Produced by M ss ng P eces
Directed by Scott Thrift
Volumetric cinematography by Jonathan Minard, using DepthKit
An interactive documentary co-directed with James George
CLOUDS is an interactive documentary (co-directed with James George) that presents a conversation among fifty artists, designers, and hackers who use code, and collaborate on open source tool kits. It explores themes of creativity and invention, interactive art, simulation, computational design, data visualization, and the future of storytelling.
Filmed using a new 3D cinema format called RGBD and created entirely with open-source software, CLOUDS uses a data-driven Story Engine to present an endless, ever-changing conversation. The system allows viewers to navigate a web of ideas and engage with immersive visualizations.
CLOUDS is not a linear film, but a real-time executable which generates sequences of dialogue based on interactive input. Each of the interviews has been edited into individual fragments, and richly tagged. An algorithm then leaps from clip to clip, creating new conversations on the fly, while preserving continuity of ideas and themes. Viewers use gesture and spatial interaction metaphors to chart a course through the rhizomatic content space.
The interview subjects in CLOUDS are an intergenerational community of more than 40 artists, designers, hackers and thinkers. They discuss the challenges of developing new forms of expression that resonate at a deeper human level. The documentary captures the story of collaboratively inventing open-source tools that form the foundation of a global creative culture. Interview subjects include founders of free creative coding platforms, such as Casey Reas and Zach Lieberman, as well as critical perspectives from thinkers like Bruce Sterling and Regine Debatty.
CREDITS
Directors
Jonathan Minard
James George
Executive Producer
Golan Levin
Producer
Winslow Porter
Design Director
Bradley Munkowitz
Music
R Luke DuBois
Interview Subjects Include
Aaron Koblin, Andres Colubri, Bruce Sterling, Casey Reas, Chris Sugrue, Damian Stewart, Daniel Shiffman, Diederick Huijbers, Elliot Woods, Fernanda Viegas, Golan Levin, Greg Borenstein, Javier Fadul, Jen Lowe, Jer Thorp, Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, Jessica Rosenkrantz, Joel Lewis, John Maeda, Josh Nimoy, Julia Kaganskiy, Julian Oliver, Karolina Sobecka, Karsten Schmidt, Kevin Slavin, Kyle Chayka, Kyle McDonald, Lauren McCarthy, LIA, Lindsay Howard, Marcus Wendt, Marius Watz, Martin Wattenberg, Paola Antonelli, Patricio Gonzales Vivo, Philip Whitfield, Rachel Binx, Ramsey Nasser, Regine Debatty, Shantell Martin, Sofy Yuditskaya, Theo Watson, Vera Glahn, Zach Lieberman
Lead Visual Systems Designer
Lars Berg
Lead Interaction Developer
Elie Zananiri
Systems Engineer
Surya Mattu
Visual Systems Development
Patricio González Vivo, Reza Ali, Gal Sasson, Omer Shapira, Michael Allison, Jeff Crouse, Quin Kennedy
Interface Developer
Luisa Pereira, Charlie Whitney, Jack Kalish
Interface Design
Sarah Hallacher, Erica Gorochow
Commissioned Artists
Shantell Martin, Zach Lieberman, Nervous System, Marius Watz, Karolina Sobecka, Casey Reas, Satoru Higa, Josh Nimoy
Additional Music
Julian LaPlace, Tony Lim
Sound Mixing
Brett Murphy
Foreign Language Translation
Keiko Uenishi, Luisa Pereira
User Experience Consulting
Jason Walters, Mike Ballard
Web Development
Mike Heavers
Additional Footage Provided by
Future of Storytelling Conference
Extinction Rebellion - Mindful Rebels
Directed and edited by Jonathan Minard
Cinematography by Cory Fraiman-Lott
“There is something about the internet that isn’t working anymore”: a group of women hackers, artists, and theorists gathered at Carnegie Mellon University in December 2014 to answer the question of what, exactly, that disquieting “something” is.
