'Live Music,' short film created through Facebook contest, to play before 'Planet 51'

By Sarah Sluis

In the entertainment world, people are all too willing to work for free. Browse through Craigslist and you'll see dozens of listings for "unpaid interns" in the entertainment industry--some from reputable provenance, some not. Contests, like internships, are proving grounds, places where you give away your work with the hope it will be recognized as the kind you should be paid for. Too often, people end up feeling disappointed and burned.

For at least 51 people, the proving time has come. They will have the chance to see their names attached to "Live Music," a short film about a guitar and violin working through their differences and falling in love. The six-minute animated film was created collaboratively, with each person filling in parts of animation from a list of shots. Coordinated through a Facebook page, the Mass Animation contest was sponsored by Intel for $1 million, and a portion of that went to the winners, who received $500 each. What was originally planned as an advertising tie-in for an Intel processor has turned into something else. Now, the film itself has won a prize: distribution. Sony Pictures Animation plans to show the short film before their November 20th release Planet 51. It's not the first time this has happened, either. A small independent film that just released, Somers Town, was originally planned as a short film to promote EuroStar's Paris-to-London train line.

Although animation is a male-dominated industry, 11 of the 51 winners were women (21%). While still short of parity, the greater percentage of female winners indicates that the industry is missing out on talented female animators. The "blind" process of animating from behind a computer screen reminded me of how women suddenly found more spots in orchestras once interviews were conducted behind a screen to hide the player's identity.

In the New York Times article profiling the project, the Facebook employee who helped organize the project, Matt Jacobson, suggests that this model could be used to create a feature film. It's certainly possible. Shows like "The Simpsons" use overseas animators to keep within their budgets, and because animation can be produced in piecemeal, it's particularly easy to be "crowdsourced," to use one of those globalization buzzwords (Another statistic: 17 of the 51 winners were from outside the U.S.)

Because filmmaking is so expensive, perhaps more projects will use this decentralized method as a way to cut costs. Could this be done with a live-action film, perhaps one with a global, Babel-like plot? Or perhaps the greater influence here is the big-budget advertisers who are turning to more integrated methods of advertising to reach viewers. Would you rather buy $1 million in ads people will fast forward through with their DVR, or a six-minute film that will be shown to millions in theatres? Interestingly, this project was created as a way to reach animators and encourage them to buy the fast, Core i7 processor, so it doesn't appear as if Intel is showing up in terms of product placement. For this project at least, it's the best of both worlds.