Remix clips from zombie flicks, make new creative work, and win a PRIZE!

IT'S ALL OVER NOW!
Check out the entries...
... and the winners!

What the hell?

Ever wanted to bring something back from the dead? Well, you still can't revive old Fido, but you can bring dead art back to life! Most art doesn't make it into the history books – in fact, it's often seen by only a handful of people before it vanishes into dusty oblivion. [More]

But now, thanks to a growing movement to use Creative Commons licensing and the public domain to keep art available and reusable, it's possible to breathe new life into art that would otherwise be forgotten. Best of all, it's legal!

How the hell?

We're running a supernatural remixing contest and we need your help. Here's how it works:

Step 1: Raise the Dead. Get out your video editing tools and download a slice of George A. Romero's classic 1968 horror flick Night of the Living Dead. Romero's original, idiosyncratic, super-low-budget vision of a broken world filled with animated, cannibalistic corpses has filled the imaginations of moviegoers for decades. Indeed, it's the film that gave birth to an entire genre: the apocalyptic zombie horror movie. [More]

And because it's in the public domain, anyone can borrow pieces of it to make a music video, comic short, or other art. Which is what we want you to do. To really get your creative juices flowing, hook yourself up with another piece of re-mixable art: the 2003 student film "Amid the Dead." [More]

It's available for download here for the first time, under a Creative Commons license that gives you permission to play mad scientist.

Step 2: Go Mad – Invent! Take a piece of Romero, mix it up with some Amid the Dead, and add your own special twist. Use your imagination to build your own new piece of art.

Step 3: Give it a ReBirth Certificate. Tag your new creation with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. It not only lets people feel safe to use your work without having to phone you and a team of lawyers, but it prevents someone else getting their own team of lawyers and turning your work into a big commercial franchise that everyone else has to pay to use.

Step 4: Set it Loose in Public. There are several ways to get your work to us:

Step 5: Alert the Neighbors. Don't forget to tell us how to get a copy. We'll be tracking all of the pieces of art created during this campaign, and starting on Halloween we'll be spotlighting entries. If you walk away with the top prize, you'll get a (lifeless) candy-filled zombie piñata and a brand-spanking new copy of Night of the Living Dead on DVD! The two runners-up will also receive copies of Night of the Living Dead on DVD.

Oh, hell (the rules)

  1. You must use at least one piece from both Amid the Dead and Night of the Living Dead. This could be a video clip, audio clip, still photo, or any other piece of media. If your samples are not recognizable, please include a note when you e-mail us detailing how the clips reached their final state.
  2. All other materials must be either in the public domain or Creative Commons-licensed.
  3. Your entry must be released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
  4. Submissions must be made by November 30, 2004. Submissions will be showcased on this website beginning on Halloween (October 31), and the winner will be announced on December 6.

Why the hell?

Because we know art isn't static - it lives and grows, even long after it's been declared dead. And because we know that all work builds on the past, and that culture is really a kind of conversation. Culture is about constant growth and change, as people comment on and reimagine old myths and stories. Without that spark of life, old creative work becomes as stale and rotten as George Romero's gray-faced goons. So start talking!

Who the hell?

This contest is a project of FreeCulture.org, the international student movement for free culture.

The free culture movement is dedicated to defending a free and open cultural space and protecting public intellectual capital from privatization and exploitation.

We promote a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, in which cultural elements are accessible to all citizens for interpretation and innovation. We see opportunity in technology - opportunity to cultivate this intellectual commons, opportunity to build a culture to support and cultivate the new freedoms of the digital age.