Welcome to a new era in filmmaking
I’ve recently developed an interest in filmmaking.
I’m not talking about fine cinema, you know, the artsy-subtitled crap you‘d have to have a degree in philosophy to understand or the sort of drivel you’d have to own a beret to appreciate.
No sir, I’m talking about good movies, movies made with liberal doses of the three Ms, the essentials any good movie should have: machineguns, monsters and mayhem.
About two-and-a-half months ago I picked up a little handheld video camera for about a hundred bucks. Not long after I started using it with a buddy and made a three-minute piece of crap zombie movie. As simplistic as it was (and believe me it was) parts of it were actually pretty scary. I was hooked.
Almost every free moment since I’ve had my nose in a book about filmmaking, lighting, scriptwriting, visual effects, you name it. If it had something to do with making movies, I was reading it.
My first camera, barely out of the box, has since been upgraded with a far-from-new but still pretty-close-to-top-of-the-line broadcast-quality digital video camera. I’ve also bought a year’s membership to the local filmmaker’s co-op. A membership buys you access to equipment as well as like-minded people and can be worth its weight in gold.
Add a few nice cars (borrowed), some computer-generated explosions (bought) and half-a-dozen-or-so guys who don’t mind getting muddy, bloody (fake blood of course, just corn syrup and food colouring) thrown through a window or chased through the woods by a guy dressed up as a werewolf and you’ve got the foundation for a not-so-bad, second-rate monster movie with minimal plot and a whole lot of action.
Not only am I having a lot of fun, but I stumbled quite by accident into the very early days of a new era in the filmmaking industry. Never before in the history of the business was top-notch yet affordable equipment so readily available to the average person on the street.
The only limit to producing a decent film now is your imagination. Nowadays, with a minimal investment in equipment, software and a few friends working for pizza and pop, you can make movies that, while not as slick as a $140 million Hollywood flick, will probably be 10 times as original as most of the refuse they’ve been tossing out lately.
Just look at some recent blockbusters.
The Honeymooners. The Dukes of Hazzard. Miami Vice. Decent TV shows from days gone by, now finally sucked dry by the Hollywood machine and regurgitated into sleek, shiny, soulless movie trash.
I think the Hollywood system is just about dead and none too soon I might add. But while Hollywood continues to sink lower and lower, ordinary folks with inexpensive digital gear are making professional quality movies all over the globe.
And nowadays, you don’t have to beg some slick guy in a silk suit to give you five minutes to talk about your movie anymore. In this day and age, you can make your movie on a top-notch camera you can buy for less than a grand, do the editing on your home computer and premiere it on a video-sharing website like youtube.com or make and distribute you own DVD if you please and if you do a good enough job, the guy in the silk suit will be begging to talk to you.
We’re the bosses, now. The playing field is more level than it’s ever been.
See you on the big screen.
I’m not talking about fine cinema, you know, the artsy-subtitled crap you‘d have to have a degree in philosophy to understand or the sort of drivel you’d have to own a beret to appreciate.
No sir, I’m talking about good movies, movies made with liberal doses of the three Ms, the essentials any good movie should have: machineguns, monsters and mayhem.
About two-and-a-half months ago I picked up a little handheld video camera for about a hundred bucks. Not long after I started using it with a buddy and made a three-minute piece of crap zombie movie. As simplistic as it was (and believe me it was) parts of it were actually pretty scary. I was hooked.
Almost every free moment since I’ve had my nose in a book about filmmaking, lighting, scriptwriting, visual effects, you name it. If it had something to do with making movies, I was reading it.
My first camera, barely out of the box, has since been upgraded with a far-from-new but still pretty-close-to-top-of-the-line broadcast-quality digital video camera. I’ve also bought a year’s membership to the local filmmaker’s co-op. A membership buys you access to equipment as well as like-minded people and can be worth its weight in gold.
Add a few nice cars (borrowed), some computer-generated explosions (bought) and half-a-dozen-or-so guys who don’t mind getting muddy, bloody (fake blood of course, just corn syrup and food colouring) thrown through a window or chased through the woods by a guy dressed up as a werewolf and you’ve got the foundation for a not-so-bad, second-rate monster movie with minimal plot and a whole lot of action.
Not only am I having a lot of fun, but I stumbled quite by accident into the very early days of a new era in the filmmaking industry. Never before in the history of the business was top-notch yet affordable equipment so readily available to the average person on the street.
The only limit to producing a decent film now is your imagination. Nowadays, with a minimal investment in equipment, software and a few friends working for pizza and pop, you can make movies that, while not as slick as a $140 million Hollywood flick, will probably be 10 times as original as most of the refuse they’ve been tossing out lately.
Just look at some recent blockbusters.
The Honeymooners. The Dukes of Hazzard. Miami Vice. Decent TV shows from days gone by, now finally sucked dry by the Hollywood machine and regurgitated into sleek, shiny, soulless movie trash.
I think the Hollywood system is just about dead and none too soon I might add. But while Hollywood continues to sink lower and lower, ordinary folks with inexpensive digital gear are making professional quality movies all over the globe.
And nowadays, you don’t have to beg some slick guy in a silk suit to give you five minutes to talk about your movie anymore. In this day and age, you can make your movie on a top-notch camera you can buy for less than a grand, do the editing on your home computer and premiere it on a video-sharing website like youtube.com or make and distribute you own DVD if you please and if you do a good enough job, the guy in the silk suit will be begging to talk to you.
We’re the bosses, now. The playing field is more level than it’s ever been.
See you on the big screen.
posted by Street Wise Guy | 6:47 AM
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