Digital Video magazine — January 2014
Madonna and Steven Klein Produce ‘secretprojectrevolution’
Madonna’s long-anticipated secretprojectrevolution, ushered in with an Instagram post and multi-city launch event, arrived in September with a bang.
A collaboration between Madonna and fashion photographer Steven Klein, the 17-minute film, which opens with the Jean-Luc Godard quote, “All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl,” is a Vogue photo shoot come to life. Shot entirely in black-and-white, the gritty project introduces Art For Freedom, a global initiative that aims to expand freedom of expression.
“My goal is to show by the example of secretprojectrevolution my creative commitment to inspire change in the world through artistic expression,” Madonna said about the project in a statement. “I hope my film and other submissions to Art For Freedom will be a call to action and give people a place to voice their own creative expression to help fight oppression, intolerance and complacency.”
The heavily-teased film, bundled with bonus content including handwritten notes from Madonna and Klein, is available for free download at the Art For Freedom site, where in less than three weeks it was downloaded 1.2 million times. Slickly curated by multimedia company VICE and distributed by technology developer BitTorrent, Art For Freedom is “the first media store by the people, for the people.”
BitTorrent has largely been synonymous with piracy across the media and entertainment landscape, but now the peer-to-peer file sharing company is touting the power of its platform to allow content creators to distribute intellectual property on their own terms to millions of Internet users. The new Art For Freedom site, which features artists as diverse as Linkin Park, The Pixies and Public Enemy, promises a world of content, including music and film exclusives, all free for the taking. “Play what you want. Pay what you want. This site is powered by you. Happy downloading, friends.”
Shot in New York and Buenos Aires using the RED Epic digital cinema camera, secretprojectrevolution is elaborately lit and heavily stylized. A stark set, designed by Klein and lit by cinematographer David Devlin, who has worked with Klein for over 11 years, provides an unembellished backdrop to the pop superstar as she delivers her manifesto.