Two pages in Parool – #1 Amsterdam newspaper

by - 2012/09/22 23 Comments Production

Last week I was interviewed by a very enthusiastic reporter from Parool (weekend edition with 300,000 readers). Today we’re on the front page and a double spread with a lot of backgrounds of the film and Blender.

In the text review I had to tone down the reporter’s enthusiasm a bit, but well – you know, press likes to make things a bit bigger! :) It’s a well written article, fun to read… and good to reach out to so many people here in the city.

-Ton-

  1. ton says:

    Headline on front page says “Amsterdam, capital of animation film”.
    Article headline “Amsterdam destroyed to improve software”.
    Side box headline “Blender is from everyone”.

  2. Congratulations guys, this is really great marketing!

    300.000 people who could crash the servers on Wednesday on their own! :D I hope you have good mirrors. :)

  3. JulianHzg says:

    These are definitely some bold statements in these headlines, but they will definitely grab some people’s attention – so well done!

    What I find interesting is that it’s not published in some culture-related section but in “economie”.

  4. Kirado says:

    Classic headlines those ;-)

  5. Vincent says:

    Great article, manages to outline very well why this whole project and Blender is so great :)

  6. Andreas says:

    i think TOS will be great, like the other open movies as well. is there any chance that the next open movie will be a 90min movie ?
    or would it be too hard to find sponsors for a bigger project?

    • Jogai says:

      It says so in the article. A full length animation film is planned next, to be executed in small teams around the world consisting of 10 to 15 man each.
      I’m already excited about that!

  7. Tycho says:

    Oh God, new BFB (Blender Fan Boys) in perspective …

    :D

    • Big Fan says:

      Terrible, terrible. The worst possible publicity. The last thing the community needs is new fanboys let alone 300,000 of them. This is going to set Jonathans’s ‘Get real, be miserable ‘ campaign back years.

      • Big Fan says:

        Actually I’m worried its all going to get out of hand now that its been in the paper.
        Look what happens when the Dutch get wind of someones birthday party.
        http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19684708

        • Stephen says:

          Come on man, I don’t think that’s fair. Johnathan had some good points in his anti-fanboy article. Being proud of the devs and artists for making a great film and great software is one thing, but blindly defending your software without any reason other than fanaticism is a completely different kettle of fish. That was the point of the article. It didn’t say “stop being proud of blender and its community”. It said “stop being a dick to other software users”. I agree with him that such childish behaviour is holding Blender back a bit. I know if I wanted to learn Maya coming from Blender and all I got was flamed with every mention of the word Blender, it would put me off the Maya community and the software itself.

          • Tycho says:

            Don’t worry, I completly agree : it was just a joke told by an idiot, full of noise and emotional disturbance but devoid of meaning

          • Big Fan says:

            Yeah I was making a joke ;)

          • joeri says:

            “I agree with him that such childish behaviour is holding Blender back a bit.”

            Where’s the prove of that?
            And I don’t mean “hear say”.

  8. J. says:

    Why can’t Buma/Stemra just offer a contract/form you can fill in when you want to compose a royalty-free work without affecting your other work? I understand that this can lead to abuse by producers, but there must be an option, right?

  9. Blendiac says:

    “but well – you know, press likes to make things a bit bigger!”

    So you’re not really planning to subjugate all of “New Amsterdam”, bend the population to your will and use them with your robotic army to take over the world?… Or is my Dutch just a bit off? ;)

    PS Go Blender Open Movies! Woo!

  10. Stephen says:

    Great stuff Ton. Fame! Maybe you could start selling your autograph in the Blender store ;-)

  11. joeri says:

    I see the article ends with:
    “Maybe someday people press a button and a pixar movie rolls out of blender”
    *Sigh*

    • Jeroen Mank says:

      Where? The last sentence that I read in the article translates something like: “Who knows, maybe one day we’ll make a movie that results in a more user friendly version of Blender.