Brain Pickings

Collaborative Creation: PSST!

Transcending the ego, or why the future of storytelling is in its past.

Collaborative authorship in motion arts is something we’ve spotlighted before as a cultural trend gaining increasingly more traction — from a fan-made, feature-length Lord of The Rings prequel to a superb animated 3D short film.

Enter PSST! — a collaborative film project of 17 brilliantly produced films by 51 teams of designers, directors, animators and composers. Every film is comprised of three sections — beginning, middle and end — each produced by three different teams.

This process is the whole idea behind PSST! — a technique derived from the Dadaist game of Exquisite Corpse and the children’s game Telephone and applied to the arts of motion graphics, animation and film-making.

The project is an epitome of the cultural shift from ego-based authorship glorifying the individual creator to open creative collaboration harnessing the collective capacity for brilliance. Above all, it’s a beautiful return to the roots of storytelling — the foundation of film and, arguably, all art — as a shared experience.

Founded in 2006, PSST! is organized and curated by animator and designer Bran Dougherty-Johnson.

See all the films on the project’s Vimeo channel and marvel at the beauty of collaborative storytelling.

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