[Bf-marketing] ED press release

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi guys,

Below a text I managed to produce... it's not very exciting yet, so  
some input and corrections are welcome! :)

When we got a final text, it can be sent around. Thanks!

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Elephants Dream, world premiere of first 3D 'Open Movie' in Amsterdam


Friday March 24, 2006

Today the 3D animated short movie "Elephants Dream" has been premiered  
in cinema Ketelhuis in Amsterdam. This ten minute short tells the story  
of Emo and Proog, two people with different visions on the surreal  
world they live in. The voice acting by Dutch renowned movie actors  
Tygo Gernandt and Cas Jansen, has inspired the team of animators to  
bring two exceptional characters to life. On music by German composer  
Jan Morgenstern, the viewer is taken on a journey through strange and  
desolate landscapes consisting of machine parts and robotic birds.

This project - nicked 'Orange' - has been initiated by the Blender  
Foundation, with as main target to bring together a group of talented  
artists to validate, test and help improving the Open Source Blender 3D  
suite. Six people have been selected to come over to Amsterdam, and  
work for seven months in the Netherlands Media Art Institute to execute  
the project. Assisted by Blender's online developers community the  
roadmap for the software has gained focus especially in the area of  
character animation tools and the entire rendering and compositing  
pipeline for film production. Results of this development will be part  
of the upcoming Blender 2.42 release in May.
The target to only use Open Source for the creation of a theatre  
quality movie also meant a strong involvement of other projects, such  
as Gimp for painting, Python for scripting and render-farm control, and  
Subversion for the studio database and version management.

Not only will the movie be published under the Creative Commons  
license, the entire studio database will be published under the  
Creative Commons as well - ranging from 3d models and texture maps up  
to all data to recreate the movie entirely. It is especially that  
aspect that will make the project a true Open Movie, and first in its  
kind to be released.

The dual DVD set with the movie in PAL, NTSC and HD, a making-of  
documentary, and all the studio files is expected to be shipping half  
april 2006. Shortly after, the movie and database will be made  
available for public download as well.

Studio Orange team:
Director: Bassam Kurdali (Syria /USA),
Art Director: Andreas Goralczyk (Germany)
Lead Artists: Matt Ebb (Australia), Bastian Salmela (Finland), Lee  
Cocks (Australia)
Technical Director: Toni Alatalo (Finland)

The team will present their work saturday/sunday March 25/26 in The  
Netherlands Media Art Institute, Keizersgracht 264. Here the movie will  
be shown daily between 13.00 and 18.00 during the two weeks after.  
Check for more information:

http://orange.blender.org
http://www.montevideo.nl

Press inquiries can be sent to Ton Roosendaal, ton at blender.org



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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org  
http://www.blender.org