'RepRap: the Movie' Documentary by Brook Drumm

We recently say a documentary about 3D printing released on Neflix, which looked at two companies in particular (Formlabs and Makerbot). Makerbot is a company that started out open source and then went "closed source". PrintrBot is another company that launched based on the RepRap movement, back in 2011, under CEO Brook Drumm. Drumm now wants to pay back the RepRap community by launching a crowdfunding campaign for a RepRap based documentary called 'RepRap: the Movie'. He plans to take no profits from it, and donate all proceeds to teaching children about 3D printing. Read and see more about this at: http://3dprint.com/18906/reprap-the-movie-drumm/

What do you think? Would you back this? Would you be interested in watching a documentary about RepRap?

http://3dprint.com/wp-content/upload...brookdrumm.jpg

Drumm now wants to pay back the RepRap community by launching a crowdfunding campaign.

I'm not sure what type of payback he wants if he is on Kickstarter. Sounds like another way to get other people to take the risk.

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Originally Posted by RAMTechRob

Drumm now wants to pay back the RepRap community by launching a crowdfunding campaign.

I'm not sure what type of payback he wants if he is on Kickstarter. Sounds like another way to get other people to take the risk.

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Agreed, bottom line, if he truly wanted to give back he would not be asking for crowd funding.

A documentary can be quite a lot of money. There's a ton of work pulling off a documentary, so just putting in his time could mean a lot of giving back.

Based on some of his comments, I wonder if he's playing it a bit too egalitarian, having everything based on community input. I hope whoever does the production is willing to make "command decisions" to stay on point. Community design of a given project without some kind of central control can look like Homer Simpson's car design, or worse.

I don't understand why he asked if a movie can be "open sourced". I'd think he'd know what Creative Commons is for, it can be applied to every kind of media asset. A custom license can be made, but that's I'd suggest a non-commercial clause, so a separate license can be made for commercial entities, and some of the proceeds of separate commercial licensing can go to fund RepRap.org and such.

I agree, a "good" documentary production will cost quite a bit of money. Knowing a bit about Brook and his company I'm sure that he is being truly genuine. Unlike some successful 3d printer CEOs that I've heard of, Brook has never turned his back on the open source community that contributed to his company's and printers' success. The kickstarter would obviously be non-profit and the film would help educate the public about the open-source maker movement. He is offering his time and expertise to this project and I would have no reservations contributing to this.