Animator. Director. Artist. Scapegoat.
We need Sita subtitled in as many languages as possible!
Attention subtitlers:
If your subtitle files are ready before the upcoming DVD is mastered, we will include them on the upcoming “official” DVD. The DVD will be authored the week of March 23, 2009. Thanks!
This is inspired, and makes me love everyone. (Thank you for the tip, Eric!)
Big ol’ hi-res “Sita” PNGs now at archive.org! They’re suitable for print publication.
More coming, as I get time to deal with everything. Whenever that is.
Speaking of which, does anyone want to help make the “Frequently Asked Interview Questions” part of the Sita FAQ? This would involve going through all the interviews I’ve done about Sita Sings the Blues (a few are linked to here, the rest need to be googled), determining which questions are asked over and over again, and consolidating the answers based on what I’ve already said. If I tackle it now that’ll mean another day I don’t get to the new DVD packaging and other tasks I have to do myself. We’ve got a wiki; I’m still learning how to use it, but feel free to start a FAQ there with a brand new FAQ section. Thanks!
It begins: you can now watch a streaming version of the entire film at channel13.org.
Many more formats will be online by March 7th, the day Sita Sings the Blues airs on WNET TV (part of Reel 13 on March 7 at 10:45 pm). These will be higher resolution and free to copy and share. If you want a copy, please wait for the higher quality formats instead of capturing the very compressed channel13.org streaming version. As the artist, I want the highest quality versions to circulate; it’d be sad if a super-compressed capture started torrenting first. Together, we can keep quality high!
On March 7, New York’s WNET Channel13 will broadcast Sita Sings the Blues. WNET hopes to make a compressed version available for streaming on their web site even earlier (they’re aiming for February 26; we’ll keep you posted).
But we also want to release it freely for decentralized audience distribution all over the web. To that end, we’re looking for multiple servers to host 500-600GB of data for public download (this includes the film-resolution image sequences as well as HD and compressed versions). We’re in touch with the usual suspects, but if you want to offer server space to join this project, please contact Karl Fogel of QuestionCopyright.org.
Note that we’re still in negotiations with the old music licensors, who may or may not allow us to freely share my film. PBS can broadcast and stream it regardless, due to special conditions in US copyright law. But the more”seed” sites we have lined up before the release, the better.
From Karl’s QuestionCopyright post:
We’ll need some “seed” sites to host it: Internet servers with the capacity to offer about 500-600GB of data for public download. If you or your institution has that kind of bandwidth and storage, please contact us. We’ll work out a way to get the data to you.
Why March 7th?
That night, Sita Sings The Blues will be broadcast on New York’s public television station WNET — Channel 13 (see here for details). Public television has a special exemption written into U.S. copyright law, such that they can show the film even when it’s still in copyright jail for everyone else. However, Nina Paley has made progress on finalizing contracts with the music composition copyright holders, and we believe we’ll be able to release the entire film by then. Since the New York showing will expose the film to a large new audience, when those people go to recommend it to all their friends, we want their friends to have an easy way to get it.
Note that free distribution really means free: you will be able to watch the film on your computer, make DVDs and distribute them, and hold public screenings (the film will circulate online in high-resolution formats appropriate for screenings). Your activities can be commercial or non-commercial, that’s up to you.
Our thanks to all who have donated so far to enable this experiment in decentralized distribution! But we can still use help: the rights clearance process — or rather, the “restrictions clearance” process — is not cheap. So if you’ve been considering donating to support Nina’s effort, here’s that link again.