[Bf-marketing] ED press release

[Tom M]

Hi Ton,

I reworked the release a bit.  Since being 'open source' is the 'hook'
it should be in the first paragraph.  Also added source to the title
(Open is ambiguous, but open source is a buzzword that the press
recognizies and is 'interested in').  I changed the tense a bit, and
recommend putting the release out in advance (the 'day of' seems a bit
odd - probably the 23rd or 22nd would be better...)

**********************
Elephants Dream, world premiere of the first 3D 'Open Source Movie'

Contact:
Ton Roosendal
Director Blender Foundation
Blender Foundation
Phone:
Fax:
Email: ton at blender.org

Mar. 22, 2005
For Immediate Release


Elephants Dream, world premiere of the first 3D 'Open Source' Movie

(Blender Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands) - The 3D animated short
'Elephants Dream' will premiere at cinema Kethelhuis in Amsterdam
Friday March 24th.  The short is the culmination of Project Orange an
'open source movie' sponsored by the Blender Foundation and the
Netherlands Media Art Institute in order to develop and establish the
capabilities open source tools such as Blender 3D to create cinema
quality animation.

The short film is unique in its exclusive use of Open Source tools for
animating, texturing, and rendering; as well as the release of the
movie and all of the files used in its creation under a open source
Creative Commons license.

The film tells the story of Emo and Proog, two people with different
visions on the surreal world they live in. The voice acting was
performed by renowned Dutch movie actors Tygo Gernandt and Cas Jansen.
 In the film, the viewer is taken on a journey through strange and
desolate landscapes consisting of machine parts and robotic birds,
accompanied by music written and performed by German composer Jan
Morgenstern,   The short utilized the talents of an international team
of 6 artists from countries as diverse as Syria, Germany, Australia,
Finland, and the Netherlands.

In addition to the talents of the cast and lead artists, Elephants
Dream has had the participation and assistance of hundreds of
individuals across the world who contributed a variety of work such as
programming additional functionality for Blender 3D; creation of
textures that were used for some of the models and scenes; and
providing international translations for the DVD release.

After the premiere of 'Elephants Dream', the movie and all of the
files used in its creation will be published under a 'Creative
Commons' license which will allow individuals the world over to learn
from, copy, edit, create, and sell their own animations based on the
original data files used to create the movie.  The tools used for
creating the movie, such as Blender 3D for model creation, animating,
rendering and compositing; the Gnu Image Manipuation Program for
texture map creation and editing; Python for scripting; and Subversion
for version management; are also available for free under open source
licenses.

The files will be released on two DVDs with the movie  in PAL and NTSC
format, a making-of  documentary, and all the studio files.  With the
DVD expected to ship in the first half of 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