A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION AND DESIGN AND THE INSTITUTE OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES OF BİLKENT UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
By Koray Löker May 2008
ABSTRACT
REVOLUTION OF OPEN SOURCE AND FILM MAKING TOWARDS OPEN FILM MAKING
Koray Löker M.A. in Media and Visual Studies Supervisor : Asst. Prof. Andreas Treske Co-Advisor : Assist. Prof. Dr. H. Murat Karamüftüoğlu May 2008
This thesis is a critical analysis of self-proclaimed open source movie projects, Elephants Dream and The Digital Tipping Point. The theoretical framework derived from the new media discourse on film making, mainly based on Lev Manovich’s database narrative and spatial montage theories among a detailed reading on database narrative with theoretical works and publications by Marsha Kinder, Allan Cameron, and Ed Folsom.
Keywords : free software, open source, copyleft, database narrative, spatial montage, elephants dream.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT PAGE
ii SIGNATURE PAGE
iii ABSTRACT
iv ÖZET
v ACKNOWLEDGMENT
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
vii LIST OF TABLES
ix LIST OF FIGURES
x
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Aim of the Study
1.2. Organization of the Thesis
2. OPEN SOURCE AND COPYLEFT
2.1. Open Source Model
2.1.1 Disambiguation : Free Software or Open Source
2.1.2 Free Software of The Free Software Foundation
2.1.3. Open Source of Open Source Initiative
2.2. The Copyleft Concept
2.2.1 The History of Intellectual Property
2.2.2 Recent Paradigms of Intellectual Property
2.2.3 An Extension to the Copyright Model : Copyleft
3. NEW MEDIA AND CINEMA
3.1 Database Narrative
3.1.1 Database Cinema
3.2 Spatial Montage
3.3 Open Source Databases
4. CASE STUDIES
4.1 Elephants Dream
4.1.1 Background of the project : motivation and history
4.1.2 Production Model in technical aspect
4.2 The Internet Archive
4.3 The Digital Tipping Point
4.4 Theoretical Reflections on Open Source Movies
5. CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
GLOSSARY
APPENDIX A