Grants talk:IEG/Isen - a documentary film about Wikimania Esino Lario

Deadline

Hi there, Lorenzo Faggi and Chiara Campara,

This is just a reminder that today is the deadline for submission of IEG proposals. If you would like to submit your proposal for review this round, you must change your status from 'draft' to 'proposed.' At 9am Pacific Time tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, I will be removing all proposals still in draft stage from the review page.

Thank you!

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 03:47, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello everybody, nice to know you all. i'll try to answer the best i can, question by question Thanks.

Confusion

This IEG kind of confuses me. I can see some benefits to a documentary-style film made about Wikimania, but I don't think the budget breakdown is sufficient, and would suggest to the proposers that they both greatly reduce the budget and provide more detail about what will be spent on what. A documentary about Wikimania in Esino Lario does not require the embedding for nine months of two professional documentary makers. Most of those nine months will not be exciting on a day to day basis - I can picture the presence of the film-makers at several of the planning meetings, and at Wikimania itself, but I don't get where nine months comes from.

The documentary topic is Wikimania, and how a small community reacts to the elements of change brought by this huge event. We have two main protagonists: the event and the hosting community. This is a central point. That's why we need to follow the community for nine months: the process is slow, we need a deeper understanding of what is going on in the community and try to document it even beside the Wikimania thing.

A lot of the costs you list are also things that seem like they could be provided by the Wikimedia movement members if there is sufficient buy-in to the project. If Wikimedia movement members or chapters are unwilling to help provide some of the items on the list, I view that as insufficient buy-in on behalf of the Wikimedia movement - a lot of these things could be provided by members or chapters, albeit probably on a loaned basis, so if prove unwilling to provide them that seems to say that they don't believe the project to be worth the investment.

This point is related to the next one. We have no experience with the Wikimedia movement. We are 2 professional filmmakers trying to make a film on Wikimania Esino Lario. We are going to work with a professional cinema crew (audioguy, cinematograpeher, producer, editor and so on) and i really don't know if any members or chapter is able to help provide some of the items ion the list.

What is the experience of the film-makers with the Wikimedia movement? As someone who was former a WMF comms intern, and has handled over 500 press inquiries as a community member, it is my experience that it is exceedingly rare that media without direct significant experience with the Wikimedia movement accurately portrays the nuances of the Wikimedia movement. Looking at the global contribs of the two film-makers, neither one of them appears to have any experience at all with the projects before this. I'd accept documentary makers coming who were not part of the Wikimedia movement, but asking us to sponsor documentary film makers with no experience with the Wikimedia projects I'm not sure okay with.

The costs you list are not specific enough - both in material you are purchasing, and in who will retain the physical equipment after production is done. They need to be broken down far more. You should list what exact costs are in each section, and have a plan about what movement organization will retain any permanently purchased equipment after the documentary is complete. Some time ago, I was hired to review the WMF's grantmaking practices - at least at the time, one of the pretty much hard and fast rules was that except in exceptional situations WMF would not purchase equipment for individuals to use - and on the rare occasion they did, it was to be returned to a Wikimedia movement organization as soon as their external use was done. I'm not okay with buying 500 euros of harddrives for two non-Wikimedians to permanently keep, and frankly unless a Wikimedia movement organization expresses a strong desire for such equipment, I'm not sure I'm okay with it all (hard equipment purchases of any type are rare.)

Most of costs listed are renting equipment and paying people, not buying. the hard drives needs to store the material, we are not going to use for other activities. You've budgeted 4,000 euros for a camera operator and a separate 2,000 for equipment rental, and 2,000 for editing, and 1,000 for further post production. We have an awful lot of talented Wikimedians, including people with professional skills in these departments. Have you solicited the Wikimedia movement via appropriate channels to try to see if the needed skills or equipment can be acquired for free instead of paying thousands of Euros for them? Certainly at a bare minimum, the Wikimedia movement has in the past proven it's ability to subtitle in to far more languages than the presumed professional translation you had in mind - and to do so with a high quality.

I can see your point. But, as a filmmaker, i have to say that i want to choose the professionals i work with and that i trust more. As a slightly abstract objection, since I know that 15k in the IEG pool is likely to remain in the IEG pool instead of changed to grant scholarships - how many additional Wikimedians could attend Esino if we spent these 15k euros on additional scholarships, instead of a documentary made by two non-Wikimedians?

Again, i can see your point, but i think you are missing ours. The film is meant to address to a potential audience far larger than the 15 persons who will benefit from the scolarship. An audience that probably doesn't know anything about Wikimania. i think this is the main value of the project

This diff disturbs me. At first glance it looks like you are intending to commercialize the documentary, whereas CC-by-SA is the standard for any Wikimedia grant sponsored project. Worse, it appears that while you were initially intending to at least give Wikimedia a portion of the proceeds (which I still view as unacceptable for a grant funded project,) you are now taking even that out? Please confirm that you are intending to release the movie under CC-by-SA or a compatible free license.

Yes, at first i wrote that sentence. It was stupid, because i suddently realized that i am not in the position of making such a statement, so i erased it. We are working on a film project, which involves production and distribution. We need it, because the overall budget of the film will exceed 15k. i can't write that the final official version of the film is CC-by-SA (i didn't write it), otherwise i won't find any production company willing to invest, as well as any distribution company willing to distribute the film in cinemas. i try to develop this topic a bit in the sustainability chapter (we could produce a shorter video licensed under CC-by-SA more focused on wikimedia event itself. This should be discussed in details), but as i understand wikimedia do not consider contents which are not completely licensed under CC-by-SA. This is my fault guys, i should have considered better the requirements.

Respectfully, Kevin (talk) 04:38, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

• For further clarification, although I cannot speak for WMF grants staff, at the time I was a contractor contracted to review WMF grantmaking practices, it was an absolute requirement that all grants with creative products be licensed under CC-by-SA or a laxer compatible license lke CC-0. CC-by-ND, CC-by-NC, and similar licenses, even though "free" in a sense, were not viewed as sufficiently in line with the values of the movement to be fundable. I'm sure current WMF staff will be by eventually to clarify if the same is still the case. Best, Kevin (talk) 05:32, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Please confirm materials will be free and open-source

Hi Lorenzo Faggi and Chiara Campara,

As indicated by Kevin, the project eligibility criteria for IEG do require that any materials produced must be published and released as free and open-source. Licensing must be compatible with current Wikimedia and MediaWiki practices. Before I can mark your proposal as eligible, I will need you to explicitly confirm in your application that your project will meet this requirement. Please ping me here when you have done so (or alternatively, let me know if this requirement means you need to withdraw your application).

Let me know if you have any questions about this request!

Warm regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:52, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

it is a different name chapter, but addressing to the same issue. here is what i wrote above: We are working on a film project, which involves production and distribution. We need it, because the overall budget of the film will exceed 15k. i can't write that the final official version of the film is CC-by-SA (i didn't write it), otherwise i won't find any production company willing to invest, as well as any distribution company willing to distribute the film in cinemas. i try to develop this topic a bit in the sustainability chapter (we could produce a shorter video licensed under CC-by-SA more focused on wikimedia event itself. This should be discussed in details), but as i understand wikimedia do not consider contents which are not completely licensed under CC-by-SA. This is my fault guys, i should have considered better the requirements.

Best, Lorenzo

Hi Lorenzo -

As a heads up, you can automatically place a signature just by placing four tildes in a row at the end of your post like this - ~~~~ (but with the nowiki tags I added removed.) Unfortunately, without all creative products produced as a result of the grant being released as CC-by-SA or a compatible license (like CC-0,) this grant does not meet the basic funding requirements for the IEG program. I do see some value in a documentary about Wikimania in this style, but unfortunately, you will likely need to look in to other sources of funding than the Wikimedia movement itself. If you are interested in rewriting a grant request that complies with the IEG rules and our general best practices I'd be happy to comment on it further (and respond to your comments above,) but unfortunately, without significant revision, this grant is dead in the water. Kevin (talk) 18:15, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Lorenzo Faggi and Chiara Campara, a shorter video licensed under CC-by-SA more specifically focused on Wikimania would be eligible for IEG funding. If you would like to re-craft your proposal to focus exclusively on this specific piece of your larger project, please do so as soon as possible (no later than Monday, October 12, 2015).

If you have not already been in touch with Victor Grigas, the Wikimedia Foundation's Storyteller and Video Producer, you may find it helpful to seek his advice on how best to approach licensing for the project you have in mind.

Warm regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 01:51, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Length, budget and copyright issues.

[Message with replies inline.]

My thoughts about producing a documentary about Wikimania 2016:

1.) Generally I'm always happy to see more video productions being made about Wikimedia. There have been a few documentaries about Wikimanias that have been produced in the past (2005, 2013, 2014, 2015 -- in progress). I think that the purpose of making them is to educate people about how Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects work by showing the people involved in making it, and having them tell how they are involved. They also document history. I like this proposal, but it has a few issues that need to be addressed before I can approve it.

Dear Victor, it's Lorenzo. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. i'll try to answer the best i can— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lofaggi (talk)

2.) Length of film I'm unclear about how long the final film will be, it's not specified in the proposal. It could be 90 minutes or it could be 10 minutes. The intended length should be specified.

It is a full-lenght movie, a documentary project for cinema.— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lofaggi (talk)

3.) Budget: Right now, I can't tell if this is high or low, it's just too ambiguous. My gut tells me that it's actually pretty close to what it needs to be, but my brain tells me it needs to be more specific. This is my breakdown of the costs:

• Subject and treatment -> 1.000,00 euros -- I don't know what 'Subject' is? Treatment should actually be part of this proposal, before any money is handed out it's something to make in order to pitch a film and then get funding.
• Camera operator -> 4.000,00 euros -- So depending on region, a good shooter can cost 300 to 400 euros a day and up (unless it's a per-project bid). At that rate, this estimates roughly 10 to 12 days or less of shooting. Wikimania itself is maybe 3-5 days, but the scope of this project is to also document the preparation of the event, so 10-12 days might actually be on the lower end of what I might recommend.
• Audio engineer -> 3.000,00 euros -- unclear if this is for location audio or post-production audio?
• Equipment rental -> 2.000 euros -- What equipment specifically? Many film festivals won't accept anything less than 4k these days.
• Travels & general expenses -> 1000,00 euros -- What kind of travel is needed?
• Hdd and materials -> 500,00 euros - This sounds generally appropriate for media-storage. There should be a drive specified as a drive to deliver to WMF.
• Editing -> 2.000,00 euros -- Again, how long is the final film intended to be? Editors can range from a per-project cost to hourly (maybe $25-50/hour).
• Other postproduction expenses -> 1.000,00 euros -- What expenses? Food? Why is there a 'general' expenses and an 'other' expenses?
• Subtitles -> 500,00 euros -- (It's really great to see this prepared for here) So for this, I would say that it also depends on the length of the film. Vimeo.com uses Amara.org for closed captioning services and translations which can be very affordable. Does the production team intend to make a version with burned-in subtitles AND a version with captions? I'd say at minimum a captions-version be created. The Wikimedia community can take care of translations. But, without an idea of the length of the film or an outline, the budget is somewhat hard to estimate, and the $500 euro cost seems high to me.

The budget for the full-length documentary movie is around 100k. We are still working on the exact amount. The 15k we applied for the grant is just a percentage of it. Regarding the single costs, we wrote a 15 pages treatment in Italian we are using for pitching with producers and distributors. i could not attach the file on the proposal. The treatment took months to be written, so the 1000 euros cover just the travel expenses. As well as the camera operator: we are planning 30 days of shooting at least in 9 months period. The cost will exceed the budget we are asking for in this application, which again is only a percentage. We thought we can have Wikimania as one of the production partners, as well as other institutions, private investors, distributors which can help collect the money we need— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lofaggi (talk)

You should probably specify that it's a co-financing and what the other expected sources of income are. Did you consider w:The Internet's Own Boy for comparison? They allegedly had a 50 k$ box office, so it would be reasonable for you to say that you need both commercial and non-commercial financing. Nemo 08:14, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

4.) Distribution I think that each Wikimania is a chance to reach out to a community by virtue of it's location, so in this case an Italian and/or European audience would seem logical. Has the production team reached out to the audiences (TV, internet channels) outlined in this proposal yet or are these audiences just ideas? How many eyeballs do we expect to get on this documentary from these outlets? Who will be handling this? Are there other communities that might be interested in or sensitive to Italian media? Argentina? USA?

We are working on it. We are pitching the project internationally to distributors. Next pitch is at Mia (Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo) in Rome, 16th - 18th October — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lofaggi (talk)

5.) Copyright If WMF funds the production, there are copyright issues to consider in order for WMF to publish the film on social networks like Facebook (even if/when all final media are released CC-by SA 3.0). This would require specific legal language written into a contract. Also the film (while it is in the later stages of being edited) would also need to be reviewed by WMF's legal team to be sure that there are no copyright issues in the film. For example, in the trailer of this proposal, we hear 2 songs, the first diagetic song supposedly coming from a cellphone, the other non-diagetic song during the credits. These songs are presumably copywritten by the filmmaker, but without attribution in the credits, that's unclear. This is the kind of copyright issue that will be ground out before any video can be published and it could take months of back-and-forth to get it done.

This is the central point, i've already written about that. We can't release the final version of the film CC-by SA because we want the film out in cinemas, we would like production companies and distribution companies come in the project to finance and promote it. If they can't sell the film they wont come. This is one of the main value of the project, in my opinion: a tool that tells about wikimania and that could address a big potential non-wikipedian audience, like cinemas, tv and festivals. The whole project can't be designed as free licensed. I try to explore the possibility to make a released CC-by SA shorter version, as i've written in the presentation, but this seems very tricky and right now i'm not in the position to guarantee i can work on both versions without losing my head...— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lofaggi (talk)

As you know, it's not technically correct that a cc-by-sa film can't be sold. Not allowing commercial distribution only means that you legally detain the monopoly for sale; the main issue is that distributors are not used to modern licenses (AKA ignorant) and would be very hard to convince, hence a grant with cc-by-sa requirement might reduce income more than it increases it. There are several points you may want to consider.

• CC BY-SA-NC is definitely ok for distribution, you keep the commercial monopoly for yourself. It seems to have worked for https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz , didn't it?
• Convincing distributors to accept a film under a Creative Commons license might be one of the most important outcomes of this project: raising awareness in cinema industry about modern copyright schemes. The WMF can buy this education project, rather than the film.
• To convince distributors, you can argue that copyright is hardly the main cost for distribution of such a film. What's the threat model? What's the possible competitor that could come up and disrupt their distribution? (I don't know, seriously; do they?) I suppose you intend to distribute the film digitally, as a pizza still costs thousands euro IIRC; but even digital distribution is expensive, probably more than your copyright, and would be enough to prevent competition as one distributor is enough to saturate the market for such a film.
• Regardless of license, if you ask a co-financing for the film itself then you must share a copy of it on archive.org, similar to https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz .
• However, the WMF's financing doesn't need to be about the film itself. WMF can buy other byproducts, like the CC education suggested above or like the pre-montage footage. You could post the whole footage on archive.org, minimally edited and in lossless format, under cc-by-sa. It's unlikely that someone would make a competing film out of the same material (again, market saturation); but for instance Victor could reuse it for other videos, chapters could reuse interviews including their members, Wikimedia projects editors could cherry-pick some videos to post on Commons and embed elsewhere, etc. etc. You could tweak the budget to only cover the parts which are necessary for the production of the raw footage and you'd be done. --Nemo 08:14, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

6.) The Mexican team thats working on the 2015 documentary should share their opinion too, they may have ideas to share, as they have gone through the above copyright issues.

7.) What are the filmmakers' intentions for music for the documentary? That's a cost, even if it's cc, because you have to find the right music to fit the piece.

We are trying to bring together the ex-chorus of the town of Esino and to record songs with them. I think they agree to license their music in cc— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lofaggi (talk)

8.) Overall, I like this proposal. It feels like this final film should have a sense of art to it. I also like the idea of showing all the process of making this event happen. There are films that show how events like these are made, and the effect/benefit that comes from the events, and I like that this seems to be the intent of the filmmakers. I can't yet approve this proposal though until the above issues are addressed.

Thank your very much for the link Grigas. i don't know if out project can meet Wikimedia requirements, but i still think it has a great potential and has to be done. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lofaggi (talk)

VGrigas (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Truth in Numbers?

During Wikimania 2010 in Gdańsk a w:Truth in Numbers? movie has been screened for a first time. This full-length documentary took four years to complete. I think it was a very valuable contribution as an outside view onto the Wikimedia community. It wasn't sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation, though (and is not freely licensed).

My questions are:

• What is your timeframe and how do you plan to cover eventual two-three delay in production? Please note that I think that prolonged production can be an advantage to the project, we just need to plan for contingencies.
• How is your project going to be different than w:Truth in Numbers?. I am interested in what you think about Scott and Nic's vision and how is your artistic angle different.

 « Saper // talk »  08:58, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

re-thinking our proposal for IEG funding

Hello, thank you all for sharing your thoughts on the project. We are exploring the possibility to adjust our proposal to meet the IEG funding standards. Sharing in cc license the pre-edited version of the film or the raw footage is a serious option we are considering. We still need some time cause these days we are in the middle of the MIA (audiovideo international market) in Rome to pitch the project. This could be a good place to discuss this option with potential distributors.

Lorenzo

Dear Lorenzo, You could think of creating a long form commercial product and a series of short form interviews of attendees. Geraldshields11 (talk) 21:35, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Final considerations about IEG funding

Hello everybody, first of all we would like to thank everyone who commented, supported and gave advices on our project. In these past few days we discussed a lot about the problems involved in our application for the IEG, which have been stressed above, and about the viable solutions to adapt our idea to the Wikimedia standards and requests (first of all the cc-by-sa condition). We also explored the possibility to adjust our proposal in order to produce two different videos: 1.our full lenght documentary as originally conceived, 2.a shorter video (or a set of short videos) more focused on the Wikimania event itself and released in CC-by-sa. And to apply for the IEG only with this second project. We thoroughly considered this alternative and sketched a budget for this new proposal.

But, frankly, we thought that this is not what we want to do with this project. On the practical side this solution would be quite complicated to organize, as during the Wikimania week we should work simultaneously on two different projects, with two different approaches and aims. There is a concrete risk of messing up both of them. Furthermore, as we want to embrace an observational method for this film, it makes sense for us to maintain an external point of view (even if we are perfectly aware of the fact that being a "neutral" observator is impossible).

We tried to adapt our proposal to the basic requests of the grant, but after a long consideration we have understood that there is no valuable compromise for both sides. We will keep working on the financing of our documentary project in other directions (mainly public film funds). It might sound strange to reach this conclusion after what we have discussed during this weeks, but it took us some time to fully consider all the options on the table.

We are fully committed to this project and we personally think that Wikimania Esino Lario is a great opportunity and the world should absolutely know about it! We hope to meet the ones among you that will come to Esino next year. Your thoughts and indications are of great value for us and for the film too.

Best, Chiara and Lorenzo

Hi Lorenzo Faggi and Chiara Campara,

Thank you for this clear response. It's understandable that you want to stay focused on your project as you originally conceived of it and pursue alternate funding sources that better support your goals. I look forward to seeing the outcome of your work. I'm going to go ahead and mark this proposal as withdrawn. Best of luck with your endeavors!

Warm regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 00:03, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

• Hi Lorenzo Faggi and Chiara Campara - I am sad to see the project withdrawn, but our licensing purposes have been in place for a long time and serve a higher purpose than could be served by dismissing them for a particular IEG grant. I do, genuinely, hope that you are able to find enough alternative funding to make your intent a reality (particularly since I'm unlikely to make it to Esino, but would love to see a full length doc about it.) Best wishes, Kevin (talk) 00:46, 21 October 2015 (UTC)