Film has traditionally been the most inaccessible art form for budding artists. Writers can write with a pen and piece of paper; painters can paint with a canvas and paints; photographers need only a camera. It is skill, not equipment, that most limits budding artists in these media. Filmmakers, however, have faced daunting costs to access filmmaking equipment of any quality. When even such basics as cameras, film stock, lights, and editing equipment are so costly, low budget filmmakers operate within tightly constrained limits. Breakout low-budget hits (such as Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi, or Kevin Smith’s Clerks) are notable largely for their heroic overcoming of such constraints.
The last few years, however, have seen a great increase in the availability of quality equipment to financially-strapped filmmakers. Home video is no longer simply the medium of choice for “funny” videos of small children falling over: the advent of digital video means that home equipment is now capable of producing polished films. A decent home computer, using free or inexpensive software, can be used for sophisticated editing and sound mixing. The cameras themselves get better all the time, and advanced features such as high definition video and widescreen format will increasingly be available in entry-level consumer equipment. Having completed a film, a typical computer can be used to burn a DVD complete with menus and scene selection. Superficially at least, it is the ultimate democratisation of filmmaking.
These thoughts were prompted by an email I received from Todd and Tim Wynn, sibling filmmakers from Florida, offering me the chance to review their film Very_Little_Time. It was part of an email campaign to gather critical backing to help get the film shown in festivals. (Presumably, when they harvested my address, they had not realised that Cinephobia was the very bottom of the internet.) They wrote and shot the film entirely unaided, using a home video camera, editing the film and burning it to DVD on a home computer. There was no crew other than the brothers, and no budget. Their website proclaims the film as a “stunning masterpiece,” while the back cover of the DVD that they ultimately sent me called it a “landmark in the history of true independent movies.”
It isn’t. Very_Little_Time is impressive given the resources that they had available to them, but is difficult to take seriously as a film in its own right: it is a telling demonstration of the gulf in quality that lies between a really good home video and even the crappiest of independent movies. While the Wynns have a decent eye for shot composition, the pacing of the film is lackadaisical at best, and they appear to have become confused by the mechanics of their own time-travel plot. There is only a single performance in the film (by Tim Wynn), and it’s a bad one, hinging on an obviously phony Australian accent.
What interested me about it, however, was that it was an example of the kind of filmmaking that is exploding now that filmmaking technology is so available. Its flaws, and the obstacles facing its makers, are instructive about the landscape of independent filmmaking. The Wynns admit to having emailed a hundred or more critics and websites, but have found it difficult to gain entry to film festivals. “They’re not looking for two people from out of nowhere who made a movie for no money,” they acknowledge. “The films that are selected are multi-million dollar releases from major production companies, made by large crews, starring well known actors, directed and produced by famous industry insiders.” It is the latest corruption of the term “independent film.” The brothers complain of losing festival places to films directed by Steve Buscemi, Martin Landau, and Hank Azaria. “How,” they ask, “are these people independent?”
But this is the problem: when anyone can make a film, how can the exhibition channels – including specialist outlets such as festivals – possibly get to grips with the volume of material produced by amateurs such as the Wynns? Whenever I peruse a program for a film festival of any size, I am always impressed by the bewildering diversity of world cinema: but those are just the films that get selected. Now that backyard auteurs like the Wynn brothers can make a film, spare a thought for those who have to act as the gatekeepers for the rest of us: distributors, exhibitors, festival directors, production executives… I don’t expect anyone to weep for these people, but there are a lot of DVDs hitting their desks these days.
Which brings us to the ugly truth about the supposed democratisation of the film industry: the industry needs it to be hard to get in. When so many people want to be filmmakers, it is the difficulty of actually making movies that acts – or at least, used to act – as the first filter thinning out possible new talent. Before the digital revolution, those considering what films to distribute could rely on the friction of production thwarting all but the most persistent, a Darwinian process that hopefully left them to sort through only the most talented and determined few. The availability of new filmmaking equipment means that this filter is no longer the obstacle it once was.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the floodgates open and we, the public, are bombarded with new and diverse independent cinema. Instead, a new status quo is established, and this is where prospective filmmakers such as the Wynns hit trouble. The moment when anyone can produce a professional looking DVD is the moment where such a DVD ceases to establish your credentials. I have a hunch we might see traditional formats (16mm and 35mm film) linger in the independent scene for some time, as the very cost and difficulty associated with producing a film in those formats carries its own inherent value as a proof of serious intent.
For the same reasons, the digital revolution might not see the kind of aesthetic transformation we might at first expect. True zero-budget filmmaking might be expected to focus on intimate character studies, and to utilise chaste aesthetics along the lines adopted by the “dogme” movement. But as filmmakers struggle to distinguish their productions, it will continue to be the innovative aping of higher budget techniques that makes films stand out. Kevin Smith’s Clerks – a simple, script-driven film shot in black and white with amateur actors that achieved wide distribution – already seems like an aberration. The next generation of independent filmmakers will, I suspect, go much more down the path of Robert Redriguez’s El Mariachi: faking higher budgets than they really have. A change to the technology of production can never make it easier for filmmakers: there is still only room for so many films. All the increasing ease of production can do is raise the bar for production quality at the bottom end of the market.
The clear precedent for the digital filmmaking boom is the rise of the internet. Like digital cinema, the internet was supposed to give us all the means to make our voices heard, the ultimate in accessible, easy publishing. Yet we haven’t all become media barons. A medium in which anyone can publish is a medium in which publication impresses nobody: books, newspapers and magazines remain privileged outlets because it is harder to get material printed. Yet the internet isn’t an exact analogy for digital film, because unlike digital film, it can create new exhibition opportunities. The internet doesn’t just allow more people to produce (by making the publication and global distribution of content easier than ever before): it has also created new ways for the content to be read. We browse internet articles on our lunch breaks, forward them to each other, subscribe to mailing lists, engage in web-based arguments with content creators, and so on.
If there is to be a true film revolution, it won’t be because of a production advance like digital filmmaking: it will only come about because of a comparable advance in exhibition that allows filmmakers direct access to new and enlarged audiences. The internet is already playing part of that role, especially for forms such as animation that are suited to the technology (think of the Bush and Kerry “This Land” video that flew around inboxes last year). It has two enormous limitations, however. Firstly, bandwidth: most people struggle to download movies of more than a few minutes in length. And secondly, payment: how does the creator prevent unpaid redistribution of their content? Legitimate internet distribution is currently hampered by these limitations: despite the hype about video-on-demand, the most widespread form of internet distribution is probably still joke shorts exchanged via email. At the moment, the truly democratising digital advances have hit production, but not exhibition, leaving an expanded pool of filmmakers trying to squeeze into a distribution structure that hasn’t yet expanded correspondingly.
And this is where the Wynn brothers come back in. While we wait for the inevitable arrival of online movie services that are equivalent to existing online music services, amateur filmmakers like the Wynns are left awkwardly trying to fill the gap. Sending emails to alert people to a website, then accepting online payments and posting out DVDs: it’s a half-realised form of the digital future that is obviously not too far away. Once filmmakers can sell directly to audiences, then the digital democratisation of cinema will be complete.
Once that happens, the challenge for filmmakers will not be distribution: it will simply be finding their audiences. And the challenge for audiences will be finding the good stuff. How much undiscovered talent is out there? Perhaps the opening of the digital floodgates will herald a new golden age as previously unappreciated filmmakers finally get to make and sell their films. Or, alternatively, audiences might find themselves in the position of the current cultural gatekeepers, having to fend off wave after wave of aspiring filmmakers marketing their wares. Direct sales can only lead to direct marketing, and the time can’t be far away where the average film buff’s inbox is cluttered with junk email: scams, dating, pharmaceuticals, porn, viagra… and independent cinema.