TPB AFK

Happy World Day Against Cyber Censorship

simme — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:18:16 +0000

The making of the last scene

simme — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:19:55 +0000

yes, after four years, I shot my last TPB AFK scene at the ACTA-demo in Copenhagen this Saturday. also, it’s now clear that the main character in my film has released more clips about me than I have about him. #fail

Introducing the Linkontrol

simme — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:48:10 +0000

We just built a popcorn remote control to handle the links we’re going to embed into TPB AFK. Yep, you’re gonna get curated links related to the film on your phone while watching it from your sofa.

Building this we actually won the first prize in the super inspiring To Be Done hackathon. Thanks again Petter, Patrik, Kaj and all the great Chinese children at Foxconn for building this revolutionary remote. We call it the linkontrol!

The Pirate Bay court case is over

simme — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:25:19 +0000

The Supreme Court decided not to grant the Pirate Bay founders an appeal leave, which means that the previous verdict of jail sentences and $6.8 million in damages will stand.

It also means that we can start planning the release of TPB AFK.

There is still much work left however. Right now we’re half way through the edit. We hope to have a roughcut ready by summer and do the post production, sound editing and music after that.

Hopefully we can premiere the film on a film festival and on the internet simultaneously, probably sometime late 2012.

Thanks for your patience!

/Simon

Are we first on earth with an html5 remote? TPB AFK Augumentary v0.2

simme — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:15:22 +0000

I have a bipolar relationship to html5 and video.

As a curious film consumer I love the way embedding links into online video can broaden and contextualize – not just documentary storytelling – but all kinds of storytelling. As a filmmaker however, I think links in the middle of a movie frame are a distracting threat to the story as well as to the cinematography.

So. We came up with a way to munch the cake and stash it too. We connected a dual device – your smartphone, tablet or second computer – so you can sit in your sofa and get all the links in your lap – synched to the film you’re watching full screen. That way you can check out the links after or during the film and you won’t have to see them blinking all over that fabulous cliffhanger end scene.

The first part of our Augumentary demo (try it yourself!) was made using popcorn.js by the great team of Henrik, Greg, Nick and the remote controlled part by Jon and David. Also thanks to the entire Mozilla team for putting us together!

oops I filmed the birth of a religion

simme — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:57:28 +0000

Sometimes you shoot a dialogue and you think you’re shooting a joke. Then the footage runs off and becomes reality. The news that The Missionary Church of Kopimism is a registered church of filesharers reached me all the way to my vacation hideout in Bamako. I shot this scene with Tiamo and Brokep in Stockholm in October 2010. Really, this Pirate Bay saga keeps transcending the bizarre.

The first doc I helped crowdfund is a tyrant’s horror flick

simme — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:59:01 +0000

You know the feeling when you support a crowdfunding campaign out of the blue just because it sounds decent and then the flick you backed turns out to be mindbending?

I didn’t until now.

How to Start a Revolution is the first film production I’ve given 30 bucks. The pleasant surprise of having contributed to a strong film on the humble, opressed people’s hero Gene Sharp and his From Dictatorship to Democracy (download pdf) makes my first experience as a backer a wild one.

Congrats Chris K!

simme — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:08:08 +0000

I first met net activist Christopher Kullenberg, filming a TPB AFK scene when he was recording music in the Pirate Bureau’s bus during the Pirate Bay trial in 2009. Last week he was named ‘the Swede of the year’ by the news magazine Fokus. The reason is his work with Telecomix that helped hooking up pro-democracy activists in Egypt with internet infrastructure when Mubarak pulled the plug during the arab spring.

I bumped into Chris K at #net4change last month, where a bunch of bloggers, hackers and human rights folks like Maryam Al-Khawaja (in the video beneath) got together. Here’s a couple of thoughts from the Swede of the Year 2011.

An eye for an iPod

simme — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 02:56:07 +0000

The Augumentary, version 0.1

simme — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:50:49 +0000

We are really stoked to show you our first rough demo of TPB AFK: The Augumentary (using html5 and popcornjs). By embedding links into the documentary the audience can check facts for themselves, connect with people in the film and become part of the documentary themselves.

Press the image below and try out the demo yourself.

- Set your browser to fullscreen (e.g. in Firefox & Chrome Command Shift F)
- Mouse over the links and the video pauses.
- Press a white title to jump to that frame in the clip.
- Press a green URL to take you to the web page in a new tab (the video pauses).
- Switch the Augumentary layer on/off with the +/- in top right corner.

(press image to try the demo!)

Thanks Henrik, Greg, Nick and the entire Mozilla team for making this work!

Some design and bugs to fix, but after two days of coding and brainstorming at Mozillas Media Freedom and the Web-festival, this is as far as we got.

This has crazy potential. Please feedback!

/Simon