Weblink: Darwin Started It
http://www.darwinstartedit.com
So what did Darwin start? He started the hatching of an idea, the questioning of faith, and a life affirming journey, all at once.
Meet Sahid, a confused young man with a spirit of curiosity. He had always believed that humans were created by God from clay - as the Qur’an had always told him. But what about apes? Scientology and TomKat? Adam and eve? WHAT.ABOUT.DARWIN? Luckily for Sahid, a chance meeting with an wise and eccentric stranger sets him on the right track. But which theory of evolution will he decide is the right one?
Darwin Started It is an online film experiment, blurring the lines between heritage filmmaking and the exciting world of new media. We set out to test whether we could make a short film with no budget, 10 weeks, and the theme of evolution - whilst documenting the evolution of the project itself at the same time. The result is a non-linear interactive film where viewers can navigate their way through the traditional film as well as the process of its production. See the highs and lows, the successes and the failures, the fun and the stress. Get to know the actors, the crew, and see how cold we all were when we filmed at sunrise on the coldest April morning in 54 years.
Produced collaboratively by Jacqui Hagen, Karin Christensen, Eliza Hull, and Marcus Harbour.
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Weblink: Darwin Started It
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27.11.09 — John Jacobs
Hey I liked this, it made me think and wonder what was going to happen next.
Thanks for sharing it.
Cheers
John Jacobs
Pool >> Social media designer
12.06.09 — Natasha Mitchell
(Note to wider public - these comments should be taken in the context of this being a university class exercise! These RMIT projects are very sophisticated, and we welcome much simpler and entirely amateur contributions to Gene Pool too!).
Hi DSI team (Jacqui, Marcus, Eliza and Karin)
Thanks for contributing Darwin Started It to Gene Pool.
Stunning production and effort - congrats!
Blimey, there's a *lot* to this project - a real sign of a team working well together, delegating and combining your skills and enthusiasm productively....and networking well to bring other collaborators on board too (a cast, the printing company etc). It's a presentation that will be a great demo tape for you all obviously too in your next career adventures.
How you managed to conceive of and research the project; write the script; audition and choose the actors; film the film; film the making of the film; record vox pops; blog about it; film the making of the making of the film; and compile it all for web presentation, *and* market the project and yourselves with biography clips, a project logo and stickers...all in 10 weeks, while you had other subjects to do too...and then there's the small issue of sleep.... I can't imagine.
A superb, super-human effort for 4 (not) merely mortals.
- Your final film is nicely scripted, technically slick, well mixed (despite your sound "crisis", and I can hear some of that distortion slightly - but that's life and it doesn't detract from the film), great camera coverage and editing.
- congrats to your lead performers too for a performance that felt genuine
- I did wonder about the corporate feel of the logo design/typeface (nice work though)...and, given that you've gone to the trouble to "market" the project with the stickers/logo etc and that the film intentionally raises lots of questions about faith, belief, science etc it would have been good to incorporate an interactive element for your viewers...even a simple comments page/message board perhaps. In this way the project and the film reaches beyond your group and the very 'internal' process you've documented about 'the making of'.
- About those stickers, any left for us to hand out with the ABC's Gene Pool flyer at various things?
Great stuff, hard work pays off.
P.S personally, I didn't find the behind the scenes "conflict" bit overly convincing...felt a bit staged to me...like a Big Brother episode. ie. "the camera is on, now let's have a barney for the audience". Still, I can see why you recorded it...to generate a bit of drama in the behind the scenes footage etc.
Thanks for contributing to Gene Pool. Good luck with your next projects. Feel free to add your thoughts here too.
Natasha Mitchell
Presenter + science broadcaster - ABC Radio National
http://abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind
+
Gene Pool coproducer
02.06.09 — Pool team
This is slick & savvy. I liked it a whole lot. In no particular order:
- it was shot really well. Great establishing shots (I appreciated just how cold it must have been that dawn morn seeing the frosty grass). Good work cutting between cameras too. That can be tricky, and here it felt good.
- love the sticker campaign. Send some up to Sydney town and we can stick them round the ABC here! The colours are strong, graphics are clear (same goes for the whole site).
- I thought the interactive element worked very well too. I liked how it opened up in a new tab. It did take me awhile to figure it all out (not sure why) but once I did I was very happy
- a tiny copy glitch: the text on the home page says "click on corresponding link to the left"..unless my browser is doing something odd it's on my right..
- really enjoyed reading the behind the scenes stuff. That's annoying about the sound, but by the time it got through my little earphones, it didn't sound too bad.
A copyright question (I can't help myself, I'm a law student): did you get permission from the bands to use their music?
I have more to write but I have to finish up now. Feel free to ask me anything specific, else I'll write more soon.
- Kate (Pool team)
06.06.09 — DSI crew
Cheers for your comment Kate! We'll be sure to send you guys some stickers. In answer to your copyright question, luckily one of our crew is a singer with many contacts. These bands granted us permission, which is fantastic. We're pleased to hear that the sound wasn't bad through your headphones! That's how we ultimately decided against dubbing; we realised the project isn't designed for the cinema after all. In terms of the website design, we decided tabs would be best; this saves loading the film each time. We thought we'd be kind to fellow internet users. :) And yeah, that morning was absolutely freezing!
Thanks again, and we're glad you enjoyed the film, the DSI crew.