Amy Bruckman responds to Douglas Rushkoff

Great questions!

Has everyone seen: Star Wars Uncut? http://www.starwarsuncut.com/
It's Star Wars A New Hope recreated by 450+ people.
I love it--though I agree that whether this is a great cultural achievement or not is a matter of debate! :-) I think we also need to evaluate this both as product (is this movie worth watching?) and process (what did people learn or enjoy through contributing?)

My student Kurt Luther (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~luther/) and I have been studying groups who make animations collaboratively on Newgrounds (http://newgrounds.com). Interestingly enough, we've found that the social organization of a collaborative project like this depends on the narrative structure of the animation. Making a more traditional story with a script written in advance has different constraints than a 'collection' where lots of pieces are assembled that can later be assembled in many orders by the project leader (for example, the animation 'When Farm Animals Attack'). Another mode is a 'continuation,' where each person adds to the end, and then passes it on to the next animator. These projects can be worked on by small to medium-sized groups (up to ~50 people). Star Wars Uncut is unusual in including nearly 500 people.

Part of what makes this kind of creative production different from an open source or wiki model is that an animation generally has *one release*. You don't show it publicly til you're done. Open source benefits from the 'release early, release often' model that lets more and more people contribute over time.

Like open source software, these projects tend to have a central leader. There's a tremendous burden on that leader, and projects succeed or fail generally depending on how well the leader does his/her job, and how much time he/she can devote to the project.

We're now developing a set of tools to support collaborative animation projects, particularly focusing on taking some of the burden off of the project leader. Of course a more decentralized mode of production we expect will change the aesthetics of the final product in both good and bad ways!