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New Film 'Zenith' Now Available For Free BitTorrent Download
airfoobar writes "This seems like a good week for libre culture. The first part of an surprisingly well-made cyberpunk thriller called Zenith has just been released as a torrent download through Vodo, and the third episode of Pioneer One is being released on the 28th."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V26bJN3KkY4
This film, Pioneer One and The Tunnel are all doing this, and it makes it seem like this is a potentially workable model. I hope the "buy a frame" and selling of merchandise make it financially viable... I'd love to see this become the norm. I was more than happy to buy a few frames for The Tunnel... as the money goes straight to the movie makers, and it still cost me less than a single traditional rental.
Sounds like a synonym for mediocre but hey it's free. I have yet to watch TFE (the fine episode) because my torrent download rate is surprisingly slow. But reading through the comments at the VODO download page, assuming they aren't anonymous astroturfers, I get the feeling that it's actually good enough for broadcast TV. They'd probably be right if by such quality you mean either Paranormal Activity or the Blair Witch Project, a threshold you can easily reach with a well-written script, a good director and a dedicated cast.
Sadly the better free beer movies I've watched appear to be fan-made movies (or movies produced without explicit permission from materials copyrighted by other people), e.g. The Hunt for Gollum.
Downloads: 146939
Donations so far: $246
Sure does.
Downloading.. haven't watched the second yet (didn't know it was out) but the first episode was actually pretty intriguing. It pretty much had no effects, no stunt shots, just actors doing a good job of making us believe that something curious was happening.
It's nice to see homegrown sci-fi being done, since I have no doubt they'll manage to at least equal or even best what we've been seeing out of the networks lately, minus their over-reliance on special effects to "wow" their audience. Good stories can be told without a big budget. Considering the absolutely terrible job that television has been doing lately at making science fiction, it really reinforces the notion that good stories require good writing, above and beyond anything else that goes into a show; although editing, direction, production, etc., are all important, good writing and good acting are more important, and it happens that if you find some good talent, these can be had at low cost if you're careful about how you run things. Often the best art is made under difficult budget constraints.
Downloads: 146939
Donations so far: $246
If you're expecting the number of dollars per person to be the same as it is for traditional distribution models, you're doing it wrong. It's econ 101 that when you set the price at zero, you get maximal demand, i.e. many downloads. This is especially true here because you get not only all the pirates who download without paying and claim it's because they wouldn't have paid anyway, but also all of the non-pirates who actually wouldn't have paid but decide that a legit free download is worth the look. All that really matters is how the total profit stacks up against what it would be under a traditional distribution model.
Also: It was just released, no? Certainly it was just posted to Slashdot. Consider that some people may have downloaded it but haven't gotten around to watching and/or donating yet. We'll see how the numbers look in a day or two when that shakes out.