There Are No Bloodless Revolutions

[Thomas Mathai]

There should be legions of potential Kubricks and Waters making cinema. It should be no more inaccessible than making an oil painting or writing a novel-- by that I mean: your greatest expense should be the amount of personal labor you want to expend in the doing of it. Should it cost money? Of course, there are expenses, but the goal is reachable for the average working person, not just somebody with a rich uncle.

Those legions of potenial Kubricks and Waters will stay mostly unknown. The base level for "quality" just changes.

Even in a room full of geniuses, there's the smart one and the idiot. :laugh:

The cost to make an oil painting or write a novel is inexpensive. Try selling it though. Then you deal with similar forces you would as a filmmaker. Painting or writing for personal creativity is one thing, to do it as a living is another.

Unlike painting and writing, film making is more collaborative. I think only animation could be done by a single person, and even then there may be aspects the animator would want a collaborator on.

There's always going to be other factors than cost of the tools that make it hard to get a film done, let alone done well. We're already seeing some of the immediate affects of affordable tools, some good, some bad:

Lots of creative work being done worldwide. It's amazing how much talent is out there, and plenty of ways to show off skills and learn new ones.

Studios taking work overseas because the quality is good and getting better while the costs are cheaper.

It's cheaper to build a studio and work for yourself, instead of spending years working up the ladder.

There is tons of content available to the consumer. So much content that it's getting harder to make money without lots of marketing.

It's much easier to find the tools to do your own marketing, as long as you are willing to put in the effort yourself.

Patronage is coming back in the form of websites like Indie Go-GO and Kickstarter. Filmmakers have been raising money from donors, pitching their ideas and finding funds to move forward with projects that may have otherwise been just sitting in a drawer.



The independent film market is in flux, and hopefully work itself out.

For the most part I suspect, we'll have the art house filmmaker who get to jet set to the big film festivals, occasionally get to do a studio project here and there, and get to make their films within a reasonable budget.

I see an emerging class of the working class filmmaker who make their films on tiny budgets, maybe supplement their incomes with side jobs here and there. These filmmakers may be regional, gaining reputation in a particular area, may never be gain national or international notoriety, but has a dedicated following.


The cost of film didn't stopped Roger Corman and the other indie mavericks who made films on the cheap.

Maybe for some people if it's too easy, it's not worth doing.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Film vs Digital is just a silly brief squabble before everything goes virtual.

There is certainly a psychological distinction though that I think isn't being addressed. If I think rationally and pragmatically I can run out and shoot film. But I'm of the CTRL-Z generation. Ink scares me (even though it's my main 2D medium). Plasticine seems so permanent and film doubly so.

When I shoot film I start worrying, I start making excuses for why I shouldn't take that shot, I can freeze up creatively. Similarly when I was learning sculpting it took a long time (and a number of incidents where the teacher just walked up and hacked off the side of a head with a big knife) to even start to let go and accept the permanence of physical mediums.

Now some people don't have those squabbles. They can as easily just take that leap of faith and risk to throw down a stroke on canvas as I am on a computer (without the CTRL-Z 'undo' lifeline ready to salvage a ruined work). And you could fill volumes with the debate over whether the power to make something 'perfect' is the downfall of art or its salvation but I know the debate is academic in my life--I can learn to be more creatively bold in mediums which I can't version off but I'll always be stiffer and more timid when I can't see the results immediately or undo and try again.

I don't know if that's just human nature or being a product of a digital society but it's who I am and I would say that *that* is the greatest obstacle for film for me. That even though empirically and logically I'm going to be fine--there is a mental roadblock that every frame of film is costing me money so it better be perfect.

I think a lot of even established film makers suffer from this. When you have hundreds of people waiting for you to finish the shot you better get it right--and getting it right by doing it the way everyone before you has done it before you is a far safer bet. A 300 million dollar feature "has" to succeed--so it takes less risks. Similarly when you're burning through 3 years of savings in film costs--and having spent all of that time convincing actors and crew to believe in your project it's scary to see a physical medium burn away. Some people I think can compartmentalize it and ignore it. My brain is far too stingy.

It's the same reason I want to own a RED. It's cheaper to rent but once I've spent the money it's free when I'm shooting so I can hop in the car and shoot some landscapes without the nagging in the back of my brain "$300 a day rental! Make it count! Don't blow it!" or call another day of shooting if I think I need it.

It's the eternal war between the left and right brains. Logic and creativity. You need the rational side of your brain to speak up when something is stupid and not working. But you also have to silence it so that you can brainstorm and think outside of the box.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

Why does that negate the fact that they did (and still do) support student filmmakers, in a very real way, for many years? What do you have against Kodak, anyway? I assume Red is or eventually will be profitable. Will you feel the same way about them?

I love Kodak, they make an impeccable product. Why do you interpret anything I've said as anti-Kodak? I'm not anti-Kodak or anti-Fuji. I'm not even anti-film. I love film.

BUt if you don't live in LA or NYC or Chicago or Atlanta or Miami, you don't have access to professional film facilities. And don't tell me about Fed Ex. You guys know that you get better results when you can visit the lab, get to know the technicians, sit in on a session or otherwise be present and engaged with the people who are doing the work. You can't shoot a film thousands of miles away from the lab and do it affordably.

 

[Thomas Mathai]

Kodak owns a lot of patents on digital technologies. I wouldn't be surprised if they get back on top by just being an IP company.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

Those legions of potenial Kubricks and Waters will stay mostly unknown. The base level for "quality" just changes.

Even in a room full of geniuses, there's the smart one and the idiot. :laugh:

The cost to make an oil painting or write a novel is inexpensive. Try selling it though. Then you deal with similar forces you would as a filmmaker. Painting or writing for personal creativity is one thing, to do it as a living is another.

Unlike painting and writing, film making is more collaborative. I think only animation could be done by a single person, and even then there may be aspects the animator would want a collaborator on.

There's always going to be other factors than cost of the tools that make it hard to get a film done, let alone done well. We're already seeing some of the immediate affects of affordable tools, some good, some bad:

Lots of creative work being done worldwide. It's amazing how much talent is out there, and plenty of ways to show off skills and learn new ones.

Studios taking work overseas because the quality is good and getting better while the costs are cheaper.

It's cheaper to build a studio and work for yourself, instead of spending years working up the ladder.

There is tons of content available to the consumer. So much content that it's getting harder to make money without lots of marketing.

It's much easier to find the tools to do your own marketing, as long as you are willing to put in the effort yourself.

Patronage is coming back in the form of websites like Indie Go-GO and Kickstarter. Filmmakers have been raising money from donors, pitching their ideas and finding funds to move forward with projects that may have otherwise been just sitting in a drawer.



The independent film market is in flux, and hopefully work itself out.

For the most part I suspect, we'll have the art house filmmaker who get to jet set to the big film festivals, occasionally get to do a studio project here and there, and get to make their films within a reasonable budget.

I see an emerging class of the working class filmmaker who make their films on tiny budgets, maybe supplement their incomes with side jobs here and there. These filmmakers may be regional, gaining reputation in a particular area, may never be gain national or international notoriety, but has a dedicated following.


The cost of film didn't stopped Roger Corman and the other indie mavericks who made films on the cheap.

Maybe for some people if it's too easy, it's not worth doing.

Yes, yes and yes. If you are looking to be famous, the future is the wrong place to look. And the "money" is leaving the movie business faster than a sinking ship can take on water.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

Kodak owns a lot of patents on digital technologies. I wouldn't be surprised if they get back on top by just being an IP company.

Kodak should devote itself to being the archive solution for all digital media. They are the only company with the resources and technology to OWN archiving for the next 500 years.

The legacy technology and infrastructure from making film coupled with their industrial assets would make them an instant giant. They could make archiving images and data cheap and simple and ubiquitous.

I just don't think they know what to do to make it happen.

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Sometimes the whole world changes overnight.
One day I drove by a local television station and I saw by the dumpster a huge pile of stainless steel tanks. That was it. In that pile of film processor parts was the end of "film at eleven."

The end of CP16s, Auricons, Frezzis. The end of miles of 16MM reversal film bought, shot, processed, and shown every night across America. Local television film technicians were out of a job and the ripples would propagate far beyond.

Sometimes juggernauts don't see the writing on the wall; does their huge size and wealth blind them? What would have happened if Kodak had more aggressively entered the digital imaging fray? Did they believe they were in the film business and not the image business? Thankfully for Kodak, they did invest in the new technologies, but could they not have done much more?

For example, why didn't Smith Corona buy a word processing company? Did they think their business was typewriter manufacture instead of ideas communication? Perhaps we would be writing our drafts on "Smith Corona" software instead of Microsoft Word had they better vision.

Revolution is not bloodless, but it is inevitable and at an ever increasing frequency.

Exciting times. Yes, indeed.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm all for the democratization of any art process -- it was great when Kodak came out with the Brownie camera, thus moving photography beyond the hands of a very few people who could deal with making their own plates, etc. It was great when oil paints were sold in tubes so artists like Van Gogh could easily go out and paint. And in both cases, photography and painting, a huge amateur market developed, and out of that, some major artists emerged. I'm all for that.

But on the other hand, after all that democratization happened, how many Van Gogh's appeared? How many Ansel Adams are there? How many more Kubrick's now that everyone is shooting their own movies? There are simply limits to the number of great artists that emerge even when the doors are thrown open to everyone... for most people, it never gets beyond the hobbyist status.

But if a few more kids out there get a chance because it's easier than ever to shoot something, that's a good thing.

But film has been a part of the process of enabling people to be creative over the century, from amateurs to serious hobbyists to professionals, it has never been the sole domain of professionals or the rich and powerful. I even have an old Kodak advertisement on my wall from a 1927 issue of The Ladies Home Journal extolling the ease of becoming a filmmaker with the Cine-Kodak 16mm camera.

All that has happened with digital is that it's even easier, faster and cheaper and so even more people are doing it, so yes, it increases the democratization process even faster than film ever did... but film wasn't the opposite of the democratization of art.

As for people being unable to get ahold of cameras before digital, how do you explain movies on Mystery Science Theater 3000 like "Manos, Hands of Fate"?

 

[M Most]

You can't shoot a film thousands of miles away from the lab and do it affordably.

And yet it's been done by many, many major studio features for many years. Or do places like Morocco, Tunisia, Nova Scotia, Lithuania, and countless other world locations (including North Carolina and even Louisiana until about a year ago) all have secret film labs that I've simply never heard of? Not to mention many television productions, such as the Law and Order shows (when they were shot on film), Dawsons Creek, and One Tree Hill, all of which shipped unprocessed negative to Los Angeles every night (and in the case of One Tree Hill still do).

I understand why you might think what you apparently do, but your assumption is simply false.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

There is also a bit of a circular argument here because one of the reasons that film labs are fewer and farther is because of the rise of digital, so as time goes by, of course it's easier to deal with digital on distant locations but in the past, film was so much more commonplace that there were a lot more local labs and shipping it around was a lot more common. I grew up in a small desert town and dropped my rolls of Super-8 off at the local drugstore and got them back a week later, it was pretty simple.

One thing that really hurt amateur filmmakers though was the rise of home video, thus making the film-to-video step a necessary element to the process. I was just editing more originals and projecting for people locally, I didn't have to hand out DVD's or anything like that, and there was no internet to post the footage on. That's one reason I wish Kodak had created a simple / affordable Super-8/16mm desktop film scanner.

I know one experimental filmmaker, James Benning, who owns a 16mm Bolex and made his films by himself with that wind-up camera, often on the road around the country. He isn't rich by any means but he regularly made (and still makes) movies that get shown in art museums and film festivals. But lately I think he has been moving towards digital just because of the decline in the number of labs that can handle 16mm well and print it well, plus festivals are moving towards digital projection anyway. But certainly the cost and complexity of film was not a barrier to him becoming a filmmaker.

I know what some of you are thinking "but I'm not talking about experimental filmmakers, indies in 16mm, I'm talking about high-end 35mm feature production like the big movies... I can't afford to do that!" Well, for one thing, that's a very limited notion of what it means to be a filmmaker, and for another thing, the film process is only one part of why big movies look, well, big. This gets back to the pedestal that some people are putting resolution on. Yes, it's great that we can get 35mm resolution on the cheap, but on the other hand, that makes it no longer special and once everyone is doing it, it will take other things to make your production stand-out from the crowd.

And that's a whole nuther problem, the size of the crowd -- maybe a few more Kubricks make their dream movie due to the democratization of the process, but the chances that their work will get noticed may actually be lower due to the high level of white noise from all the stuff being shot and posted these days -- who has time to wade through all of that to find the good stuff?

 

[scott william]

Is it naive to believe that a good product or talent will eventually get noticed? Sometimes you have to believe.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Tonight I was trying to get a sunset shot of a barn. I waited till the light was perfect and rolled for about 20 minutes, trying various types of moves. But actually, on this day, the sky turned spectacular a full 30 minutes or so after sunset. The light just lit the dark outline of the barn in a more interesting way. So I cranked the ISO to 1280 and shot another 20 minutes or so. I also got lucky when a bird flew through one of my longer slider takes! How much would it cost to shoot 40 minutes of film?

The bottom line, IMO, is that moving to digital is an overall positive for the film industry. Does anyone disagree?

 

[Brad Webb]

The bottom line, IMO, is that moving to digital is an overall positive for the film industry. Does anyone disagree?

For the most part, I agree with you Tom. However, the one thing shooting on film did was to force filmmakers to plan and make choices before rolling the camera. The second you start rolling a film camera you can see the dollars signs flying out of it. On limited budgets, with limited film stock you had know for sure you were ready to roll a take before turning that camera on. This forced filmmakers to plan plan plan, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, and make choices long before ever showing up to the set/location.

When I was in film school, shooting my first short film, I had 5 rolls of 16mm film for the entire 12 minute short. This forced me and the director to basically shoot and edit the entire film in our heads and on story boards days before shooting. I felt like it brought the best of our creativity out to solve problems to achieve what we wanted to do with limited resources.

I've always believed that filmmakers are at their best when limitations and setbacks force them to solve problems with creative solutions. When talented filmmakers are faced with limitations you wind up with Star Wars. When filmmakers can do whatever they want with no limitations you wind up with The Phantom Menace.

 

[David Collard]

What about Prague and Czech Republic in 1989?
It was called the "Velvet Revolution".
That was bloodless, and non-violent, and saw the overthrow of
the Communist government.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Kodak should devote itself to being the archive solution for all digital media. They are the only company with the resources and technology to OWN archiving for the next 500 years.

The legacy technology and infrastructure from making film coupled with their industrial assets would make them an instant giant. They could make archiving images and data cheap and simple and ubiquitous.

I just don't think they know what to do to make it happen.

"... would make them an instant giant. They could make archiving images and data cheap and simple and ubiquitous."

Those two things kind of work against each other. I suspect making that into a viable large scale business model is not that simple.

I don't argue against the need, but most people seem to be pretty casual about data archiving and not willing to spend much on it. (Myself included:wink5 I'm not sure there is an "instant giant" to be had.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

"... would make them an instant giant. They could make archiving images and data cheap and simple and ubiquitous."

Those two things kind of work against each other. I suspect making that into a viable large scale business model is not that simple.

I don't argue against the need, but most people seem to be pretty casual about data archiving and not willing to spend much on it. (Myself included:wink5 I'm not sure there is an "instant giant" to be had.

The word "giant" is used here as a relative term. Meaning: relative to the size of the overall market for archiving, not another microsoft. You remind me that I often forget to "carry the two" for some of you guys. Sorry about that.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

I also got lucky when a bird flew through one of my longer slider takes! How much would it cost to shoot 40 minutes of film?

The bottom line, IMO, is that moving to digital is an overall positive for the film industry. Does anyone disagree?

No one disagrees, but that won't stop them from resenting the fact. LOL!

 

[Craig Ryan]

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

Orson Welles put it best with that one, and it really comes into play with the film vs digital argument. I personally think that every filmmaker should learn to shoot on film at some point; as others have pointed out already, it teaches discipline and really can bring out the best of your creativity when it counts. You really have to know in your head before hand what it is you want. You can't look at the LCD to see if it "looks good".

That said, I agree with Tom about the notion of being able to get those rare in the moment shots. That is a great and wonderful thing.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

There will always be limitations on a filmmaker. Only with digital, those limits tend to shift to in front of the lens, not behind it. As Tom's example so brilliantly points out.

 

[paulherrin]

Jeff, I respect you, but the limitations are always behind the lens, sometimes right behind it (and there are lenses much older than cameras). so much that we try to believe they are somewhere else.

Digital gives us new freedom, and new chains.

A whole new generation of filmmakers are now being given the ability to make something great, along with the ability to add to growing population of garbage.

It doesn't necessarily take thousands of dollars to tell a story with moving pictures anymore. Yet it also doesn't necessarily require a lot of discipline, either.

Is it possible that our gaze is too narrow? Pardon my blasphemy, but is it possible that we could tell stories without the use of pictures that move?