The BBC’s tech program “Click” interviewed Kat Cizek about her new interactive documentary, One Millionth Tower, and how she used open source technologies like WebGL and Mozilla Popcorn to make it unique. (Listen to the MP3 or OGG version.)
Showcasing open source through high-profile productions
It’s inspiring to see media like the BBC make the connection between new open source technologies and the new forms of storytelling they open up. The interview begins with the example of how high-profile productions like Toy Story and Avatar changed the culture and market of film by showing what new computer-generated imagery could do.
In the same way, productions like One Millionth Tower can showcase the birth of new “web-native” storytelling, built using the open web as its canvas.
This is exactly the theory of change Mozilla Popcorn began with when it started two years ago: showcase the power of open through high-profile productions that make other filmmakers take notice and say: “I want that!”
As guest Bill Thompson put it:
As someone familiar with the patterns of linear storytelling that you see in most documentary films, it’s great to see somebody breaking away from all those conventions and doing something for the first time that a lot of other filmmakers are going to look at and think: ‘we want to start telling stories in this way.’
Just as early web pages broke away from the linear news narrative in news stories, this is breaking away from the linear storytelling narrative in documentary film.
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