Somewhere Inside All of Us is the Power to Make the World
They say big is right and little is wrong, but there’s something we can do about that. Over the summer of 2025 our little community of Northampton is going to remake the classic film Matilda as part of Crowdsourced Cinema Matilda. We only have one summer, but we can do it. After all, you can get everything faster on television.
There’s no budget. At all. And we are the whole crew. There’s no learning, just fun. There are no mistakes. The good news is all we need is inspiration and imagination, and each other. So never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it and make sure everything you do is completely unbelievable. So get your Dahl on, and get your Devito on. It’s Matilda time.
MUSICIAN/COMPOSER SIGN UP HERE
Each team (which is one or more people) signs up to participate in the project and are randomly assigned a one-to-three minute scene from Matilda. They have all summer to remake that scene. That remake can approach the scene in any format and teams are encouraged to be creative – they could be filmed with live action, remix, puppetry, or other visual styles. The scenes are stitched together at the end of the summer, color corrected, audio normalized, and we’ll all get together at the end to celebrate the premiere. We also need to remake the soundtrack for the film, so musicians and composers can sign up to participate in that aspect of the project with or without making a scene.
The Crowdsourced Cinema project now runs in parallel in four geographic regions, run by Northampton Open Media in Western Mass, in Boston led by Brookline Interactive Group as Crowdsourced Boston in Vermont led by the Media Factory as Crowdsourced VT and in Fresno, CA as Crowdsourced Fresno. We’ll all be making our own remakes of Matilda.
CRUNCHUM HALL ORIENTATION GUIDE
April 18, 2025, 5pm Signups Open
May 6, 2025 Scene and Soundtrack Distribution
September 26, 2025 Scenes Due
October 3, 2025 Soundtrack Due
“Creation is an act of bravery,” said Northampton Open Media Executive Director Albert Williams. “The act of making something is an act that exposes your voice. It opens you to judgment. It is intimate. While many people feel the desire to make art, the concept of being an artist is culturally reserved for a privileged group. Part of our role with the project, and with our work at large, is to help people give themselves permission to be brave with us, to identify as an artist, to make something. Crowdsourced Cinema is a playful project, because play is safe. We believe that becoming fluent in arts-like media making makes us more fluent in describing ourselves. We are more thoughtful. We are a stronger community.”
Crowdsourced Cinema is open to anyone in the regional community. Sign up at northamptonopenmedia.org
