Independent Film Futures Mixa | Design for Democratic Cinema

Abstract. Making and self-distributing high quality films have never been as affordable as they are today. Even films shot on cellphones are celebrated at festivals around the world. This is really empowering for storytellers who don’t want to submit to a Hollywood struggle or don’t have a big budget for making their film. Filmmaking is now a democratic arena. Even previously silent audiences are now becoming noisy participants in the films that they consume.

But mere accessibility to the resources for production doesn’t entirely satisfy passionate creators who want to reach out to audiences far and wide. The Internet’s low entry barriers make room for everyone, resulting in a cluttered environment, where the effective discovery of applicable content becomes important. Each member of the networked audience affects the discoverability of content floating around on the web for others, within their own capacity. The audience’s emerging role as re-distributers, along with easy tools and resources that allow them to partake in cinema and popular culture, influences the content and format in which cinema is presented on the web.

These premises offered an opportunity to introduce affordances that encourage new degrees of participation. With a focus on the emerging activities of appropriation, a system that honors content creators by making attribution consistent and codified is proposed in this project. The establishment of a culture of crediting welcomes the arrival of a future indie cinema, which is integral to the social nature of the Internet.