Website of the Scenoptica project
This is the official website of Scenoptica, an "open source filmmaking" project with the dual focus of producing thoughtful films, documentaries, lectures, essays, and discussions that also have their reusable source content released for further reuse. All videos are released under a Creative Commons license, usually CC BY (source content) or CC BY-SA (produced works).
I have to note, though, that the videos are not fully open source; things like interviews in documentaries, which might have private portions or interactions, may be not be released or are otherwise released in edited form, while video essays contain a lot of low-value takes that will take up more hard drive space than they're worth. This website, meanwhile, is naturally also open source, and can be forked in accordance with the GPLv3 license.
In keeping with the spirit of the project, we also try to use and promote other open source projects that share our philosophy, including Linux and KDE, Kdenlive, Magic Lantern, Reaper (not truly free/libre but has very helpfully navigated us out of some disasters), and the Internet Archive.
Recent content
The Cats of the Faculty of Biology
A documentary on the cats of Universitas Gadjah's Mada Faculty of Biology, their welfare, their impact on students' mental health, and the people who take care of them.
See also the companion video featuring commentary and analysis:
Mimi Was
An experimental exploration of grief, loss, the agony of death, and agonising monotony. (Content warning: shows blood in black/white.)
Lelly's Ecology Series
Twelve ecology lectures spread out over 14+ hours, with more to come.
On Scenoptica | On All is Found... in Time
Peer Review and Its Many Practical Challenges
An essay on the traditional peer review, its numerous foibles, and how it's undermined by the demands of modern academia. (Yes, it also stars my bunny, Puffball.)
On Scenoptica | YouTube | PeerTube | Internet Archive
Footage
As of February 2023, 86 raw footage files totaling 35:28 raw minutes and 11.431 GB.
Selected footage is also uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
The people behind the project
The project is currently maintained by two people.
Joaquim Baeta
Directing and editing the films; soundwork; uploading and other handling of media; developing and maintaining (etc.) the website.
🦣 @jaybaeta on Mastodon
Lelly Marliana
Producing the films and coordinating production; the entire creation of lectures.
🐦 @LellyBaeta on Twitter
Reporting bugs and contributing
Reporting bugs: If you find something wrong on the website, please open an issue and report it here.
Contributing: Alternatively, if you can fix the error, we'd welcome a pull request! Performing all of the tasks of running a project is hard and every minute spent away from minutiae is one we can spend on more important things.
If you'd like to collaborate with us on something, we'd also love to hear from you. Hopefully we can work something out!
Supporting the project
Scenoptica has no proprietary components. We thus rely on the support and contributions of viewers and reusers. If you want to keep us going, you can support us on these platforms:
Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/Scenoptica/donate
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scenoptica
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/scenoptica
Alternative methods are possible. Please reach out to us if there's another way you could help. If you want to learn about where your support would go, we have a description of these activities here.
Briefly, funds go to: upgrading equipment, paying people who help us with production, maintenance costs, supporting ourselves and about a dozen rescue cats, and finally, community mutual aid in the Yogyakarta (Indonesia) region.