Twittamentary: Crowdsourcing a project

• Main Author: NETZLEY, Michael A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2011
• Subjects: Social media; crowdsourcing; Singapore; film; documentary; Twitter; Asian Studies; Communication Technology and New Media; Film and Media Studies; Social Media
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/8; https://cmp.smu.edu.sg/case/3271
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Tan Siok Siok, a Singaporean filmmaker living in Beijing, decided to make a documentary about Twitter using Twitter to source for the film’s content. Twitter, sometimes called a microblog, is essentially a short messaging service over the Internet. Rather than make this film using classic and highly centralized methods, Tan decided to crowdsource the content, financing, and distribution outlets. Crowdsourcing, according to Jeff Howe, is “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.” The Twittamentary website was launched in August 2009 with the invitation to, “Share a great story that answers the question: what is the most interesting thing that happened to you because of Twitter?” The project began with no clear vision of the final story, the source of the financing, or the cinemas or the auditoriums the film would be played in. If successful, all the pieces of this puzzle would come together as Twitter users from around the globe volunteered their stories and the needed resources.If successful, this experiment in filmmaking might change filmmaking by offering artists an alternate path around development hell.