Vimeo, my new video host of choice, is presenting a new web series called Filmfellas, a “Dinner for Five” type show featuring four filmmakers engaging in badinage about process, web vs. TV and film and the changing media landscape. One of the regulars is Philip Bloom, who puts out some amazing looking short films using only a lens adapter and a Sony EX1 (a camera I’ve played with and mostly like). Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’ll definitely be a regular viewer. You can see the first episode below.
So it appears that indie filmmaking in 2008 is in dire straits. The technology to make a film has spread far and wide and the cost of making a film has plummeted, but according to Mike Curtis of HD for Indies, distribution is still next to impossible and the math doesn’t work in favor of people being able to make a living off of making movies. But…where’s the surprise here? Hasn’t that always been the way indie films have been? Kent Nichols, of Ask a Ninja fame, certainly thinks so, and states in his blog that the next generation of creators and stars will emerge from Youtube and other online venues. The Observer also has an interesting article about how web series have come of age since the early days of LonelyGirl15.
Personally, as someone who creates content for a living I don’t even think it’s worth it to create an independent feature film for anything other than as a calling card to showcase your skills. Sure, there’s lots of street cred, but that doesn’t pay the bills. Web series are an ideal platform in which to not only hone your craft but also pre-build an audience, should you ever decided to damn the torpedoes and go the feature route. And unlike the frankly byzantine procedures needed to make content with a studio or (here in Canada) a government agency, all a web series requires is a hosting service and the ability to click “upload.”
RED, the creators of the RED ONE camera that’s revolutionized digital filmmaking, recently announced two new cameras, the RED Scarlet and Epic. Essentially these two cameras operate as a modular “brain”, with an almost infinite choice of attachments that extend the camera from a fixed-lens shooter to a IMAX level behemoth capable of shooting 28k pictures.
The only problem with this panacea is that the original Scarlet, announced last year and them shelved, was a planned “3k for 3k” wonder camera that would have taken the prosumer and DV Rebel world by storm. Instead, low end users would have to shell out something on the order of $7,000 or more to build a suitable camera for their needs. That figure simply isn’t in the budget of many indie filmmakers.
Even more mysteriously, RED has announced that even more info will be released on December 3rd. It remains to be seen if lofi auteurs will be elated or disappointed in a few days time.
Here’s the demo reel for my video production company, Freyburg Media. Just a sampler of the stuff I’ve worked on and the skills I can bring to a corporate video, podcast, or broadcast television segment.
It was inevitable that the expanding world of online video would hit the wall that every other industry in America (and elsewhere) has run into, and with that decline has come rounds of layoffs. Revision3 has turfed three of their employees, including some TechTV alumni, and discontinued its distribution deal with Smashface Productions, the creators of Epic-Fu. Not to mention Seesmic, the video commenting service, though I’d contend video commenting is a dumb idea to begin with. Heavy.com, 60Frames…the list goes on.
But the difference between this round of cost-cutting and the tech bubble is that these companies weren’t throwing around masses of worthless stock and spending beyond their means, and the fact that the economic malaise isn’t isolated to the tech sector this time around. And online video is, at least for now, much cheaper to produce than regular broadcast television. Standout shows like Epic-Fu get their start through people screwing around with a camcorder, not a big production deal…so one way or the other, there’ll always be a place for online video. It just might not have venture capital attched to it.
The NFB is branching out from Hinterland Who’s Who (actually, I have no idea if they have anything to do with HWW, I just love the music at the beginning of the mini-films) and other cold Canadian fare to present RIP: A Remix Manifesto. It looks like an interesting take on the copyright battle, though unfortunately there’s no way (as of yet) to view the whole film online. Here’s the trailer…
Wow. I have this camera, but not the lens adapter. Still amazing to see what tis little $1000 wonder is capable of. Check out Philip Bloom’s other stuff on his blog and his Vimeo page (he normally shoots with an EX1 or more recently, an EX3).
RED, the company created by Oakley founder Jim Hannard, has sent the SCARLET back to the woodshed. Why? Apparently the emergence of DSLR cameras like the Nikon D90 and the Canon 5D MkII that can shoot in HD (though in the case of the 5D, at the indie-unfriendly frame rate of 30p) has forced RED to rethink what they’re trying to accomplish in the prosumer video space.
Honestly, it’s about time all camera manufacturers took a step back and figured out how to merge SLR and HD video in a package that serves both filmmakers and photographers. There’s no reason, with the emergence of fast and plentiful hard drive space, huge memory cards for on-camera storage, and lens adapters that already graft SLR lenses onto HD camcorders, that a new class of camera shouldn’t emerge that doesn’t follow the old paradigms of tape-based shooting. The 5D and D90 are an important first step, and RED’s backtracking looks to be the next step in a saga that I’ll be very interested to see come to fruition.