Many people who deal with any form of the visual arts keep their creations close to their chest. Unless you are one for collaborating projects, you typically do work on your own and keep it your own.

Colin has released the very first open source demo reel

Unless that is if you are an instructor. A real educator will share transparently anything in the name of learning.

This is the case with Colin Evoy Sebestyen who is well known in the motion graphics community for his stunning work and equally stunning clever techniques.

Colin also happens to be an instructor. So when it came time to update his demo reel, Colin chose to not only throw together new pieces but also to share every little thing that made those new pieces. The result is an Open Source Demo Reel.

Open Source Demo Reel?

As far as I know, Colin has released the very first open source demo reel. The open source development model really has two requirements.

The first is to offer universal access int he form of a free license, and the other is to allow for universal redistribution. This redistribution also includes any subsequent improvements to the item by anyone.

So with that definition in mind, you can kind of surmise how difficult it would be for anyone in the visual arts who has poured not only countless hours of demanding labour, but their souls into their work.

Especially if it is meant to be a calling card representation of themselves, as a demo reel is.

Motivation Behind an Open Source Demo Reel

Colin has been invested in his role as an instructor to the point where he hasn’t had the opportunity to take on any client work. And having no client work diminishes the opportunity for sharing techniques and workflows with the community. Having an ope source demo reel was a way that Colin felt that he could still give back and contribute.

Colin went through and stripped out all branding and logos and all commercial work in general, and only cut in projects that he owns the complete rights to. It took an irrecoverable hard disk crash to have Colin realize that having the vast majority of so called valuable source files sitting around in a basement doesn’t do anyone a lot of good.

Hard Disk crashes like that seem like the end of the world, but after a day or so, you don’t really miss the files that much. Colin puts it “Just as a painting you may own does you no good sitting in your basement unseen, your source files don’t do much backed up on a hard drive”

How Many Projects are There?

Colin lists eight major projects represented in the demo reel. All are presented with clean and useful project files, not including the work in the reel itself. There are about 30 small projects that make up the intro and outro components. All together there are 647 items total. This includes the things like elements that are source art and texture files. It’s about 4GB of just project files.

Can I use the files for my commercial project?

Colin’s intent is that people can use these files as a learning resource. Colin mentions that you are free to use the project files in your personal or commercial projects, but he is expressly against reselling, repackaging, repurposing, or breaking apart the package in any way.

If you use the files, please credit or provide a link to www.movecraft.com in some way. When in doubt, email [email protected] There is a bit more legal included with the files, but essentially they are provided “As-Is”.

You can follow Colin on twitter: @colin_movecraft or on Facebook: Facebook.com/movecraftSF to show your support for this project.