More and more I see trailers like these; brilliant documentaries on miscellanea that I don’t think I’ll get the chance to see. The standard process for documentaries, and independent films in general is to shuttle them around to various film festivals where they’ll (fingers crossed) get picked up by a distributor and they can live a longer life on DVD or some other home video alternative.
I often wonder if filmmakers ever consider releasing their films under a Creative Commons license, thereby making their films accessible to a larger audience. I understand the need to recoup and investment. Making films is possibly the most expensive art form in existence, and giving away your “product” might seem stupid, but like Tim O’Reilly says, “the greatest threat to an artist isn’t piracy, it’s obsurity”.
