
Remix-friendly formats - and Big Buck Bunny
I am currently wrapping up my latest documentary production, Dataspor - a 3-part documentary for danish schools, on the topic of surveillance, web 2.0 etc. Part of the idea was for the film to be integrated in a larger learning framework, and so the video should be freely available for kids to re-use and remix. I asked some friends which formats would work best (and I still haven't come to any conclusion) to include for most efficiently hitting most platforms and digital literacy degrees. Kids in Denmark have very heterogenous entrypoints - some are amazingly savvy and geared up, others are left with archaic school equipment.Anyway, Jon Philips pointed me to a project I know but never actually got around to watch - the full-blown animation Big Buck Bunny, produced only using Blender, a free open source 3D content creation suite. I was quite amazed at the quality, which looks close to what major commercial players were doing just a few years ago - but produced at a fraction of the cost.
Judge for yourself:
Big Buck Bunny from Blender Foundation on Vimeo.
The Blender people have made available the entire production for others to reuse here the formats are many, but is this too "elitist" for ordinary school children? Which tools do they use, and what do they want in terms of formats / resolution etc? I have made full-quality h264 Mp4s, avi's, wmv (though I hate that codec) and iphone / iPod hi/low's. Any input would be highly appreciated - especially from those with school-age kids who like to play around with video.

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