|
|
 |
 |
| Author: |  Andy Wilman |
| Feature Title: | Keeping it Reel #1 - Digital Filmmaking |
| Date: |
Sunday May 23 2004 |
|
 |
#1 - Digital Filmmaking
Film: A Great Industry to be in. If You're Rich.
For anyone with serious aspirations of being a moviemaker, getting a decent distribution deal across a number of cinemas (preferably on an international scale) is absolutely essential to a film's success.
But traditionally, access to the film industry has been limited to a very exclusive and closed group of filmmakers. Only those with the financial backing of a major movie studio can afford to hire the equipment required to shoot and light the movie. And then there's the cost of the crew, the actors, editing and processing the film, distribution, marketing, publicity - you get the picture (pun intended).
Since only the best filmmakers are afforded such financial backing, access to the film industry (in any country) is very limited, and therefore, inherently undemocratic. And I don't like that, so I'm going to explain how technology is changing this unfortunate situation, which is enabling people like you and me to get widespread exposure for our movie masterpieces.
One of the biggest limitations for aspiring movie directors has always been access to quality photographic equipment. Although the introduction of the consumer-grade camcorder in the late '70s heralded the advent of cheap moviemaking for everyone by moving away from costly celluloid film, analogue videotape has always been very limited in its reproduction quality. While VHS, VHS-C, 8mm, and Hi-8 may be perfectly adequate for playing back your masterpiece on an ordinary television in front of your family, it's nowhere near good enough for cinematic projection.
DV: The Independent Filmmaker's Saviour?
The introduction of the DV (Digital Video) format in 1995 (and shortly after that, Mini-DV) brought about a significant leap in quality to consumer and prosumer camcorders. Now, anyone with a few hundred dollars to spare can buy a camcorder capable of recording near-DVD quality footage and CD quality sound in a very compact and accessible format. This, combined with a reasonably specified PC with the relevant software, enables anyone to edit and master their movie onto DVD in near-broadcast quality.
While this is fine for distributing your movies to friends and, if you're feeling lucky, potential movie studios and distributors for demo purposes, it still isn't quite good enough for the holy grail of cinema exhibition (unless you happen to be a bit of a genius with lighting and have turned out a particularly pristine DV-to-film transfer). The technicalities of this are beyond the scope of this feature, but in basic terms, electronic images shot on a standard camcorder look great on a 28? or similar TV, but when they're transferred to film and then projected 20 feet high, they suddenly don't look quite so sharp. Think of trying to watch a movie with a pair of stockings over your head, and you'll get a rough idea of what VHS-quality footage looks like on a cinema screen. So what's needed is a consumer-level format that is good enough to be transferred to film and displayed on a large cinema screen. This is where HDTV comes in.
HDTV: A New Era Has Arrived
HDTV (High-Definition Television) does exactly what it says on the tin - it gives you high-definition images. In technical terms, it is capable of resolving 1080 lines of resolution - twice as many as DVD. What this means in real terms is that footage shot on an HDTV camcorder contains twice as much detail as the same footage shot on a standard DV or Mini-DV format camcorder. In short, a film shot in HDTV will look great when transferred to film and projected on a cinema screen. Nice.
Up until a year or two ago, an HDTV camera would set you back the best part of $50,000. Now, the same technology can be had for around $2000. Now that's what I call progress! JVC and Sony are both currently offering consumer and prosumer level HDTV camcorders that record onto cheap and highly available Mini-DV tapes.
If you can shoot your entire movie on cheap Mini-DV tapes and get it mastered and edited using a PC, your only remaining costs are the transfer to a celluloid master and the processing of the film. You're then in a position to bypass the movie studios altogether, enabling you to concentrate on getting that all-important distribution deal. Don't worry about the marketing at this stage; films such as The Blair Witch Project have achieved great success off the back of a low-budget Internet-only marketing campaign.
Problem is, getting a distribution deal is easier said than done. It's a bit like trying to get a Top-40 single without a record deal. Persuading a distributor to exhibit your film in cinemas up and down the country without the backing of a major movie studio or some very serious cash is nearly impossible. But thankfully technology is coming to give you a helping hand again, this time in the form of digital projection.
Digital Projection: I've Seen the Future - and it Works!
Currently, films are distributed to the cinemas on expensive reels of celluloid film and then projected onto the screen using large, expensive, and cumbersome film projectors. This means two things for the small-time moviemaker: (1) it's expensive to get your film distributed on traditional film, and (2) only big cinema-recognized distributors have access to the cinema chains. However, over the next ten years or so, cinemas the world over will be moving over to a whole new way of projecting movies. Digital projection.
This involves a whole new way of exhibiting films in the cinema. Instead of projecting expensive film reels, cinemas will be able to project any digital video source. What this means for the independent filmmaker is that it will be cost-effective for cinemas to show one-off and limited run movies - the kind that you make with your cheap HDTV camcorder.
What I'm suggesting here is a whole new "movie democracy" where cinemas all over the world show the films of independent moviemakers who cannot afford to have their movie distributed on film, but can afford to send it to the cinema on a DVD disc or even over the Internet. Of course, any movies shown in the cinema will still be subject to regional/national censorship and certification laws, but removing film from the equation reduces the cost of moviemaking considerably, and does away with the need for a costly distribution deal. Cinema will never be the same again.
In Conclusion: Now Everyone's a Feckin' Spielberg!
Looking into the future, technology is opening-up access to the film industry in a big way. The combination of HDTV, digital projection, and PC-based editing systems is bringing the art of moviemaking to the masses in a similar way that the cine camera brought the world of moviemaking to the average family back in the '60s. In the future, the industry won't be limited to your Spielbergs and Ridley Scotts. It'll only be limited to the number of mates you can get to act for free in your low-budget horror flick Zombies at Dawn. So start saving now for that HDTV camcorder, and then go make a film that's worthy of a review on the Movie Compound! |
|
|
|
