FAQ
When was the Chamba Project started?
Milad Thaha: Actual discussions date back quite a bit, if you check the mailing lists, you’ll see this topic popping up from time to time. Firm decisions about the project were laid around the first week of November, 2010. That was the time when the official website, forums and mailing list were launched.
Praveen Arimbrathodiyil: Idea of creating a Free Movie was first proposed on Sun Jan 6 02:40:44 2008 by me to Swathanthra Malayalam Computing team. But nothing much happened till Sintel is released on Thursday, September 30th 2010. May be people thought the idea was unreachable then.
On October 2nd I reminded Free Software User Group members about this idea Time has changed since I talked about it last time, about 2 years back, this time lot of people came up and said – this is a cool idea, lets do it.
What do you mean when you say Swathanthra (Free/Libre/Open) Cinema?
We are talking about a cinema which can be shared with everyone freely and it can be remixed by anyone.
Who is the founder of the Chamba Project?
Milad Thaha: Our project co-ordinator, Praveen sparked up this initiative.
Praveen Arimbrathodiyil: Free Software User Group Trivandrum, without everyone’s backing, it would have remained as an idea. V. Sasi Kumar, Adhin D, Jishnu, Milad Thaha, Katik Singhal, Sooraj Kenoth to name a few.
How many artists are volunteering for this project?
Milad Thaha: As of the time of writing this, there are 13 contributors to the production side, according to the Chamba Wiki. However, this is flexible number, and will inflate or reduce according to volunteers during said period. This is aside from members who will stay permanently, that is.
What all productions have Chamba worked on?
This is our first production. Milad Has created a small animation movie as a proof of concept (to show people we have people who know animation in our team)
Why the name Chamba?
We follow blender foundation model of naming project after a fruit, like Orange, Peach and Durian. Read more about Chamba fruit on Wikipedia.
There is also another significance to the name: “Chambakka is one of the commonly found fruit in almost all houses in Kerala. In childhood days we used to pluck Chambakkas from the Chamba tree of all the nearby houses. Nobody will restrict you from doing this because it is “open” for children (remembering the nostalgic days from my childhood). Children like this fruit more than grownups. I think, Chamba is a nice name that can be given to such an open source project.” – from Amritapuri Campus Blog.
How the entire project is being coordinated?
Milad Thaha: This is still under discussion. We’re looking at ways we can hold this online, with occasional live meetings, such as the one scheduled during NITC’s FOSSMeet.
Praveen Arimbrathodiyil: We use internet to communicate. Our main medium is a mailing list (similar to yahoo groups or google groups, but we run the software on our server). You can see the previous discussions here.
We have a wiki (Same software used by Wikipedia) and forum. We use IRC (Internet Relay Chat, which is similar to yahoo messenger, google talk or other messenger services, but it has group chat by default) for meetings and live communication.
How are you going to find resources for a big project like making a movie?
We will collect contributions from people by way of asking for donations, selling DVDs and T Shirts, screening movies and charging for it …
Will the artists be paid?
Milad Thaha: I’m an artist who is a part of this project, and I had volunteered for this purely on the basis of my enthusiasm and interest. However, I have yet to see a discussion on this topic. I’m not sure about it.
Praveen Arimbrathodiyil: This depends on how much funds we can raise. If we get enough funds to pay someone to work on Chamba full time, we would. Otherwise we will continue the project completely on free time of artists.
Great idea, but you have to be a bit more communicative, friends.
We see two challenges one of logistics and second of the actual movie making itself. We had to start somewhere solidly, so we thought of fund raising as the first step. If we have some resources at our side then it would be fair for artists to spend significant time on this project. Some of the team are already working on a storyboard.
We must be able to visualise what you are calling us to participate in.
If you are creative, we would like you to help with creative aspects of movie making, other wise we would like to get your help in raising resources. We have to find someone to host this project and we have to find out powerful systems to render this movie. We have two organisations in our mind right now, but we are looking out. Once we find answers to host and resource we would be able to fund some artists full time to get the movie done.
I will contribute 500 Indian Rupees when I see some concrete action taken – so far I only see talk. (asked on 12th November 2010)
Fair enough. This was initial round, testing waters, see if there is an interest etc. We will come back with concrete actions as we progress. A week back it was just a mailing list discussion, now it has a project site, mailings lists, forums, wiki, people talking about it, people pledging support … posters, banners, logos, promotional videos, story board are being worked on …
We know it is a long journey. It is not just about the movie, but we see this an opportunity to talk about free culture. So already Free Movie festivals are being planned in at least 3 colleges.
What can we (students) do in this project?
Organize Swathanthra Cinema Festivals in your college, talk to students, teachers and other friends about free culture and Chamba project. Distribute CDs/DVDs of Free Movies like Elephant’s dream, Big Buck Bunny, Sintel, Sita Sings the Blues etc. Print T Shirts and stickers about Chamba and other free culture projects and distribute them. Organize fund collection drives (even if it is 5 rupees or 10 rupees important part is participation of everyone in this project) among your friends, parents, relatives and local business. Help spread the word about this project among your online or social networking contacts like facebook/twitter/identi.ca friends. Help with web site maintenance, help us pick a good story, distribute chambakas (chamba fruits) 
There is tons of things students can help with, your imagination is your limit. Read contribute page and get involved right now!
What stage is the current production in?
Right now, it is undergoing pre-production, and is in a very early stage. We have finalised the story and
currently working on screenplay.
What is the current production and when will it be completed?
This depends entirely on the team we have, and on the resources.
How lengthy will be the feature?
Milad Thaha: Estimated time right now is around 4-5 minutes. This is a rough personal estimate, and this can fluctuate.
What is the story?
We have discussed various ideas for a story in our mailing lists and finalised one story in an online meeting.
Who is the story writer?
The basic storyline was decided during meetings, with a particularly major contribution from Om Prakash. He has written the first version of the script, which is available in the mailing list archives.
What is the agenda of the meet in NIT, Calicut?
Milad Thaha: We intend to get together to share ideas, kickstart some real production, and decide how to move ahead with the project. Our team is not entirely comprised of professionals, quite a few of them are hobbyists and enthusiasts too, so alot of experimentation is bound to happen.
Praveen Arimbrathodiyil: Meeting at Calicut would give an opportunity to build a team. Till now most team members met only on the internet. Also sitting together and working would really help us have a solid foundation to work independently later. More details on our meeting coordination page.
How many artists will be coming there?
We are still in planning stage and participation of some students (Milad and Jishnu would depend on their exam scheduls). Four artists are confirmed so far. Members for Operations team would also be there.
Why did you chose Blender to make this movie? If Maya is like Honda City then Blender is like Maruti 800? (More Blender Vs Maya discussion)
We chose Blender because we believe in Free Software. Free Software is also a part of Free Culture or rather Free Software idea is now extended to Free Culture. So there is no way we will settle for Maya when we have Blender. If people think more people will get involved if we use Maya, let them start another project with Maya. Lets see who wins
Even if we concede Blender is like Maruti 800, so many people are happy with Maruti 800, it gets them to work everyday. Also it is energy efficient, so it is not just size or bells and whistles, if it lets to get your work done that is enough. Plus Blender being Free Software if something cannot be done right now, we can request it and it will get added. The whole purpose of 3 Open Movie projects from Blender Foundation was to test Blender software against real world needs by creating movies. They added so many missing features required to make those movies.
Why an open source movie?
Praveen Arimbrathodiyil: We are talking about a cinema which can be shared with everyone freely and it can be remixed by anyone. During Feudal systems kings, emporers, nawabs etc were patrons for artists and distribution of cultural products were difficult. With advancement in technology and end of feudal system we needed a different model. Printing press made large scale distribution of books possible, same with phonograph for audio and photographic film for movies. Large scale production cost money for producing each copy and distributing them, to recover these costs copyright came into existence. With this system, every creator has a monopoly over his or her creation. This resulted in rise of industries in cultural production, film industry, movie industry, music industry etc. An artists needed help from the industry to promote the work and collect money.
Now we are moving towards a digital society where distribution costs does not exist. Communication technology and internet empowered artists to reach out to their fans directly without any help from the industry. Time has come to find out new models that would make use of the potential the technology has presented to us. Current movie, music and printing industry is trying to resist the change by lobbying stricter copyright laws like Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the US, more restriction on the use of internet, technological measures like DRM (digital restrictions management). There has been many efforts already to create a new system where creators talk to users directly via the internet without any intermediaries. American animator Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the blues is an excellent example of a movie distributed directly to fans over the internet. So our project is an effort to find a new model of movie production which would replace the obsolete model of monopoly based production.
More background for this can be found from Eben Moglen’s lecture Freeing the Mind: Free Software and the Death of Proprietary Culture. He is one inspiring speaker who is driving this change to Free Culture everywhere. He inspired Diaspora and freedombox. Diaspora team raised funds via kickstarter.com (we are also going to use it for fund raising for chamba).
Milad Thaha: Our motive is to let anyone and everyone even remotely interested in animated movie making to come forward and experience the production side of things. Viewers can follow every single aspect of the production and hopefully learn from it. After the production is over, all the files required to make the movie will be freely distributed so anyone can pick up a DVD of the production files, take apart and inspect it, learn. Make there own versions or stories if they’re interested too. If they have the resources, they will also be able to re-render the film. What they do with it is upto them.
Personally, it is to learn and understand working as a team, and get the experience of a whole real movie making process.
Zadeek Ummer: Why should anyone be denied knowledge and culture just because he cannot pay, especially when you do not have any additional costs? This is the basic principle of the Chamba project.
Why not join the Blender foundation?
Praveen Arimbrathodiyil: Blender foundation aims to promote Blender Software. All movies produced by Blender foundation were primarily targeted at showcasing power of Blender Software. Our primary motivation is spreading Free Culture, to propose a different model for creating culture.
Milad Thaha: From a personal point of view, I think its better we notify the Blender Foundation of such a project’s existence, but do the
production ourselves instead. Their efforts are better spent to improve and make Blender a better, and more efficient piece of software. Their open movies are made to enhance the feature set in Blender, as well to field test its production capability. After all, in the end, its all about showing that people can create professional production level products using FOSS aside from the enthusiasm and education aspect of things.
What copyright license would you use for your work?
It would be under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.
How the data transfer happens?
We are planning to use peer to peer technologies (like bittorrent) for data sharing. We have not finalised anything as we are still in pre production stage.
Who will be responsible for editing and final cut of the feature?
Creative team, during Calicut meeting we will spend more time on individual responsibilities and task tracking.