The other day I was discussing the perils of the “democratized filmmaking era.” I outlined a few scenarios how the mere fact of having unlimited choice or unfettered access to contents, technology, and gear wasn’t necessarily all it was cracked up to be.
But after thinking about the issue some more, I realized there might be people who don’t know what I’m talking about when I use the words democratized filmmaking. Like, is that filmmaking in the Western world during the Cold War? Is it anti-Communist filmmaking? Is it more of that White House newspeak? Terminology Time? What is it?!
What are some of the key characteristics of the democratized filmmaking era? What distinguishes it from the era which immediately preceded it? And is so-called “democratized filmmaking” better than what was, on the cusp, as we are, of a much brighter time in the world of indie film, or not quite so?
There are going to be debates about this, depending on whether the system has worked to your advantage. So what are some of these characteristics?
1) Super-short delivery times to market:
Perhaps one of the single most significant changes in the entire world of independent film – and when I say “indie” I mean the “hardcore” variety, the seriously budget-challenged kind (egs. low- to no-budgets) – has been the ability to conceive, write, shoot, cut, then deliver projects to market along very constrained timeframes. This has been both good and bad, as I’ll describe.
Good, from the perspective there are no longer any gatekeepers to apply the brakes on would-be indie film stars, those who curate content according to criteria not exclusively based upon the merit of the project in question. “Hoop-jumping” has been virtually eliminated for most indie players. Bad? Can there even be said there’s a disadvantage from short delivery times? Well, since the production process has been vastly facilitated, the market has become flooded with rubbish-caliber stuff (by an objective standard, not my standard!) and sifting though this swamp of half-baked, half-conceived pabulum is one of the bigger time sinks this side of 21st-century’s second decade. Again, whether you think short-delivery times is a good or bad thing very much depends upon what sort of success you’ve enjoyed with it. If you were the kind of filmmaker who previous had difficulty gaining any sort of traction for your controversial ex-genre films, this has been a boon for you.
2) Relatively affordable gear and editing software is now available:
With the cost of tools driven to all-time lows, and with cheap HD cameras and editing suits available to even the lower-end of the creative spectrum, access is no longer the sticky wicket it once was.
The defining factors for success in the space are now story, narrative, screenplay, and content, instead of technical mastery. In former times, and I’m thinking here of Joel Schumacher’s initial forays in digital camerawork with Tigerland (starring Colin Farrell, shot by Pinoy-American Matthew Libatique), snazzy camera tricks could nail an audience for its razzle-dazzle punch-up potential in addition to plugging up potential holes in staid storytelling, but today that’s no longer an option. The wildly successful projects today seem to be those excellent stories well-developed and told expertly, with a robust audience engagement strategy in place which takes into consideration not only who might be in your target demographic, but also where and how they like to consume the kind of films you direct. The learning curve for editing is also no longer the impediment in the post-production and distribution process it once was. With practice and a conscious desire to want to improve your craft, editing is a skill that can now be taught in its rudimentary form to anyone with even half an attention span for it.
3) Entertainment product supply now vastly exceeds entertainment product demand:
For the two reasons above, and more, the pool of projects available to choose from has become akin to a daily flood. And I haven’t even introduced the complication of platform yet (see below)!
If audiences discount classic, epic, genre, and similar studio era fare, the number of independently-shot and financed (so-called “hardcore” indie and mini-major) features, shorts, and documentaries delivered to market in a given year, it’s enough to keep people awake watching films back-to-back-to-back-ad infinitum (a highly unadvised step, by the way). The channel is presently saturated. Curation is vitally necessary. Prioritization in the viewing schedule must be somehow introduced and discipline (rather than pure enjoyment of the film for the film’s sake) is now a critically-needed success skill on the part of would-be audiences and members of the industry. With social media distractions alone engorging themselves, Nosferatu-like, on the available productive hours of your day, being sharp about what you devote time watching is killer. Knowing what deserves your undivided attention is a vitally-important skill, and moreover, staying riveted to your computer screen during playback has become almost impossible with the number of devices and pipelines people have created needs to monitor. I still respect people who don’t own cellphones (yes, I have a couple of friends like this) and I suspect if it weren’t for theater establishments making announcements to turn off smart devices during their screenings, almost no one would pay attention the on-screen action. As a working “social media guy,” I think about this deeply. My approach? Everything receives its due time: Twitter gets its hour. Facebook posts are responded to in batch sessions. And ditto for my inbound email.
4) Distribution is now completely platform-neutral:
Reaching audiences is no longer an impediment to having them instantly enjoy your art.
Films are being designed for playback on either mobile devices, tablets, or desktops/laptops, so if they want to view your stuff they have plenty of options. Delays introduced by the need to secure DVDs-by-mail is almost non-existent for most areas in the globe, though an entirely new element has been introduced with the advent of the democratized era: concentration. Or lack of it, in other words. If everything is instantly available, then what distinguishes one entertainment option from the next? In a totally flat marketplace, in terms of hierarchies, if the same device — say in this case a computer — can deliver news, webpages, and full-on films at the same time, how do indie filmmakers ensure their film remains the entertainment option of first priority, or the one audiences will stick to once they open up a browser window? How?! Getting them to go to your page or cue up your film off Netflix or any other SVOD (subscription-VOD) service isn’t even the issue. Problem is actually how to get them to watch the entire thing from beginning to end in just the single sitting off a single platform? If switching cost has been slayed, in the sense that a film doesn’t cost $10+ to watch on a single occasion, how in tarnation to get audiences to remain in situ? There are few hard and fast answers…
5) Film is no longer the exclusive purview of professionals:
Filmmakers in the democratized era no longer need to saddle themselves with exorbitant debt loads, with upwards of three+ years of their life devoted to obtaining an official film degree with no clear-cut job prospects by graduation. Also, given how Hollywood – the pinnacle of filmmaking achievement on the professional circuit, at least in terms of money –is a tightly closed system, with no clear cut path of reaching its upper echelons, why even attend film school and saddle yourself with unneeded debt? Also, as would-be grads eventually realize they can pretty much create their own jobs with the cheap tools and a robust networks of industry contacts — considering how film school tuitions can cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars – film school is now being considered as nothing short of a decadence. Young would-be graduates are searching themselves as to the prudence of getting into debt all for a uncertain future in an increasingly uncertain field. Speaking more positively, if someone has a story to tell and realizes that film is a powerful and terribly underutilized medium for conveying the direness of a cause or a movement, then they can grab one of these cheap cameras and have a go at it themselves. They don’t need anyone’s prior permission. They don’t need to raise much cash. And, they can test market their ideas as they go along, tweaking the final cut according to feedback their receive from a audiences (see below).
6) The pool of potential testers is now huge:
That’s another thing about being online in 2011: test marketing is no longer a prohibitively expensive quality control step.
Half-developed ideas can be leaked to a group of target users, receiving feedback from them and making iterative modifications, as they go. The need to convene everyone in just a single venue, to transport, accommodate, and then feed them is now also removed because feedback can be solicited from several remote locations at once, online. Time zone is no longer an issue. With democratized filmmaking, crowdsourced ideas are simply ubiquitous. The caveat here, too, as above, has to do with quality. With feedback so easily obtained, you run the risk that it will be flippantly granted. And then there’s the concentration factor. When you’re not conducting official focus groups, feedback might not be taken as seriously by its potential givers.
7) Researching story ideas has been radically simplified:
Anyone with half and ear to the ground online will stumble across more than their fair share of compelling stories. It happens to me every day.
Story snippets old-school screenwriters might have once heard about while being half-sauced off their gourd eavesdropping in on barside conversations, perhaps errantly spotting a faded, dog-eared edition of the paper (perhaps on microfiche?), they can now cherry pick story fodder from even the most rudimentary of internet searches, not deep forensics. In the Democratized Filmmaking Era, stories you only wished would have been made into films in the past are now more likely to emerge as full-blown movies all because access to information is universal.
8) Radically reshaping how the news is actually told:
Can people handle more than cursory treatment of an issue? Is the bite-sized, shallow nature of internet newsmaking becoming not only the de facto standard for newscasting, but also inexorably shaping attention spans?
Are people simply becoming incapable of remaining fixated on one item for an extended period of time, distracted tens of occasions per minute by the next shiny metal object, that next tweet, that very next Status Update? So many distractions, in fact, that the endpoint of all this madness is stories must be stripped to their barest of informational nuggets. Just the facts, ma’am, sort of thing, with as minimal editorializing as possible and with almost zero embellished-upon opinion? If filmmakers don’t get to their point fast enough, they’ll lose audiences they might have conceivably gained!
There are those who might say this has been the case all along, that patrons could have walked out of any cinema they wanted to in the old days. True enough. But it’s now been ramped up to a manic level unseen in the history of the industry.
For all of the above reasons, the new conditions don’t seem altogether as appealing as they might sound.
“Democratized” filmmaking isn’t only about:
- unfettered choice.
- universal access.
- uncensored audience opinions.
- affordability, and
- product ubiquity.
because in all of these there is a flipside which we’ve just examined, and which, regrettably, isn’t necessarily positive.
On balance, however, and as a film consumer/connoisseur, I’m pleased by the new conditions which brings a rich menu of contents for me to choose from with the passing of each week. I revel in the challenge of trying to successfully navigate them for my clients. And the learning possibilities are tremendous.
For those reasons alone, I am bullish on democracy.
How about you?
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