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archive // 2005.09.13 07:55:01 [hh]

Kostenlose Drehbuch-Software: Open Source Projekt "Celtx"

Mit "Celtx" haben Drehbuch-Schreiber nun das erste mal auch die Möglichkeit, eine leistungsfähige Software kostenlos zu benutzen. Das kanadische Unternehmen Greyfirst Corp. (Neufundland) bietet auch den auf dem Browser "Firefox" aufsetzenden Quelltext der Software zum Download an.

Das Tool ist bestens für Scriptwriting geeignet, soll aber im weiteren Sinne eingesetzt werden: "Celtx is a project collaboration tool for people who work in film, TV, theater and New Media."

Greyfirst-Gründer Mark Kennedy zum Projekt: "Celtx is a new software application aimed at writers and other creative people working in the pre-production side of the film and TV industry."

Einige Fragen an Mark Kennedy

Q. Briefly describe why you started the Celtx project?

We decided to focus on the film and TV industry – it was media centric, interesting (who doesn’t want to be in the movies?), global, and people driven. We reasoned that while some aspects of the film and TV production industries had been revolutionized by technology, other aspects were still sleepy hollows, untouched, ignored or under-serviced by the existing, mainstream technology providers.

Our market analysis told us that people working in the pre-production phase of film and TV making, including the writers, were using either antiquated technology, or worse, none at all. They were either being held hostage by some proprietary software vendor or unable to work in a digital environment. Sharing projects online was all but impossible.

We saw that there was no open standards based platform for the industry. We knew that the first company to develop a usable platform would provide the world’s film and TV industries with a new way of doing business.

Q. Where do you see Celtx in five years?

Ideally, Celtx will become the de-facto standard for sharing information in the film and TV production business. We're already seeing signs of accomplishing our goal, with Celtx being adopted by users in over 50 countries around the globe.

Internet aware and compatible with all open standards based technologies, Celtx will expand on its already extensive global footprint to become a mechanism for the world community to make film and TV media.

Q. Why do you use Mozilla to develop Celtx? Other projects?

Mozilla is a wonderful, and powerful group of technologies that are open source and standards-based. Using Mozilla, and specifically Firefox, to build Celtx enables us to provide users with an Internet-aware applications that are constructed on next generation software.

With both client and server behavior, Celtx projects are stored locally by default, but can also be backed up to off-site locations. Celtx also provides Web browser functionality, enabling users to access the myriad of Web based technologies and services available through the Internet – like video and MP3 importing, and integrated Google searching.

Q. Briefly describe why you chose to support open standards instead of creating your own proprietary file formats.

Customers – users of software – shouldn't be held hostage by the makers of the software. If a company can’t produce compelling enough software to keep customers legitimately (by offering value and service) they shouldn’t be able to keep them as customers by making it impossible for them to take their data outside of the proprietary software.

It’s the customers’ data – not the company that made the software. Users should have unfettered access to it.

Q. Why are you releasing the Celtx client under an open source license?

Being a small company, located at the ‘ends of the earth’, we decided to take a different approach compared to the mainstream technology providers in the industry. Open source software models provide a competitive advantage.

Given the tremendous lift we received by all the work done to date by the Mozilla community on its code base, which we use extensively in Celtx, we decided to give back to the Mozilla community, and turned Celtx open source.

Using an open source licensing model has encouraged the participation of the community, dedicated users from around the world having completed translations of Celtx so that it can be used in other languages.

Q. How do you plan on making money by using open source?

This question always makes us smile. We see little difference between the business models employed by proprietary software vendors and those used by open source vendors. The two camps share much more in common then some would lead you to believe.

Our business model includes offering Web services that are tailored to work with the standalone Celtx client which we hope users will find compelling enough to pay for. That's our challenge – offering services that people need and use.

Q. How can Celtx help a film production company produce movies more efficiently?

Celtx enables a production company to dramatically improve the efficiency of its pre-production work without compromising artistic or creative control.
The majority of the film and TV pre-production industry still works in an analog format, using paper scripts, taped in snap shots and sticky notes all kept in large and unwieldy three ring binders to complete their work. Working collaboratively requires everyone to be in the same room, or using couriers and email to send around information and discuss ideas. How much time and effort is spent just keeping everyone on the same version of a script? Pink pages, blue pages, yellow pages?

Once used in a production, all the information gathered during the pre-production phase was lost forever, or at least effectively inaccessible for use anytime or anywhere else – all those photos, all those notes, ALL THOSE IDEAS – gone, placed up on shelf never to be used again. Clearly, not a particularly efficient way to conduct business.

With Celtx, the film and TV script writing and pre-production businesses have the ability to share information and ideas electronically – faster and at lower cost – and all that information and ideas that are preserved for future use – spurring creative ideas in future productions.

Q. What sized media production does Celtx support?

Celtx is eminently scalable. Theoretically, there’s no size of media production that Celtx will not support.

Q. Who benefits from using Celtx?

In its current iteration Celtx is designed for anyone working on script based projects. Writers will find every feature they need to write. People working in pre-production will find tools that allow them to do their job in a digital environment.

Whether you're a casual video enthusiast, an independent film maker, or someone working with either a small or well established production company, Celtx is the first digital pre-production tool for making film, TV or New Media.


Weitere Informationen: www.celtx.com, celtx.mozdev.org, www.greyfirst.ca

 

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