National Film Board of CanadaIt's "a film about the public domain—about the right of citizens to participate in their culture and I think people appreciate that and recognize it," said Director Brett Gaylor about his documentary, RiP: A Remix Manifesto, which is currently being released in theatres across Canada.
This look into the copyRIGHt and the copyLEFT follows music mashup artist Girl Talk, and features cameos from Lawrence Lessig (founder of Creative Commons), Gilberto Gil (Brazil's Minister of Culture) and Cory Doctorow (pop culture critic).
"I've always seen the audience as sort of a collaborator in the creation of the film and obviously in the distribution they're the final collaborator," noted Gaylor who has been publishing bits of the film online for all to view, remix and share.
With this all-star digital line up and seemingly non-stop get-up-and-dance-around beats provided by Girl Talk and various other artists RiP truly can truly empower generations with its ground-breaking style however: "The coolest lawyer in the world just told me I'm making an illegal film," notes Gaylor in the movie after talking to Lawrence Lessig.
"[Some] might think that what I'm trying to say is that everything should be free and that nobody should pay at all for art—I don't say that in the film." Gaylor notes that it's all about drawing your own conclusions and making sure you're informed. "Just like the environment is an issue that you need to have opinions about and take action on. Intellectual property is about the domain of the mind, of culture, and no matter what side of this issue you sit on, we have to recognize that it's really important."
To expand on Gaylor's work download movie clips from OpenSourceCinema.org, then upload to share your creation and be a part of RiP's future. "The main thing is to participate and to contribute to further evolving versions of the film because we're going to take that to different film festivals and remix it as we go along." Gaylor truly believes, "In any film the final interpretation is brought to the work from the audience."
GUEST BLOGGER: Rebecca Bollwitt has been blogging about Vancouver since 2004 on Miss604.com, co-hosting two podcasts since 2005 and in 2008 she co-founded sixty4media, a social media consulting firm.