This may be a stupid idea... but...
Okay, this is sort of a fantasy, because I haven't the resources or the time to do this, BUT:
My idea was to take an old episode of Star Trek, extract all the sound, and use that to create a brand new production entirely in 3D. The one I'd pick would have been The Doomsday Machine, Galileo 7 or The Enterprise Incident... or maybe Balance of Terror (Mark Leonard's first appearance in Trek... he went on to become the iconic Sarek, but I digress)...
Now, this could conceivably be done by just about anyone with the resources to do it with just about any screen production out there.
The most logical choice would be "It's a Wonderful Life" which has no copyright as it expired. (That's why it's played over and over and over again...)
Extracting all the sound out of it would be a simple thing. Animating it, not so simple and rendering it... that would require a render farm, which I can't afford, so for me to do something like is... well, kinda dumb for me to even try.
But for someone with the gumption and resources to do so: my thinking is if some group of anyone out there who wanted to start up a production studio, that would be the way to prove themselves.
I truly believe all the tools are now in place for this to be done in either DS or Poser or both... It would just take someone with the energy and drive to do it...
On that note: here's a list of movies who's copyright has expired:
http://www.ranker.com/list/free-movies-the-best-films-in-the-public-domain/saintmort
Comments
Not a stupid idea.
I know a few people who have kicked around the idea of doing that.
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The real difficulty (besides the sheer amount of animating work) is getting the infrastructure to get it done.
I'm not sure what you mean by infrastructure...
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I mean infrastructure.
The equipment and the organisational structures you will need to put together a project of that magnitude.
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Anyway, it still seems like a good idea.
Best of luck!
According to Wikipedia,
In 1993, Republic Pictures, which was the successor to NTA, relied on the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Stewart v. Abend (which involved another Stewart film, Rear Window) to enforce its claim to the copyright. While the film's copyright had not been renewed, Republic still owned the original film elements, the music score, and the film rights to "The Greatest Gift"; thus the plaintiffs were able to argue its status as a derivative work of a work still under copyright. It's a Wonderful Life is no longer shown as often on television as it was before enforcement of that derivative copyright. NBC is licensed to show the film on U.S. network television, and traditionally shows it twice during the holidays, with one showing on Christmas Eve. Paramount (via parent company Viacom's 1998 acquisition of Republic's then-parent, Spelling Entertainment) once again has distribution rights for the first time since 1955.
Be careful. Not wise to rely on any one website's claim that something is public domain.
For some of those mentioned on the referred to website: