A break from Fraktur. The images above are screen captures from the most inspired little film I saw last night. It is Nina Paley's autobiographical "Sita Sings the Blues", an interwoven story with interwoven techniques and voices (many very cute and funny) about a woman's break up with her husband after he is sent to India to pursue his career...and the story of Sita and Rama with a thick overlay of this boop boop da doop love sing/songs from Annette Hanshaw. It is a must see for all of my illustration friends as it charms with color, wit and the clever use of cut paper, shadow puppets (as the narrators), stock art and of course the drawn media. It makes a very strong vote for the world of vector and how lovely it can be. Plus, this is a rich and inspiring slice for all of us. The under 20 set here went wild. It is an inspired gumdrop personal to Nina Paley, a real star and creative who is the writer, creator, animator of this singular gem...We should expect to see more from this thoughtful, fun, visual artists...and I hope soon. You all know how I feel about Indian art, and this was such a unexpected gift delivered to us in a mention from the tuned in Mr. David Lucas, designer and astute observer of the world. Thank you David for this wonder! We are all beneficiaries of your suggestion!
If you go a bit deeper into the copyright issues surrounding this work which I will allow Wikipedia to explain clearly:
In the 1920s Annette Hanshaw recorded the songs that director Paley used in the film. These recordings were protected by state commerce and business laws passed at the time in the absence of applicable Federal laws and were never truly "public domain".[12] In addition, the musical composition itself, including aspects such as the lyrics to the songs, the musical notation, and products derived from using those things, is still under copyright.[13] In the case of this film, the syncing of the recording with the movie is the infringing act.
Without a distributor, Nina Paley was unable to pay the approximately $220,000 that the copyright holders originally demanded. Eventually, a fee of $50,000 was negotiated. Paley took out a loan to license the music in early 2009.[1]
Unorthodox distribution
Due to terms of the music license, one limited DVD pressing of 4,999 copies will be printed. The film was released for free download starting in early March, 2009 "at all resolutions, including broadcast-quality, HD, and film-quality image sequences", licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-alike 3.0 Unported license.[14] The freely downloaded files will count as "promotional copies" and will thus be exempt from payments to the copyright holders of the songs.[1]
The full film can also be viewed in low-resolution streaming video on the web site for WNET, a PBS member station in New York City. WNET broadcast the film on March 7, 2009.
Nina Paley plans to make money through voluntary payments, ancillary products, sponsorships, voluntary payments from public screenings, the aforementioned limited DVD sales, and possibly other methods.[1]
A cornerstone of the distribution model is the "creator-endorsed" logo, developed by Nina Paley in cooperation with QuestionCopyright.org. Although anyone is free to distribute the film, distributors who do so while giving a part of the profits to the artist can get the artist's endorsement and use the "creator-endorsed" logo on their promotional materials.[15][16]
so you can download the film, watch it on YouTube
Not much labor for Labor Day. We are wrapping up the perishable foods and getting the wheels in motion for school. Rob is off to France, Amsterdam and Germany (a ten day trip) starting Wednesday. Alex is having a birthday "Sausage Fest" complete with tee shirts and games next Saturday. So, things are likely to be a bit more Tburg centric until R. comes back.