After more than a year of work, we’re proud to finally show our CG film Sintel to the world! You can watch the film online or download it in a variety of formats – on our download hub, you can find streaming links and various download formats up to cinema-scale 2k resolution with 5.1 sound.

Sintel is the most recent venture of the Amsterdam-based Blender Institute, which has been promoting free software and open content for half a decade. Following the success of its predecessors Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny, Sintel is the third “open movie” that has been created by a team of young creative professionals from around the world. Produced by Ton Roosendaal, directed by Colin Levy and written by Esther Wouda, the film tells the tale of a solitary young girl who finds an unlikely companion in the streets of her inhospitable hometown. When the friends are ruthlessly torn apart, she embarks on a desperate journey during which she has to face not only deadly perils, but also come to terms with her real vulnerabilities.

I’ve been responsible for both the musical scoring and the rest of the audio work – i.e. sound design, foley, dialogue editing, and 5.1 mixing – of Sintel. To go with the epic fantasy setting, I’ve written a sweeping, late-romantic orchestral score, which is going to be released under a Creative Commons license on this site soon.

Each of us has put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the production of this film; it has been an inspiring, exhilarating, and exhausting ride from start to finish. I thoroughly enjoyed working with a wonderful team of creative, inspired artists, and I sincerely hope you’ll get just as much enjoyment from watching the movie.

This week the CG short film Sintel, on which I’ve been responsible for the music and sound, will be released to the public. Last Monday, the production team gathered in Utrecht, NL, where Sintel was shown to an audience of 450 people in the sold-out Pathé Rembrandt theatre. The event was part of the Netherlands Film Festival proceedings; the NFF is the largest film festival in the Netherlands.

Photo by Mike Pan

It was an exciting evening! The festival staff was friendly and helpful, the cinema was great, and the audience reaction to our film was overwhelmingly positive. We were all hovering a few centimeters above the ground at the afterparty ;)

If everything goes according to schedule, we will release Sintel to the entire world via our website tomorrow on Thursday, September 30th.