The Cosmonaut

CROWDFUNDING	CREATIVE COMMONS	TRANSPARENCY
The Cosmonaut is the first Spanish movie that allows you to become a producer. Crowdfunding means that we all fund the movie. Starting form 2€ you can become a producer of our film, receiving a welcome-pack in exchange, your producer certificate, a participation for the draw of a real cosmonaut spacesuit and your name will appear in the credits. Read Crowdfounding FAQs	The entire project and content of the movie will be licensed under the Creative Commons License: the rights belong to everybody; you can distribute the movie, copy it, remix it, edit it again or use any of its material as you wish - for free. And we will release it online, free of charge and in HD. Read Creative Commons FAQs	We'll keep you updated day by day regarding the progress of the movie. Our business model is also yours. No secrets. Read Transparency FAQs

CROWDFUNDING FAQs

How does Crowdfunding work?

Its very simple: we offer you a series of specially designed items related to the movie we want to produce. You decide what amount you wish to invest to take part in the movie and you'll receive an amount in proportion of your investment.

Basically, it works like a conventional store but, whenever you buy something here, you are helping us to make this production happen, so you become a producer of the movie.

Are you planning to get all the money just through crowdfunding?

No. We have planned 4 channels:

Crowdfunding. From 2 euros, anyone can become a producer in this film. In exchange, this person will receive presents and other benefits.

Capitalization.The people and companies involved in the team are also investors. They contribute, the equivalent to their salaries or resources and, in exchange, they receive in exchange a proportional percentage based on the total budget.

Advertising and sponsorship.We are looking for companies which want to join their name and brand to our project as sponsors; with a careful presence through the different stages of the film. Always from a non-invasive, non-annoying approach.

Investors.Instead of getting gifts and special offers, you can invest in a percentage of the film. From €1000 and with a joint venture agreement, they can receive part of the benefits the project may produce. (Ask how at hello@elcosmonauta.es).

Do you think this is a viable model?

Yes. We propose a hyper-horizontal production structure which makes this possible. We are also going to offer a carefully planned merchandising for those people who want to become producers and who may want to support the film once it's finished because they like it: ranging from the typical t-shirts to different original products, on sale for a reasonable price and tastefully designed.

But, does all of this work?

Forbes magazine talks about this model as 'a revolution that can change the world'. TIME dedicates entire features to this. WIRED, Wall St. Journal, Reuters, Variety... and in our country, EP3, El Mundo, El País, AND... They all celebrate the birth of this model. In American independent cinema, Crowdfunding is 'the next big thing'.

Indiegogo.com, which embodies the Crowdfunding movement, has taken in, after operating for a few months, hundreds of feature film, short film and short feature film projects, from which dozens have obtained full funding (like Iraq For Sale, with a budget of $300,000).

If there's something that we can't deny it's that in the near future, everybody will have the word 'crowdfunding' on their lips.

How are benefits generated?

Stage 1: the investment needed to record the movie (450.000€), will be obtained just before the beginning of the shooting in 3 different ways: crowdfunding, investors, Capitalization of the salary from both the technical and the artistic crews, which will be paid a posteriori (later), once the money is collected through sponsorship, this makes the whole amount available before we start shooting and the debt consequently paid off at that moment.

Stage 2: Once the initial investment is covered, the following ways will implemented in order to receive the benefits:

1. State-funding and other types of funding from cultural institutions

2. Awards from both nacional and international film festivals.

3. Possible exhibition screens (cinema, TV, Internet) taking into consideration the open Creative Commons Licences.

4. Merchandising related to the movie, specially designed in collaboration with the producers community through different participation calls..

5. DVD sale and other formats, adding an additional value to the product that will be offered free of charge and online thanks to the specially designed case, extra information, better image quality and limited editions as, por example, specific copies signed by a real Russian cosmonaut.

6. Sale of educational material which share the implemented model, as for instance a specially edited book about the creation process of the movie or CDs with a compilation of the music obtained from the music-calls or the related soundtrack.

CREATIVE COMMONS FAQs

The movie is yours. All the material for the project is licensed under Creative Commons. Including the movie, which will mark the end of this adventure.

What are Creative Commons licenses?

Creative Commons is simply a label born to inform users about the rights an author wants to implement on his/her work. Copyright limits all use rights. Creative commons release them.

This way, there are several types of licences which allow, from a nearly closed one (similar to copyright) to others completely open in which the works of the author can be used in anyway (you can even sell it and obtain benefits without giving a cent to the author).

And which type of license are you going to use?

Attribution/Share Alike

You can take any of the contents related to the film and copy them, distribute them or even sell them and benefit economically from them (although we'd rather you share a part of the benefits with us :P), as long as you quote us as the authors of the original contents. And also we believe this is unprecedented in this country's film industry , remix them to create a derived product. Of course, our name must always be mentioned.

All the project's material will be available for you on the Internet.

• The film in HD.
• All the footage.
• Music and original audiomix.
• Graphics and designs used in the website and dossier.
• Original texts and derived ones.
• Works from artists who have transferred them for their use: poems inspired on the film, alternative soundtracks, sounds, graphics...

We invite you to copy us, so that you create derived work from ours, feel free to use our ideas and then send us your piece of work so that we can share it too.

Why Creative Commons?

In a global communication society like ours is, where digital copies have no economic cost and innumerable possibilities open to the Arts and their development, we find it's obsolete to limit all the rights of a piece of work. We believe that if benefits are produced by tangible things and not by ideas, then ideas have to be free.

Derived Works

The pieces that you generate taking ours as starting-material might help other users to generate their own.

Imagine: you create a soundtrack and then share it with us. Then we upload it and another user decides that it is exactly the music he needs for a small video he is editing... and so this starts a neverending collaborative chain.

There's also the possibility that we love your music and we decide to include it in the original version of "The Cosmonaut".

Thinking about this, we decided to open several calls for specific material - we'll be waiting for your collaboration.

Open calls

The regular open calls for material, excluding specific contexts, include::

• music (we would like to generate an audio CD containing pieces "inspired by the script" as well as alternative soundtracks which, once the movie is filmed, might work better than the original music).
• images (teaser poster, concept art and design)
• video (teasers, sequel and prequel, parody, different movies that use the script partially or where one explores the movie's universe...).
• texts (you have the chance to suggest scenes for the part of the movie known as the "character's dreams" and, should we like the suggestion, we'll include them in the film. Send us short-stories that might expand the film horizon...)

Do not hesitate and send us your work because if we select them, you'll be awarded!

More info in the Open-Calls section.

Attribution

Our Licence Attribution/Share alike

1. Giving us credit as the inspiration of your work.

   The way we would like you to give us credit is including this sentence: "Derived work: www.thecosmonaut.org".

   (Should it be a video, then a slide at the beginning or at the end, but always before using any other slide. If its a picture or text, wherever you think best. If it's music, then remember to include a label when generating the file, and do not forget to mention that your work is derived from The Cosmonaut whenever you present it!).

2. Licencing your work as Creative Commons too, with the licence you choose, but always allowing others to create "derived work" and "share alike" possibilities.

   If you visit Creative Commons Website, you'll be able to download buttons and icons in many different shapes and formats to inform about your Licence.

   The ones referring to a derived work should combine elements like CC (Creative Commons User) + BY (compulsory attribution signs) + SHA (ShareAlike: compulsory signs to identify the derived work as Creative Commons too, forcing them to attribute you as the auther, and us as the source... and allowing new derived work to be generated).

From that point you choose if your work will be freely distributed or if you prefer a commercial distribution instead.

Commercial Use

Obviously you might want to commercialize your derived work, since the only restrictions and limitations are to credit us and to maintain our same licence.

Please be aware that since your derived work will also form part of Creative Commons, it might be copied, edited and re-distributed by third parties withouth having to ask for your permission or sharing any benefit with you, but always having to give you credit for it, forcing others to do the same.

As you will observe, this licence contributes to increase free distribution of a piece of work (they only need to quote you and us as authors) and its virality (any future distribution, or new derived work should maintain the licence that guarantees the creation of a kind of "creative commons chain").

Originality

What if you create some derived work, you send it to a contest or festival (just like our Open-Calls) or you sell it... and another person uses it as a starting point for his/her work? Originality brings rewards. Always. With or without open licences. We can only promise, from our side, that regarding any of our open-calls we will always appreciate and value the originality of your work. Promised!

The "Original Version"

The "Original Version" will be the first version to be screened and the one edited on behalf of RiotCinema team on DVD will be distributed on-line and sent to festivals worldwide. But that will not be the last one... neither the best one. Who knows what could happen? Welcome to the adventure of derived work! ;-)

INFORMATION TRANSPARENCY FAQs

We want all movements to be clear, transparent, no question marks. We want you to consider us a trustworthy company, not because we say so, but because you can observe it.

That's why we have established the following lines of action:.

Information transparency:

We tell let you know about all our ideas for the project, in full detail. The way we plan to do things. How we plan to sell them to you. What we want you to buy and how we want you to buy it - and what we offer in exchange.

Economic transparency:

We tell you how much the film will cost. What we are going to invest in every euro we can get. And we'll constantly let you know about the state of our accounts, so that you are totally aware of what is being done with your investment.

Other matters

Will it be a Spanish Film?

Spanish Production. Yes. But our team is formed by people from all over the world and the language in which the movie will be shot is Russian, so it will be internationally screened.

We've planned to provide subtitles in multiple languages.

Will the cast be composed by celebrities?

No. Due to the working method of the Director and the aestetics of the project, we've consciously decided that we'd prefer to work with unknown actors in order not to lose the credibility of the story.

¿How did you manage to get support from the Russian SpaceAgency and cosmonauts Richard Stallman & Artemyev or even Joan Fontcuberta?

With the nerve, a solid project... and bearing in mind that we wouldn't lose anything just for asking!

It would be modest to say that we also received many negative answers but to be honest we've accomplished almost everything we planned!