BIG Brings Collaborative Arts Project “Crowdsourced Boston” Back to the Greater Boston Area

submitted by Erin Kinney, BIG

Film buffs, children of the ’80s, or anyone who has a penchant for John Hughes’ films often wish they could have been a part of creating one of his classic films, whether as an actor reciting iconic lines, a composer writing the perfect music for the soundtrack, or as a director calling the shots from behind the camera. For many, this is just a dream, but that is exactly the opportunity that Crowdsourced Boston, a collaborative community arts project in its second year, is offering the greater Boston area this summer as it takes on recreating Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as a crowdsourcing project.

Crowdsourced Boston is an offshoot of Crowdsourced Cinema, a public art project created by Northampton Community Television (NCTV), a sister organization to local Brookline Interactive Group (BIG), a community media arts center in Brookline, in 2015. Each year, Crowdsourced Cinema recruits about 40 filmmaking teams in their community to collaboratively remake a famous film. Their inaugural remake was of the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark, followed by The Princess Bride in 2016, and Back to the Future in 2017. BIG proudly recreated scenes for the first two Crowdsourced Cinema films, yet last year, with Northampton’s encouragement and help from several community media centers and teams from the greater Boston area, they launched their own offshoot project, called Crowdsourced Boston, and created a separate, full-length crowdsourced version of Back to the Future.

How it works

Each team who signs up for this project gets a scene from the film to creatively interpret their scene in their own manner. Last year teams used live action, animation, remix, foreign languages, puppetry, silent film, and other visual styles. The only rules are that teams must follow the same action, dialogue, and total running time of their short scene without using copyrighted images or audio. Musicians are also invited to participate in creating an original score to a randomly-assigned section of the movie. A team could be made up of a family, co-workers, actors, friends, classmates, or any group who wants to create a one-to-four-minute scene of this year’s project, the ‘80s classic, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The final film is then stitched together by BIG and will premiere at the Coolidge Corner Theatre on December 5, and will then be distributed on the web.

“Media Centers are a local hub for creativity and media-making,” says Erin Kinney, Manager of Engagement and Education at BIG. “We want to harness the skill and enthusiasm at these local organizations, build relationships with each other, and ultimately expose more people to this fabulous resource – all while helping people have a fantastic time with their family and friends. We’re excited to see what each team comes up with this year!”

Deadlines

Teams can preview all the available scenes the week before registration opens, and will then be able to sign up for a specific scene starting at 12:00 pm on Wednesday, June 27. The scenes will be allotted to teams on a first-come, first-serve basis. The recreated scenes must contain the same dialogue and action and be the same length as the original. Completed scenes are due on September 15.

For those in the Brookline area who do not want to create their own team, but are interested in acting or joining a crew, they can be a part of the scenes BIG is creating. BIG welcomes production volunteers actors for their scenes. Contact Erin at erin@brooklineinteractive.org to learn more.

Participating organizations so far include Brookline Interactive Group (BIG), Ashland Community Media (WACA), Belmont Media Center, Harbor Media of Hingham, and Easton Community Access Television, with several more preparing to join the effort. Each center is actively recruiting filmmaking teams in their communities to participate, and will even submit their own scenes produced by staff, interns and volunteers.

Crowdsourced Boston invites the Boston regional community to form teams and to recreate a scene from this classic film, and then sign up for a specific scene at:  www.crowdsourcedboston.com.