the objections for many people on both sides of the issue stemmed from misunderstandings. I was delighted to encounter some people that were incredibly unbiased themselves, such as a lady from a certain organization to whom I spoke with today.

    There’s always three sides to a story. And with this film, I aim to report them all. No bias. My aim isn’t to persuade audiences to any one side, but to say “You watched the movie. These are all the facts I could get for you. Now you form your own views.” At the same time, I want to satisfy all the interviewees in the film, hoping they will say “My argument is well represented. Now its up to the viewer to decide what’s right.”

    To eliminate potential for bias, the narrator’s only function is to link interviews and explaing definitions of technical terms which may not have been defined properly during interviews. Furthermore, I will insure that the documentary represents the best of the arguments from each side; and that the editing is done in a fashion which does not misrepresent any perspective.

  • 2 more interviews down…

    Completed 2 interviews. One with a founder of a release group; another who was from a Linux consultancy. I’ve come to realise though that some of the interviews will be dropped. I have to drop the Anime group footage because that interview was just horrid for a documentary-maker (people wanted to be offscreen and express viewpoints); and at the very least I’ll have to use some SFX to edit the chair + door out of the Linux Consultant footage.

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  • Thank you.

    Because I’m really feeling the squeeze financially, I decided to create a live “donations” page for the Piracy Documentary. This goes against my original statement that I’d rather have the film finished first – but really, funds come in more handy when you’re actually making use of them.

    Well no less than an hour after the page went live, someone donated. And it was alot more than I would expected anyone to give. So I want to extend my thanks to Luxor, for your kind generosity. The only way I can make it up to you is to make the best film I can.

    Thank you.

  • Another interview down.

    Finished off another interview today. Added the details to the official site (piracydocumentary.com), and added new screenshots to the Gallery.

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  • 1 Interview Down; License Chosen.

    Today I had the pleasure of interviewing the head of Creative Commons Canada. And on that topic, I decided my license:

    by
    Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
    nc
    Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
    nd
    No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

    The “No Derivative Works” is to avoid potential problems caused by having industry reps. getting footage of them spread in other less-than-complimentary works. This is more protection for me than anything else. The raw interviews will also be released in this format.

    Furthermore, I’m releasing all stock footage to the Public Domain. This is a few hours worth of scenic shots of the cities of Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal. Actually, the Montreal footage is pretty bad; but there’s some decent tidbits in there.