Blender Foundation Movies: A structural mission with substance

People made these animated short films with completely free software on normal computers.  “Elephants Dream” explores the pathological inner complexities of a human psyche; “Big Buck Bunny” demonstrates a warrior’s gentle spirit in the face of ruthless sociopathy; “Sintel” questions our definition of courage and justice in the face of love and loss; “Tears of Steel” (conspicuously absent from the foundation’s list) is kind of stupid; “Caminandes” humorously critiques the controlling, domesticating violence that civilization perpetrates on the wilderness without and within (see http://www.caminandes.com/ for episode 1).

Supposedly, these movies serve primarily as technology demonstrations — proof of concept that free, open-source software (such as Blender, GIMP and Inkscape, among others) and collaborative projects can compete with commoditized solutions.  Proof that we can behave better toward one-another and still make really cool art.  They accomplish this mission through the production of provocative, entertaining, thoughtful and engaging animated masterpieces.

Enjoy!

somewhere, something went terribly wrong

I love the original, sardonic idea of this graphic. I like dark wallpapers, so I found one that had decent size and quality.

Using GIMP (free open source software!), I

• expanded the size to 1280 x 800 pixels for my laptop
• straightened the main image (it was crooked!)
• corrected the text to read, “Somewhere, something went terribly wrong…” (it previously read “Something, somewhere went terribly wrong” which rubbed me the wrong way)
• I also added a little bit of a point to the spear and broom bristles (I think it used to be a rake)

Somewhere, something went terribly wrong