Apertux

1 Introduction

Apertux normally was planned to be another, of many already existing, Linux distribution with a particular focus on movie making. It becomes finally a tool, in fact a bunch of several tools, embedded in different movie production workflows. Everything being under Linux, open and free of course.

The different discussion I had with different people deeply involved in movie making, and all I could read and understand by my own on the subject, make me change my mind about the first approach, even if the creation of a Linux movie distro is always possible but on certain condition that will be explained later. The choice of dedicated tools under very precise criteria (sound, video, image an their treatment under Linux - what we can call the content), but above all the ways we use these tools and why, become more important, and finally more logical than the construction of another single distribution (the containing)that always will be, or too general, or too specialized and that should be not able to fit the needs of all possible kind of directors will and movie genres.

The first approach was also figured for the alone scenarist-director-producer-cameraman with a very short "guerrilla" or "indie" team style. The new approach wants to be more pragmatic and integrate as a central pivot the Production (and the role of the Producer even if this one can be also the scenarist and/or the director) that, with management and communication tools (always free and open), can master the whole movie creative process where other people with different roles and competencies, come at a moment or another, to work on it. This approach then can apply to an "indie" team as well as to a bigger one. Teams "picking" what they need and want in the workflows where tools and methodologies are. And the production making the linkage and managing the communication, verifying the work done between the different members and "departments".

These workflows and tools being defined and chosen for the project, the members can use the Linux distro of their choice, (Debian, Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora, etc...), it doesn't have any kind of importance. The Production is gathering the different works in a centralized tool and with a standardized approach (or tools). The producer can follow and react to the progression of the works done in every Department during the creation/production process.

The formula is enough flexible to cover all possible cases (from little to bigger team), for all movie genres (short, medium, or long movies) or categories (movies with real actors, or 2D, 3D animation movies) and concentrate on the core of the project: the production of a movie with Linux free and open source tools.

Now let's define all that...

2 Problematic

Titanic, Shrek, Lord of the ring, Harry Potter, Avatar, etc... there are no Hollywoodian blockbuster stuffed with special effects that can be done without the help of servers and programs under GNU Linux. Big production companies like Dreamwork, Pixar, ILM, Disney have all invested in Linux to finalize their movies. Stability, rapidity and low cost are doing that the penguin is a logic choice for the images heavy and complex treatments in big render farms. These companies have also developed their own Linux programs for some specific works like Renderman, CompTime, or Rayz(some being open source and accessible other being "private" ones) or use some already designed like Gimp, Cinepaint, ffmpeg or Blender but programmed to fill some specific tasks. The actual tendency is to "Linuxized" some commercial softwares before used under Apple or Windows and even to give them free alone or joined to a product (DaVinci Resolves with the Blackmagic camera or editing program Lightworks from Editshare that be now dowloaded for free).

It's clear that Linux is loved by producers but its work is a back office one, necessary but hidden. More, it's not the freedom (like in free speech)characteristics that attract them but the low cost and technical development easiness ones (free like in free beer). Movie making is an industry and it was logical that this industry try to invest "less" to get more rapid and bigger "benefits". For the movie industry Linux is just a tool like another with more possibilities, less problem to manage and less money to expend. Its rapid acceptance in this world like the rapid conversion of software and hardware to Linux was made possible only under a financial and technological vision.

Then we could imagine that, because of tools that can be found for free with a different logic than commercial ones, independent studios or little "guerrilla" or "indie" production houses would have followed a different way to do and think, and would have used intensively Linux and/or free and open source hardware and software tools, but it's not the case, very few actions were done, being just marginal if not practically non existing. most of young and older "free" movie maker if they have effectively new ideas and new ways to produce, make movies use what they can find in the actual market:

• non free video cameras build with non free technologies and heavily patented codecs (but there is no free camera actually except the next apertus one to come or the former apertus Elphel 353).
• a computer for editing video and sound (generally a Mac from Apple)

This seem the standard now for the majority even for those that, if they challenge the way that the majors made, produce, distribute movies, they do not think to challenge also the proprietary and patented tools used, and created sometimes, by these majors and used by them too.

There is no doubt that Linux tools are as efficient and compliant than the commercial ones. It's clear that to work on and with Linux require some abilities but that everybody can have just with some personal work, the same thing applying also for Windows or Apple platform and products. So why Linux tools are not intensively used today in movie making especially by the "free" and "independent" movie directors community?

== The camera ==

To come ....