Here, through the course of the week, he'll be publishing his stories. You can e-mail him using the form on the right, and find out more about his experiment here.

Matt Hanson aims to raise �1 million to fund the production of a feature-length film which would be distributed freely via the internet under a Creative Commons licence, all funded through 50,000 people each donating �25 to the project, which he's called 'A Swarm of Angels'.

No stranger to filmmaking, Matt has produced a couple of short films, written a book on digital filmmaking and set up the digital film festival onedotzero, now in its tenth year. He wants to finally make a feature length film though, and decided that it was better to turn to the internet for help and funding rather than plod through the usual 'development hell'.

"I wanted to put into practice what I've been preaching as a film futurist for ten years, and the technology and Internet infrastructure has just really caught up with that vision now for me to put it into practice."

The process is inspired by the 'web 2.0' movement, using social and collaborative communities on the Internet. Matt doesn't see the funding as coming from donations, but as people paying a subscription to become part of a 'Swarm'. "Rather than the 'many producer' model, this is more of a 'smart consumer' model ... members can help implement and bring their expertise into play, and so become more actively involved in the production."

The project hopes to use professional actors and crew, but use qualified members from the swarm as much as possible. The cast and the crew, including any volunteers that get chosen, would be paid for their work on the film, with Matt suggesting that this is "a great way for people to get into the industry".

Those members not directly involved in making the film can still participate in the process by discussing ideas on a message board, and having a vote on certain crucial decisions like on which script gets chosen for production. Asked how he would balance his own creative direction with input from members, Matt said "my vision will lead the project forward and define the parameters, but the Swarm can influence that, and indeed offer improvements or insights I might not think of alone".

"Remember filmmaking is always a team effort - whether you are Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick or Jean Luc Godard, you promote people within the project that will complement and bring something extra to the vision of the film. Give it more life. With the Swarm we are making that process more democratic, and giving a wider range of people an opportunity to shine and have creative input."

Members are promised a collector's edition DVD of the end product and exclusive merchandise, but the main distribution of the film will be via the internet, using 'BitTorrents' and peer-to-peer networks. "Unlike many other filmmakers, I'm not wedded to cinema projection as the 'be all and end all' - I'm much more excited about people viewing remixed versions on their video ipods," explains Matt.

The 'remixing' of the film will be possible thanks to it being distributed under a Creative Commons licence. Matt suggests that the 'younger generation' is more used to being involved with and interacting with entertainment, and points to remixes of the Star Wars films (eg 'The Phantom Edit') as an example of these 'mashups'. "At the end of the project I would love to have an event that showcased five wildly different versions of the film, different visions from people other than my definitive initial edit," he suggests. The licence will be for non-commercial use only, however, and so commercial TV stations would still have to pay in order to screen the film.

The project is partly inspired by the success of 'The Million Dollar Homepage', in which British student Alex Tew aimed to raise a million dollars to fund his university education, simply by selling advertising space on a single web page. The publicity surrounding the idea, coupled with the 'viral' effect of internet users passing the page on, meant that he eventually managed to make himself the million dollars.

The success of these projects partly seems to depend on them being interesting and original enough to attract enough attention, and it's often difficult to see how they could be repeated. Copy-cat versions of the million dollar homepage have so far failed to hugely take off. When put with this idea, Matt commented "I already expect people to copy the model we are inventing with A Swarm of Angels - it's a perfect way to create cult media, where the director gets more creative control and organically funds a project, and the fans of the project get more involvement within it. If the market gets too crowded with these projects though, then they'll have to be packaged differently to stand out. But that's what traditional film and media projects need to do anyway."

Over 600 members have signed up to the 'swarm' so far, which Matt comments is already an early success, but 50,000 members in total will be needed in order to fully fund the �1 million budget. Matt suggests that getting to the next stage, of reaching 1,000 members, followed by the phase of getting 5,000 members, will be the hardest part, as after that the film will be more 'tangible'. He fully expects to raise the full budget, but comments that if the fundraising stalls, "options will be presented by advisors and The Swarm, and based on some kind of consensus we'll come up with the best option for moving forward."

Traditionally, independent films are funded either through persuading wealthy individuals to invest, who sometimes are sometimes given 'Executive Producer' credits, or through organisations like the UK Film Council, who award funds from the National Lottery. A tax credit for producers making small films in the UK was announced by the government in 2005, in a bid to give a boost to the UK independent film industry.

Matt says that the film will be "a thriller with soft science fiction elements", which he says will suit his target audience. "But it will have an indie edginess to it, and be far more visually inventive than you would get with a 'normal' British independent feature." Contributors to the project include artists 'The Kleptones', who will help with the soundtrack, comic book writer Warren Ellis and documentary filmmaker Grant Gee.

The Swarm of Angels project is online at aswarmofangels.com and costs �25 as an individual to become a member.

Sources:

Interview with Matt Hanson
The 'A Swarm of Angels' website Tax change for movies made in UK , BBC News website

Paul Gerhardt

The Creative Archive project is a BBC led initiative which aims to make archive audio and video footage available to be freely downloaded, distributed and 'remixed'. The project is still in a pilot stage, and is only available to UK residents, but the long-term future of the project could have a major impact on the way audiences interact with BBC content.

The project is partly inspired by the Creative Commons movements, and also by a general move within the BBC to be more open with its assets. Additionally, educational audiences such as schools have expressed an interest in using BBC content within the classroom, both to watch and to create multimedia content from.

So far, clips made available under the licence have included archive news footage, nature documentary footage, and video clips content designed for educational uses. "It's done very well with the audiences we've directed them towards - heavy BBC users," says Paul Gerhardt, project leader. Users downloading the clips are also prompted to fill in a questionnaire, and so far 10-15% of people seem to be doing something with the material, although the BBC can't be sure what exactly that is.

One of the biggest limitations within the licence as it currently stands during the pilot scheme is that the material is only available for use by people resident in the UK. The BBC's Creative Archive sites use 'geo-IP filtering' to limit downloads to the UK, but there is some confusion over whether people who create their own content using the material can upload their creations to their own websites. A question within the FAQs for one of the more recent selections of clips suggests that this isn't possible, saying "during this pilot phase material released under the terms of the Creative Archive Licence cannot be used outside the UK - therefore, unless a website has its use restricted to the UK only, content from the 'Regions on Film' archive cannot be published on it."

"We want people to make full use of this content, whether they cut and paste it or whether they share it, and we completely accept that we've got a bit of a contradiction at the moment by saying UK-only and yet encouraging people to put it on their sites to share it with others, because you can't expect people to have geo-IP restriction technology," admits Mr Gerhardt. "We're thinking hard about how to deal with this after the pilot - at the moment it's quite likely that we're probably going to need to find a distribution partner outside of the UK, so that if you're outside of the UK you've got roughly the same experience as in the UK, but the content could be surrounded by sponsorship messages or advertising or whatever. Once we've done that then leakage from one to the other won't really matter very much."

The Creative Archive project has not been without critics from the commercial sector, worried that the BBC giving away their content for free would make it difficult for them to be able to make money from their own content. The BBC has explained to some of the commercial players that the content would be limited during the pilot, would not be available in broadcast quality, and that watermarking technologies would be trialled so that content could be recognised when it crops up elsewhere. The BBC is also investigating a business model for the future where there would be a "close relationship between public access to low-resolution content and a click through to monetising that content if you want to buy a high-resolution version". People who want to play around with the material might discover they have a talent and then find they need to get a commercial license to use it properly, Mr Gerhardt explains, and the project wants to make it easy for this to happen.

Before the project can go ahead with the full scale launch, it will have to go through a 'public value test' to assess its overall impact on the marketplace, and commercial media companies will have a chance to input at this point.

For ease in clearing the rights, all of the content available under the pilot project is factual, but in the future the project could include drama and entertainment content. The BBC may also, in the future, work the Creative Archive licences into the commissioning process for new programmes. "This raises some really interesting ideas - if you have a documentary series, you could use the Creative Archive to release the longer form footage, for instance - that would create a digital legacy of that documentary series," Mr Gerhardt explains. "The other interesting thought in the longer term would be for the BBC, or another broadcaster, to contribute to a digital pool of archive material on a theme, and then invite people to assemble their own content out of that. We could end up broadcasting both the BBC professionally produced programme accompanied by other programmes that other people had made out of the same material."

One of the ways that the Creative Archive licence differs from the other 'copyleft' licences like Creative Commons, aside from the UK-only limitation, is that the licence currently allows the BBC to update and modify the licence, which may worry those using the licence that their rights could suddenly become more restricted. "The licence at the moment is a draft, and we've given warning that we may well improve it, but we wouldn't do that more than once or twice. The ambition is that by the time we scale up to the full service we would have a fixed licence that everyone was comfortable with, and it wouldn't change after that."

"The ambition is to think about creating a single portal where people can search and see what stuff is out there under the same licence terms, from a range of different suppliers. The idea is that if we can create something compelling like that, we will attract other archives in the UK to contribute their material, so we'd be aggregating quite a large quantity."

The Creative Archive project has captured the interest of many internet users, who are growing increasingly used to the idea of being able to 'remix' technologies and content. Some groups have been frustrated with the speed at which the project is developing though, and with some of the restrictions imposed in the licence. An open letter to the BBC urges the dropping of the UK-only limitation, the use of 'open formats', and to allow the material to be usable commercially.

Mr Gerhardt has publicly welcomed debate of the licence, but makes it clear to me that the whole BBC archive will never all be available under the Creative Archive terms. "We will make all our archive available, under different terms, over the next five to ten years, at a pace to be determined. There would be three modes in which people access it - some of the content would only be available commercially, for the first five year or so after broadcast, say. The second route is through a 'view again' strategy where you can view the programmes, but they'd be 'DRM'-restricted. And the third mode is Creative Archive. Over time, programmes would move from one mode to another, with some programmes going straight to the Creative Archive after broadcast."

Others who disagree with the 'UK-only' restriction within the licence include Suw Charman, from the Open Rights Group, who has said "it doesn't make sense in a world where information moves between continents in seconds, and where it is difficult for the average user to exclude visitors based on geography." On the project generally, though, she said "I think that it is a good step along the way to a more open attitude towards content. It is a toe in the water, which is far preferable to the attitude of most of the industry players, who are simply burying their heads in the sand and hoping that lawsuits and lobbying for new legislation will bolster their out-dated business plan."

Other organisations currently participating in the Creative Archive scheme include the British Film Institute, the Open University and Teachers TV. Two artists have been awarded scholarships to create artworks using BBC archive material, and BBC Radio One has held a competition asking people to use the footage in creative ways as backing visuals to music. The process of making the BBC's archive material fully available may be a long one, but it could end up changing the way that people interact with the UK's public service broadcaster.

Sources:

Interview with Paul Gerhardt
Open letter from Free Culture UK
Creative Archive website

The Interacademy Panel on International Issues (IAP), a global network of the world's science academies, has released a statement urging parents and teachers to provide children with "the facts about the origin and evolution of life on Earth".

The statement is signed by 67 of the 92 member academies of the organisation, and notes that in some schools around the world, "testable theories" about evolution are being "concealed, denied or confused by theories not testable by science".

The statement contains four "evidence-based facts", for which it is said that no scientific evidence has ever contradicted. These include the Earth being approximately 4.5 billion years old, life on Earth being at least 2.5 billion years old, and commonalities in all living organisms indicating a common primordial origin.

The news follows developments, mainly in the United States, where proponents of "intelligent design" (ID), suggest that some complex biological features indicate the presence of an intelligent designer.

Opponents of this movement argue that it is simply a disguise for creationist beliefs, and that it doesn't count as a scientific theory.

The teaching of religion in schools is against the Establishment clause of the constitution of the United States. Despite this, President Bush has in the past remarked that he believes intelligent design should be taught in schools. The President has not shown any sign of plans to personally intervene in the legal debate however.

In December 2005, following legal case between the parents and the school district of Dover (Pennsylvania, USA), the judge decided that intelligent design was a religious view, and that it was unlawful to teach it as an alternative to evolution within the classroom.

The IAP statement suggests that the science academies believe that ID is still being taught within some schools, however.

A Gallup poll conducted in May concluded that 46% of Americans believe that God created man in his present form sometime in the past 10,000 years, with 13% believing mankind evolved with no divine intervention and 36% saying that mankind developed over millions of years from lesser life forms, but with God guiding the process.

The IAP statement acknowledges limitations in current understanding, but argues that the process of science allows it to be open-ended and subject to correction and expansion as new understanding emerges.

Sources:
AP newswire: Evolution: World science academies fight back against creationists.
Press Release: National science academies sign join statement on teaching of evolution.
Document: IAP statement on the teaching of evolution.
Washington Times: Americans still hold faith in divine creation

A few hundred England fans weren't watching the match against Sweden last night in a pub or at home, but instead had ventured out to their local cinema to see the game on the big screen.

A number of Odeon cinemas nationwide have been using digital projection technology to screen the matches live with a high definiton (HD) picture. HD broadcasts contain a greater level of detail than traditional tv broadcasts, meaning a sharper picture and better sound quality.

In the darkened auditorium of the cinema in Covent Garden, the audience (or should that be crowd?) were behaving almost as if they were at the stadium, singing along to the national anthem, cheering at the England goals and groaning at the Sweden chances. At times, chants being sung by the England crowd at the match were even picked up and sung along to by those watching the cinema screen like some kind of football karaoke contest.

Trailers before the match were substituted with a soundtrack of England athems, both the successful and not-so-successful ones, and the traditional movie treat of popcorn was replaced by trays of beer (in plastic cups) being brought in by the punters. The cinema had cheekily listed the screening as being "directed by Sven-Goran Eriksson" and as "starring Wayne Rooney (hopefully)".

Despite the disappointing 2-2 draw, the audience seemed impressed with the experience. "I'm a bit short and so wanted to make sure I had good view without having to jostle around for position," Amanda, from London, explained to me. "I also liked that it was non-smoking, and there was a fabulous atmosphere". Sian, Caio and Laura, who lived locally, said they wanted to see the match on the big screen and commented on the excellent picture quality.

Other events that have been broadcast by the cinema chain include concerts by Robbie Williams and Elton John. Odeon Marketing Director Luke Vetere said: "Offering films is just one part of the cinema experience - our ambition is to offer guests the chance to watch other events they feel passionate about".

Watching football in the cinema is not a brand new event though, during previous World Cups such as in 1966, film footage from the matches was broadcast in cinemas after the event, providing a way for people to see the games in colour when tv broadcasts were in black and white.

Cinema screenings aren't the only way that fans can watch the World Cup games in high-definition this year though, as both Sky TV and Telewest have been broadcasting the games in HD to viewers with a special set-top box. There have been trials with HD on the growing Freeview platform too, with a pilot group of a few hundred viewers in London.

However, as a any move to roll out HD on Freeview would use up extra space on the broadcast spectrum and would require viewers to buy a new set-top box, it seems unlikely that this will happen any time soon.

Sources:

"Freeview's HDTV trial under ways", BBC News Online 8 June, 2006
Press Release: Odeon Cinemas to Screen Live World Cup 2006 Matches, Odeon.
Comments from members of the audience after the match.

Apple are planning to sell full-length feature films for download via the online iTunes store. The store currently sells digital music tracks, and more recently has begun to sell TV episodes.

Apple executives are in negotiations with film studios to arrange the deal and settle on pricing structures. It is expected that films will retail for around $9.99 US dollars, although some studios are reported to want to set a higher price.

iTunes is currently by the biggest online retailer of digital music, with its software tightly integrated with the popular iPod line of products. Newer versions of the iPod include a colour screen capable of displaying videos, and so consumers could watch the films on the devices, but it is not yet clear how many people will want to do this.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is also the largest single shareholder of Disney, which now owns animation studio Pixar, however he could end up playing a wider role within the film industry if iTunes becomes the dominant online distributor.

A full-length TV movie, 'High School Musical' from Disney, has already been made available on iTunes, suggesting that the technical infrastructure is already in place.

Sources:

"A Coming Attraction: Movies on iTunes", New York Times
"Apple to offer movie downloads via iTunes", eitb, June 20, 2006
Stephen Foley "Apple in talks with Hollywood over film downloads for iTunes", The Independent, June 20, 2006
longofest "iTunes Movie Store Rumblings [Updated]", Mac Rumors, June 19, 2006
Ben Fritz "Friend or foe?", Variety.com, June 18, 2006

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to give the go-ahead for an order of two government jets. One jet is likely to contain 70 seats, whilst the other will be smaller with around 15 seats. Previously the Prime Minister has chartered aircraft or used a royal plane. Both planes would be second hand and not bought outright but leased on a long-term contract.

Government departments, as well as the royal family, will be able to use the jets, but will have to pay for the full cost of travel.

The story was first reported by BBC correspondant James Hardy, and comes out of a study into ministerial travel costs.

The nicknames 'Blair Force One' and 'Blair Force Two' have already begun to stick. American presidents have traditionally used a special jet called 'Air Force One'.

Sources:

PM to get two 'Blair Force Ones', BBC News online
'Blair Force One' plans get boost, BBC News online

Pro-whaling countries within the International Whaling Commission celebrated yesterday after a resolution was passed which says that the commission's 20 year moratorium on commercial whaling is "no longer neccessary" and blames whales for depleting fish stocks. 33 countries voted in favour of the resolution, with 32 voting against, and China abstaining. The vote is considered a victory for Japan, which has long argued for a return to commercial whaling, and has been 'recruiting' sympathetic nations to join the IWC in order to bolster its vote.

The vote does not directly enable a return to commercial whaling, as that would require a three quarters majority, but is significant in being the first time that at a major vote at the IWC has sided with the pro-whaling nations in two decades.

Previous votes during the conference had been narrowly won by the anti-whaling group of countries, including a motion to introduce secret ballots, to introduce an exemption allowing Japanese coastal communities to whale, the elimination of a Southern Ocean whale sanctuary and a block on the IWC discussing dolphins and porpoises.

Commercial whaling has been banned under the IWC moratorium since 1986, but some whaling has been able to continue - Japan and Iceland have hunted a number of Minke whales every year under an exemption for 'scientific whaling', plus Norway has flat out refused to accept the original ban. The stated aims of scientific whaling are to examine the stomach contents of captured whales, in order to examine the whale ecosystem and the effect that whales may have on fish stocks. The whale meat from scientific whaling catches is usually sold on commercially, however, in order to fund the research. Some observors, including scientists from New Zealand, have accused Japan and Iceland as simply using scientific whaling as a legal loophole. Other whaling allowed under the IWC moratorium includes subsistance whaling by aboriginal groups.

Greenpeace activist Adele blogged the news from their Stokholm office expressed reservations over the legitimacy of the vote and would "change little or nothing" as previous votes had already been passed in favour of the anti-whaling group of countries. Mike Townsley from Greenpeace International said "Greenpeace is disgusted that any member of the IWC would seek to promote whaling based upon the false notion that whales consume so much fish that they are a threat to food security for coastal nations". He added that the declaration was more like a whaler's "wish list, peddling predictable and well rehearsed rhetoric".

A paragraph within the declaration passed at the IWC meeting suggested that a number of international NGOs with self-interest campaigns were using threats in an attempt to direct government policy "on matters of sovereign rights related to the use of resources for food securityand national development". In response, Greenpeace sais they were dedicated to the principles of "peaceful protests", adding that the the threat was to the world's whales. They stated that they had "delayed, disrupted and documented hunts in the Southern Ocean" in order to defend the whales, however.

Dr. Joth Singh from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) , said "after losing on every single proposal they brought to this meeting, the whaling countries and their supporters cooked up a non-binding statement, sprang it on the commission and pushed it to a vote - they want to kill whales, and they're willing to kill the Commission to do it." He added that they were concerned, but not disheartened by the news.

Japanese commissioner, Mr Minoru Morimoto, praised the winning vote and said the declaration "added weight to Japan's proposal to normalize the IWC and bring it back to its original function of managing and regulating sustainable commercial whaling."

The IWC has historically always voted against pro-whaling motions by a majority of around ten votes, but the number of members favoring a return to commercial whaling has increased in recent years, with Japan persuading several new countries to join the IWC, including many that have never done any whaling at all. As Japan has given aid to some of these new countries, some observors have acussed it of buying votes.

Sources:

Japan gains key whaling victory, BBC News Online, 19 June 2006
Japan seizes control of whaling group after historic vote , The Independent, 19 June 2006.
Whalers secure crucial vote win in bid to overturn ban, The Guardian, 19 June 2006
Japan wins St Kitts declaration vote at IWC, Ocean Defenders weblog, 19 June 2006
Row over "St. Kitts and Nevis Declaration" Erupts at International Whaling Commission Meeting, IFAW press release, 19 June 2006.
Emails from Greenpeace spokesperson Mike Townsley.