Big news - my feature documentary Bush League is now streaming in several places. It’s available on Amazon Instant video and you can also watch it free (in its entirety) on the Bush League page. Or you can go directly to the film on Vimeo or Youtube. If you like it please share it, like it, tweet it and pin it. It’s a project I’ve put years of work into so I hope it resonates with you.
One of the most important details on the new Bush League page is a Creative Commons tab under the video. I decided to license the film with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC 3.0) license. What it means is that anyone can download the film and remix it, reuse it and share it without my permission as long as it’s not-for-profit. Many films like Bush League get trapped in distribution channels because the makers have to get a financial return to recoup their costs but I’m not concerned about that. I made the film to be seen and shared. Licensing it in this way broadens the possibilities and expands the life and reach of the film. Or so I hope. If you use the material in something new or you’re a remix artist I’d love to see what you do with it. I hope there's value in the film that I haven't seen or can't draw out that perhaps you can.
The new Bush League page also uses HTML5 to make the viewing experience more dynamic. You can view the film straight through or click one of the Character or Theme buttons and the video will jump to those preselected sections. I use a lot of video when I teach film and photography and I wanted to make it possible for other teachers to use the material in a more convenient way. The running times of each section are:
Jacklyn - 9 minutes
Mlawa - 16 minutes
Chatwa - 12 minutes
Jake - 30 minutes
HIV/AIDS - 19 minutes
Agriculture - 9 minutes
Gender Inequality - 14 minutes
Peace Corps - 16 minutes
Soccer - 11 minutes
Clouds - 3 minutes
Finally, you’ll also notice the Audience Videos on the bottom left of the Bush League page. These are videos of different audiences greeting the people back in Malawi. No one in Malawi has seen Bush League yet and the people in the film have no idea who is seeing them so I started shooting these short clips of audiences at the film screenings. I will go back to Malawi (hopefully summer of 2013) to show them the finished film and I’ll also take the audience videos to show them where and to whom their stories are being told. If you watch the film I’d love to have a clip of you saying hello or yewo (thanks in Chitumbuka) back to the people you saw in the film. Upload your video - Vimeo is the easiest for me to download from but Youtube will work as well – then send a link to cysfilm@gmail.com and I’ll add your video.