GIMPs - Great Internet Movie Projects

All right, so here's the deal.

I was two second away from actually purchasing the domain name gimps.org.uk the other day, but decided against it since I didn't know whether I would have people with me to actually make it a proper reality with people actually doing things. I know that creating a sort of group for these kinds of projects has been discussed on various occasions, but I've seen very little talk about how this could be made a reality. So let's talk, eh?

First of all, GIMPs would need a few handy tools to make organisation, discussion and creation easy and relatively painless. It would need a forum, a wiki and a blog at the least. The forum for general discussion, the wiki for keeping up to date with the development of various projects and such, and a blog to give general updates and news to the public. It would have subdomains for all projects and they could perhaps have Their own blogs, though that might not actually be necessary.

That's just tools, though.
Anyone can start a project as long as they have a clear idea of what that project is supposed to be about. I'm not saying they need a plot outline and a cast ready, but they should have the concept (ie. action comedy, zombie movie, parody of something, etc.) clear and they should either have a director and a producer or plan on getting them early on. They should also have some sort of idea about when they would like to be finished and that sort of thing.

Once the project has a subdomain set up, they can have open discussions on the forum much like on this forum about the film and what they want to do with it in terms of story, setting, themes etc etc. Individual projects can be governed as the project leaders themselves wish, but I imagine we can come up with a few different "standard setups" that could be adopted by the projects to make them easily identifiable. For example, they might want a completely open project where everything is done in open fora, or they might want a more closed project that relies on invitation and application to join in. Then again, they might want something inbetween, where parts of the project are closed or reliant on applications but others are open. Having "pre-made packages" like that would make it easier for people looking to join a project to choose one that fits them.

Also, in terms of money and that kind of thing, it would certainly help if the site could somehow become a registered non-profit organisation (I've seen stranger things happen!) or at least some sort of organisation that can have a cash box to use for helping projects along by paying for make-up and whatever else as long as there is money to pay WITH. The coffers could be filled by selling DVDs, taking donations and selling merchandise like t-shirts and the like.
Perhaps the site would even have the money to pay for some Google Adsense advertising for the projects as they near completion, etc. Depending on the kind of cash flow we would be seeing (I don't think much, but one never knows) there are many things that could be done with little money. The point would not be to make money for the filmmakers but to make enough money to help them make more films.

That's all I can think of at the moment, so I'll leave the floor open for you others to give your input. I think this is a good start, but it obviously needs fleshing out.

The reason I'm already starting to think about this is that the site should at LEAST be bought and given a forum by the time WWD:IZM is released to fully "cash in" on the attention it will be getting. I'm not necessarily saying I want to be the person to LEAD this project, but it has to start somewhere.

Terrible idea, then?

You kidding? I love this idea. My full support (and a certain percentage of my wallet) is behind ya with this.]]

EDIT: Do you mean this will be juggling multiple community projects or just focusing on one project like this? If it is juggling with loads of other projects, then I suspect there'll be a lot of "failures" under the GIMP name.

I like this idea to.

Count me and my mum in.

Fuzileer wrote:EDIT: Do you mean this will be juggling multiple community projects or just focusing on one project like this? If it is juggling with loads of other projects, then I suspect there'll be a lot of "failures" under the GIMP name.

Well, my initial thoughts were that much like IZM, it'd be pretty open like that so that pretty much anyony could start up a project. Another way to do it is to only do one project at a time. With the former, you have more choice in what project you join but as you say, there's more of a chance of failing. With the latter, it's more likely the one project will succeed but people might be working on film genres or plots that they have no interest in.

Here's a suggestion: At any one time, no more than two (or maybe three, depending on timelines) projects may be active. To decide what idea and project to focus on next, the leaders of those projects have to write a pitch for their project "idea, genre, degree of openness, production timeline, etc.) which will be submitted to the forums. The pitches will have their own threads for a while to allow discussion and then there is a vote on which ones the community wants to produce. Those that are not chosen can keep refining their pitch until the next time voting comes around.

I think this approach could work well as 1: Community as a whole get to decide what is produced. 2: People have more choice. 3: More chance of success. 4: Best ideas are (hopefully) chosen.

Of course, project timelines would be QUITE different from what we've seen here in most cases. Some films might require much less time to finish and could be done away with in two months (unlikely, but still) and some might have a production cycle of a full year. By having to choose a production cycle in advance, it forces the projects' leaders to think about the degree of seriousness to the project but also just generally what KIND of a project it is. Sometimes, I imagine some people might even already have a general idea of what their story would be but they want to use GIMPs to involve people from other parts of the world in the filming etc. This means that sometimes, maybe we'd be running a single, really quick-n-dirty project and sometimes three or maybe even four larger, more ambitious projects that take a long time to write/ plan/ produce.

For these things to work, we (The people who've been involved heavily in THIS project and as such will have some experience in this type of project) would have to get together and talk about various guidelines to put down to help people devise their timelines and such. (Like, depending on the scale and type of the production, make sure you leave at least a month after the script is due before you have to start filming, etc) We would also talk about various "classes" of projects and that sort of thing.

Any other thoughts/ ideas?

Just to remind myself for later, I thought of something to put in the wiki: Contact information for getting permissions to film in the various places together with expected time before feedback. That way, every new production wouldn't have to look themselves. This list could also hold a general outline for a request mail in case people are unsure what to write. (I know -I- am!) Also, model release forms and all other such things should be on the wiki to create a hub of necessary paperwork for these things.

Hmm okay, thanks for that explanation.
I'm game.

I had a think about it and oddly that's exactly the way I would have it work.
I think it would be an ideal "database" for writers, directors, actors and filming crews to use in creating a project.

The way I'd probably use it would be to write a script with 3-4 people and then use G.I.M.P to find actors/directors/crew to make the actual film. But obviously the scope is there to start something involving far more people, pitching their own ideas with open-plan teams created in the same format as IZM.

Maybe we could get in touch with universities and colleges in order to get som budding film-makers or whatever involved from the get-go and up the number of folks we have handy at any one time.
A searchable Wiki that stores everything, including contact details/ability to travel/experience etc. would be the dug's danglies.

I'm genuinely looking forward to this - you can have my pocket money too.