Tube is an open-source animated film that tells the gripping tale of Uruk’s ancient king in pursuit of immortality. Its collaborative animators seek funding through Kickstarter for the film’s completion and release.  To date, the filmmakers’ side jobs have funded the open movie — three years in the making. It’s the collaborative work of independent animators from around the world, including London, Cape Town and Berlin. Now that Tube is on Kickstarter, it has gained $14,560 from 394 people at the time of writing. The team needs $22,000 to complete the beautifully intricate animation.  Funding the film won’t just benefit the filmmakers; the release of this independent project started by 3D animator Bassam Kurdall would be substantial to the film industry.  The “open” film means its assets — drawings and soundtracks — are available to anyone under Creative Commons to be remixed into new projects. The animations and filmmaking were made on free software, including Inkscape, Python and Blender.  “With your support we can use the open movie to free animation from the limits of genre and enable the production of ambitious, independent work,” Fateh Slavitskaya, Tube writer and producer, said in its Kickstarter video statement.  The beautifully intricate computer animation is based on “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” the ancient poem from Mesopotamia. The story of Gilgamesh is based on a real king who reigned over the Sumerian city-state of Uruk. Ancient tablets translated into English depict the story of a death-fearing king who is part-god and part-man.  The open 3D animation will be an open box for other artists to reach into for learning and recreational purposes.  “The finished film and its mountain of data assets will be released under CC Attribution-ShareAlike, meaning that you can use them for anything — even commercial appropriation — at no charge, but you are required to allow others to reuse your work on the same terms,” stated the Tube team in a press release.  If the Tube team reaches their funding goal, they can complete production in seven months.  Do you think having a production commonwealth will boost the creative class or despair to the industry? Tell us in the comments.  Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr, emiliano-ilo
Tube is an open source film, meaning its artists are making it using open software and will make the animated characters available after production too. They’ve has been working on the film for three years, but they need Kickstarter support finish.