Idea 391 of 500. Cluster 19: Heritage, archives and film
Photography archives of the island, licensed to the publishers and the film-makers
The mechanism, from the book
Eight World Heritage Sites and 2,300 years of records, and the country's story is told to the world by other people.
Every idea in cluster 19 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Collect 50 photographs of the island, your own or old prints from families, with written permission to license each one. Put them in a simple online catalogue with a price per use, and send the link to five picture editors at publishers or production companies. One licence sold is your proof, and what they search for tells you what to shoot next.
- Who pays first
- A publisher or producer who needs an authentic, properly licensed image of the island and cannot find the right one in the big stock libraries.
- What leaves today
- Images of the island are mostly licensed through foreign agencies; a local archive owns the pictures and earns every time they are used.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
More from cluster 19
- 381A film-location service: crews, permits, fixers and locations, sold to the studios of India and Europe
- 382Documentary production about the island's own stories, sold to the streaming platforms
- 383A museum shop worthy of the museum, at the National Museum, at Anuradhapura, at Galle
- 384Digitisation of the palm-leaf manuscripts and colonial archives as a paid service to the libraries of the world
- 385Architecture tours of Bawa's buildings with the houses opened by their owners
- 386Heritage-building restoration firms with the skills to work on the forts and the villas
Idea 391 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.