VEB Film Leipzig
VEB Film Leipzig is a net label that produces films, books and music. All publications are placed under a Creative Commons license, so that they can be freely copied and changed, and some can also be used commercially by third parties.
Route 66
In December 2004, the debut film "Route 66 - An American Nightmare" was made available for download .
Three Saxons set off from the US east to the west coast in an old Cadillac . Obviously there is no other reason than a vacation planned as a road trip. The ailing but original Cadillac thwarted the plan from the start. The constant need to seek outside help with minor and major repairs leads to strange situations. After 100 minutes of filming, the three arrive in San Diego .
The road movie was shot in May 2002 with two cameras by the three main actors themselves. Apparently there was no script at all, the recordings are often in a video-typical style, as was also known from formats such as “ My New Friend ”. The film was published on the Netlabel's website and distributed with the help of traffic sponsors and via file sharing platforms such as BitTorrent or eMule. The soundtrack of valleyforge was separately under a Creative Commons license published.
The IT - news ticker and offline press reported in the wake of the "first 'Open Source' film in the world" ( "Spiegel Online"), but then also of "open sauce", in which the label "open source" simply as PR gag is used ("Telepolis").
The last drug
Another production, the release of which was announced for 2009 and subsequently repeatedly postponed, is again about a trip by three friends. This time a rare hallucinogen is to be tracked down, which is why the protagonists travel through South America as backpackers . These video recordings, which were kept in the style of the first film, were supplemented by fictional elements filmed in HD technology in Germany , a stylistic device of gonzo journalism that the label has referred to several times.
The film has been in the post-production phase since March 2006 , for which, according to a press release from March 2006, three teams were set up to post-produce three versions of the film with different scoring and editing at the same time in a so-called "drug battle" and let them compete against each other. This is intended to demonstrate the usefulness of a film remix based on open source material.
At the beginning of January 2012, a final reference to the post-production phase was dated June 30, 2009. The first 30 minutes of the original cut and a remix were released on December 31, 2014.
The spirit of the bikers
In November 2009 the third project of VEB Film Leipzig was announced, which those responsible around Stefan Kluge call an "Open Source Road Trip Documentary Project". In contrast to the first film, the film could initially only be advertised as a DVD and DVD download. The film was released on December 24, 2014 via Bittorrent and YouTube.
marketing
Thanks to intensive online marketing, VEB FILM Leipzig achieved a high level of popularity for net labels . According to the company, the first film reached a million viewers.
Open account
The current income and expenses of the label are publicly available on the website . While the downloads of the digital content are free of charge, a so-called “open price” is charged for DVD, CD and book orders: The customer can determine the price himself, as long as he does not fall below the limit of production and shipping costs.
Web links
- official homepage
- VEB Film Leipzig at BitTorrent Now
- VEB Film Leipzig on YouTube
- Creative Commons: Road movie against toast (Heise Newsticker, January 3, 2005)
- Open Sauce - Unplanned Leipzigers in America and the rhetoric of the open source movement (Telepolis, January 10, 2005)
- Interview with Stefan Kluge (netzkritik.de, December 31, 2004)
- Note on the post-production phase of The Last Drug, as of January 6, 2012