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The Future of Student Films
EL-34 writes "With professional visual effects tools and technology readily available in film
schools across the country, students have been able to do more than ever before.
At the USC School of Cinema-Television,
SCFX
teaches the trade, and helps create VFX for various student films. With endowments
from Robert Zemeckis, EA, AlienWare, Intel, and Adobe, cinema students are able to
achieve feats
never before possible in animation,
rendering, and compositing.
At the Robert Zemeckis
Center for Digital Arts, students even have access to HD equipment, a Vicon 3-D Motion
Capture System, and a green screen stage."
Shoot, when I was a film major in my first year of college, I was stunned to find out that seniors were spending 12-15 thousand dollars on their final film projects. Recently, I had the privilege to see some of the recent films of some current film students and I was really quite pleased to see what was possible with even iMovie, a DV camera and an iMac. Beyond that, for about 66% of what we would have spent on our senior projects just a few years ago, you can practically have an entire G5 editing studio.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Yeah, this is all great, and the more tools the better for the students. But technology does not make a great film. The story does. This treads a dangerous line where students attempt to solve problems with green screens and special effects, ignoring simple blocking and story-telling.
Just my opinion, but I saw this with the advent of graphic-design software, where kids open up Photoshop without even thinking about hitting the sketch-book first.
Kip Hawley is an idiot.
I don't think that this is just student movies, but rather all independant movies. More and more I've been seeing independant films- and they look good, and are actually good movies. A programmer friend of mine in Santa Barbera even had his hobby/independant film play in a theatre. I'm happy that finally you don't need a giant budget to produce a nice film.
- dshaw
This looks like a great thing, even if the trailers so far are a bit lame.
Imagine if a new generation of students trained in digital effects and hungry for exposure meets up with the right young writers...
Together with the next generation of HD video discs, this could easily lead to a revolution in indie film, with high-quality FX-laden goods coming at you through Netflix and the like.
On the other hand, that's what everyone said about "normal" indies when Final Cut Pro caught on.
This Like That - fun with words!
I guess they need to find some decent actors as well.
Based on these trailers, it looks like the FX kids don't hang out with the better part of the acting crowd. Am I surprised?
This Like That - fun with words!
Unfortunately, USC made a huge investment in PC-based Avid workstations, just at the time the whole industry was moving to Apple's Final Cut Pro. But it proves something I've been saying for many years: college will only train you on the LAST generation's tools, which may or may not prepare you for the NEXT generation tools that you'll be working with for the rest of your career. Better to study theory and fundamentals than expect a college to equip you with actual skills, you have to develop those on the job anyway.
It's all just a bunch of gay cowboys eating pudding!
Listen in on Donald Duck!
...with all these WONDERFUL tools we have at our disposal, somehow EVERY group project ALWAYS has to use a Powerpoint presentation to get their messages across. It's really annoying.
A couple of years ago in my high school TV Production class, we used imovie on some old blue-box G3 macs. The results that we got were pretty good, and this is definitely a good thing when technology allows an average person to be able to creatively express themselves in the best way possible.
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
It's all in the percentages. We'll see 100 shit films heavy on special effects/bad acting, but there'll be one in there that is a gem. Some kid already had his idea, and was just waiting for the price to come down so he can fulfill his dream. I think it's worth wading through the chaff to see the pioneers rise through it and become an outstanding director. History repeats itself...
Kip Hawley is an idiot.
Today much of the effort focuses on the eye candy, so we have crap like the second two Matrix movies and the Star Wars prequels. There's a lot of flash and dazzle but it's not necessarily good art, and it often is done at the expense of the story, instead of contributing to it. Some directors can get it right- Lord of the Rings and the latest Harry Potter movie did a good job of using the visuals to further the movie rather than vice versa.
Cross your fingers for the new Scott Baio module, too. It's just as good as the Tony Danza module, but is far cheaper to operate.
When is??
What the fuck is???
The CG was good, it just wasn't *that* good, in the first one it was obvious, in the second one, it was a bit better until you noticed you never saw feet, so all the high-tech technology doesn't mean you'll always get a good movie.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Grayson is another great. It is actually just a trailer (~7 minutes) but if you saw this on TV you would not for the life you be able to distinguish it from a multimillion dollar production. Well, except for the tell-tale signs of an original plot. :p
Another great is Batman: Deadend. This is just a short. I believe it was shown firts at last year's ComicCon. Like the previous, there were obviously professionals involved, but it was still just a group of friends who put it together, though they happened to be familiar with production methods. The costumes all incredibe. Don't read this if you don't want me to spoil it, but they have Batman, Alien, and Predator costumes that are not in any way inferior to those you saw in the actual movies (personally, I think the Batman costume is better). The dark cinematography is really good too.
Now, nothing I linked to disputes that producing a film is a major effort that requires a lot of work and resources; but it does dispute the idea that you need millions of dollars to do so.
And I figure it's a good opportunity for some of my fellow slashdotters to enjoy some great movies. :)
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I graduated from USC Cinema about 3 years ago, just as all these wonderful toys were being set up. My experience with student filmmaking is this:
Many of the students there would spend boatloads of money on their thesis projects to put them on 35mm Anamorphic film, get a Dolby Digital mix, put in glitzy special effects, etc... (one I helped out on had a $100K budget - no joke). The problem was that their films ended up looking like beautiful pieces of nothing, because they had spent so much time on production issues that they never had time to really nail down the script. So they were great to look at, always technically proficient, but lacking in story. So to have SCFX is great for people who want a technical training, but I went to USC to understand visual storytelling, and you really don't need much in the way of effects to do that properly.
As a side note, a classmate of mine (he was a few semesters ahead of me) spent a minimal $11,000 on his thesis film, shot it on 16mm black and white, optical sound, and it won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Go figure.
That's the one with the big clock on the front of the building, dangling power lines and huge flaming skid marks on the street next to it... can't miss it.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Because a blue screen stage would've convinced Windows it had already crashed!
I go to Brooks and we have a full green screen *its about right to green screen a large car or truck* and a 4 labsa of Dual G4/G5 macs, the world of DV is comeing slowly, but I dont think that film is going to die any time soon, Film has a differnt look and if your a DP its the better medium
Linux is like living in a teepee. No Windows, no Gates, Apache in house.
Don't forget there's been a VFX dedicated school in the UK for a while now...
http://www.escapestudios.co.uk/
the whole industry was moving to Apple's Final Cut Pro
1. The whole industry is not low-budget independent movies cut on the director's personal Mac.
Avid is still the major editing equipment, be it in television or for film. What percentage of major hollywood movies are cut on FCP? My guess would be something between 1 and 10%?
But, more important is
2. The equipment used is irrelevant. Editing is not the skill of pressing the right buttons. They could learn it on an old Steenbeck: no technology at all, absolutely nothing to learn other than how to tell the story, and how to cut it well. Instead, they loose probably more than half the time learning technical details which change anyway as the tools change, and which they could learn in the relevant user manual when they need it.
3. Separate from editing, some basic technology lessons would certainly be useful, and not only for editors. But for the technical aspects, they shouldn't be taught Avid OR FCP. They should be taught some very basic computer stuff (I know young filmmakers who don't really know what a hard disk is! or a directory/folder), and basic non-linear editing principles, and an overview of both Avid AND FCP, because in the real world they will be using both for a while, and then maybe something else.
There are already far too many "editors" who only know pressing the right buttons very quickly, but don't have a clue about how to build a good film out of the material the director brought into the editing room.
Putting these incredibly powerful tools in the hands of more and more people is definitely A Good Thing.
But in the end, Good Storytelling is more important than stellar visuals. People will sit through claymation if the script is great, with high stakes, believable characters, conflict and a sense of humor.
Lucas????? Are you listening????
a classmate [...] spent a minimal $11,000 [...] and it won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Palme d'or? The exageration is only minimal, I guess? :-)
Just for fun, here they are all, since 1975 when the Palme d'Or was created (was called the Grand Prix before). None of these was a $11'000 student film. (That's just for silly nitpicking. I completely agree with your basic comment).
- 1975 Chronique des années de braise de Mohammed Lakdhar-Hamina
- 1976 Taxi Driver de Martin Scorsese
- 1977 Padre padrone de Paolo & Vittorio Taviani
- 1978 L'arbre au sabots d'Ermanno Olmi
- 1979 Apocalypse now de Francis Ford Coppola
- 1979 Le tambour de Volker Schlondorff
- 1980 Kagemusha d'Akira Kurosawa
- 1980 Que le spectacle commence de Bob Fosse
- 1981 L'homme de fer d'Andrej Wajda
- 1982 Missing de Costa-Gavras
- 1982 Yol d'Yilmas Güney
- 1983 La ballade de Narayama de Shohei Imamura
- 1984 Paris, Texas de Wim Wenders
- 1985 Papa est en voyage d'affaires d'Emir Kustrica
- 1986 Mission de Roland Joffé
- 1987 Sous le soleil de Satan de Maurice Pialat
- 1988 Pelle le conquérant de Bille August
- 1989 Sexe, mensonge et vidéo de Steven Soderbergh
- 1990 Sailor et Lula de David Lynch
- 1991 Barton Fink de Joël & Ethan Coen
- 1992 Les meilleurs intentions de Bille August
- 1993 Adieu ma concubine de Chen Kaige
- 1993 La leçon de piano de Jane Campion
- 1994 Pulp fiction de Quentin Tarantino
- 1995 Underground d'Emir Kusturica
- 1996 Secrets et mensonges de Mike Leigh
- 1997 L'anguille de Shohei Imamura
- 1997 Le goût de la cerise d'Abbas Kiarostami
- 1998 L'éternité et un jour de Théo Angelopoulos
- 1999 Rosetta de Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne
- 2000 Dancer in the dark de Lars Von Trier
- 2001 La chambre du fils de Nanni Moretti
- 2002 Le pianiste de Roman Polanski
- 2003 Elephant de Gus Van Sant
- 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11 de Michael Moore
(source: http://www.ifrance.com/cinemaetcie/CANNES.htm)It makes you wonder if all they're teaching the students is effects and animation. A whole new generation of Jerry Bruckheimers and Jan De Bonts. Technology and special effects are great and all, but a good storyline is what most movies lack these days. Who cares if you can make a great looking movie if it lacks substance? Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within anyone? Oh boy, ground breaking special effects, but the fantastic storyline like Battlefield Earth. I can't wait!
-W
I've seen some demo's of Vegas working with some of the under $5k prosumer HD cams and it is amazing.
This was originally made by Sonic Foundry (of Soundforge fame) but the company was bougt by Sony a year or two ago. Surprisingly they have not appears to break this family of tools.
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
- A retarded, unfunny plot about two overactors who are going to take their sock puppet out to eat, but are intercepted as they leave their house by a kungfu alien in clown makeup who wants to kidnap the sockpuppet.
- Bad voiceovers
- Bad SFX
- Bad FX. one crappy green lightning bolt in the fightscene
The good thing it had going for it was acceptable editing.I agree with Ebert on this. thumbs down.
Does Adobe make a special effects package the removes pretentiousness from independent films?
It isn't about production values or being able to pull off some nice special effects. Those are all icing: the cake is baked by a good story, and good process. University or expensive film schools just seem to lack that heart, and the process is usually borked.
The problem, to me, is pedagogy. The indie spirit is collaborative, vision-driven, passionate, and do-it-yourself. Constraints become creative possibilities. At a well-endowed school, the tech is alluring, taking energy away from the fundamentals of telling a good story and getting a good camera angle. Usually, the schedule is dissipating, so that from one week to the next, there are huge gaps in production, which mean gaps in memory and experience, and gaps in the energy. Life there is full of distractions and other claims on your attention.
The reason film 'boot camp' (and I mean camp, away from the bright lights) is so effective is the continuity of purpose, the ability to truly focus on your work and peers. The pedagogy is what film students need most. The ability to use the latest and greatest is always going to be a race up a sand dune anyway.
Damn those pesky terrorists
But it has made a huge difference. There have been some truly excellent low budget straight-to-dvd non-studio movies out in the last few years. Obviously one has to quote El Mariachi, but I'm more thinking of
- Underworld
- Dog Soldiers
- Equilibrium
- Cypher
The level of quality exhibited by these movies would have been impossible a few years ago without cheap non-linear video editting, cheap post fx and cheap cgi.--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
uh, Underworld was a big Hollywood movie with cool creature special effects. there are no independent Stan Winstons.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has been experimenting with fostering a web community to provide material. ZeD is a pretty nicely tuned late night show aimed at material that wouldn't normally even be on the radar for regular programming. 15-30% of each episode consists of content from the web, there are no commercials ! and the host is cute.
It's great because the community provides feedback and you host your work there (for the price of giving CBC broadcast rights..)
If you're interested in what can be done on extremely small budgets, check out a movie called Primer.
r .h tml
a chi_budget.php), and it got him a million-dollar production deal with Columbia. He went on to make Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, From Dusk Till Dawn, and the Spy Kids movies. He wrote a great book called Rebel Without a Crew about the experience of making El Mariachi on a shoestring budget.
i on.html) was made for. The director put it together from home movies shot on Super 8 and edited it with iMovie.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/prime
http://www.primermovie.com/home.html
Primer is a time-travel sci fi flick that was made for about $4000, shot entirely on super 16, and here's the best part: it won the Grand Jury award for best drama at Sundance this year. From the buzz I hear, it could be this year's Memento.
Robert Rodriguez shot El Mariachi for $7000 (http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/winter1993/mari
If you don't have $4000 or $7000 to spend on a movie, how about $217? That's what Tarnation (http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/tarnat
Until the CG tech REALLY drops in price, and the average filmmaker can convince Christian Bale or Kate Beckinsale to be in their little short, the public isn't going to take interest - one or two "big" names (even if they aren't really all that big) really helps the process of getting a distributor. It worked for Saw! (Danny Glover, anyone?)
The closest thing I can think of is Cabin Fever. The thing was made on 1.5 million, and most of that money obviously went to hiring the four B-list'rs who played the roles. Still, how many filmmakers have 1.5m laying around, and do you think a movie like Cabin Fever - great as it was - would have seen the light of a theater's projector if it had been "Joe Actor" and "Jill Actress" instead of Jordan Ladd and the guy from Boy Meets World? Maybe... but probably not.
Imagine if a new generation of students trained in digital effects and hungry for exposure meets up with the right young writers...
This would not be an equal partnership. The writers could get the film done without the special effects.
THere is a great Sci-Fi movie oult now called Primer. Shot for 7000 on FILM, not dv, it shows what that you don't need special effects at all to make a sci-fi film, just ingenuity and good ideas.
So since when does /. post school plugs?
Afterall, I think if you want to talk about CG, ya'll should check out this school in FL called Ringling School of Art and Design. That school usually takes most of the awards from all of the festivals they enter including the Student Academy Awards. They also have 'impressive grants/software/hardware/etc' too :-P From what I've seen USC fell off the map in CG land several years ago and hasn't done many impressive things lately. Some other state schools like Ohio State are really shaking things up though.
my 2cents(oh and I'm not a student)
What would be cool is a kiosk in the student union allowing other students (or campus visitors for that matter) to: 1. browse trailers of student films and 2. pop in a blank DVD-R to burn the film for viewing pleasure at home, the dorm, apartment, etc.
Linux at home
It really is important to learn how to deal with limitations. Often times technical limitations create better student films. They make you simplify things to a reasonable level. In my experience, and I'm glad my school RIT does this, the less you have to work with the more economical you have to become, which is one of the most valuable skills in filmmaking.
>Editing is not the skill of pressing the right buttons. They could learn it on an old Steenbeck
Exactly. I think we're seeing the problems with gadget lust. I frequently encounter stuff like this, which gives me pause about the future:
person: "This is a great softsynth!"
Me: "What do you play? What have you written?"
person: "Nothing. I'm just gonna hit the keys and make make funny sounds."
Next week its on ebay.
Or
person "This next CPU is kickass!"
me: "What do you code?"
person: "Nothing really. I'm just gonna see how fast I can compile the linux kernel and email my friends about it!"
etc
Tools do not make the artist, ever.
Make the coolest low-budget film in the world, but nobody will see it without distribution channels. Yes, the DV revolution has really empowered low-budget film makers. But what I think will be the second stage thruster is this hookup between TiVO and NetFlix. Once fiber to the home starts to get traction, the planets will have aligned such that beginning film makers can send their movie in to NetFlix and then get it on potentially hundreds of thousands of people's tv screens at no additional cost to the viewers.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
This film has always been a favourite of mine, and was made for $0
I'm just curious. I'll watch anything that's not mainstream Hollywood. These days it seems I mostly watch Asian stuff because "independent cinema" seems kind of sold-out and repetitious and the Europeans don't seem to be doing as much as they used to.
Another reason I'm asking is that Lawrence Lessig mentioned in his book - The Future of Ideas, that some schools do not release student video due to copyright concerns. I'd like to double check this and also see if there are film schools outside the US that put their students work online.
The most important thing to do with a a work in "Motion Pictures", be they film or video, is TO HAVE SOMETHING INTERESTING AND VALUABLE TO SAY. Otherwise, it's pointless eyecandy, and just as candy rots your teeth, eyecandy rots your brain.
Another reason why it's important that students work on something that has meaning and value outside of SFX etc. is they will be able to look back and say "I Did That" and that it mattered.
And Yet Another Reason is: a good story or a piece with meaning will age better. What we consider Sophisticated Special Effects this year just look cheezy as hell 3 years down the road. But a good story or a meaningful narrative lasts.
The first thing I do with people in teaching video is have them do everything in camera. They have to plan each shot, write it out, and then shoot it, in its proper sequence, in the camera, with no special effects, transitions, or anything. this helps because they don't have to have a great camera - heck they can pick up a VHS or even a PixelVision and get interesting work done.
In moderately advanced classes, I'll only permit a cross dissolve, color correction, and a few minor effects that are fairly "transparent". Only in super advanced classes would I let people mess with advanced compositing, and only if the effects matter to the meaning of the story. The important thing is to have a sense of commitment to the result: Make It Matter.
Why? Because you only live once, there is no hell (like an old hell) or Heaven, ***and your life is worth more than advertising.***
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The Packet Sniffers episode 3 is now available.
p s_episode_0 3/tps_episode_03.wmvK ETSNIFFERS /tps_episode_03.wmv
250MB - 30min - Windows Media Format
Site: http://www.packetsniffers.org
Download:
Mirror1 (Internet Archive):
http://movies13.archive.org/2/movies/t
Mirror2 (Jason Scott of the BBS Documentary providing this mirror):
http://audio.tqhosting.com/shows/TV/PAC
Segments:
IU Informatics Webfest
IDE64 Review
IBM's Shark SAN Storage System - Repair Shoot
ANT8 Logic Analyzer Review
Rare NES Carts/GameAxe Review
Show Notes:
Yes, if you are shopping for xmas gifts for geeks this season you might want to watch this episode.
Josef Soucek of the IDE64 team was kind enough to donate a 3.4 rev IDE64 board for us to review this episode. Thanks! We also filmed a LAN party hosted by the IU school of Informatics. A review of a new toy, the ANT8 logic analyzer. Episode wraped up with some moderately hard to find NES carts and a review of the GameAxe portable NES console. Also included was some work performed on an IBM F20 Shark storage system shot earlier in the year.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When I saw the /. post on "The Future of Student Films" I got excited...
...but did anyone *not* think both those trailers were god awful? I mean, Star Wars Fan Films made by people who have never seen the inside of a film classroom look 1000 times more professional. Let's call a spade a spade people.
I'm a huge believer of DIY on-the-cheap professional looking effects...
It ain't about having access to the tools, its about knowing how to use them. Occasionally talent and talent-education accidentally meet up, but this is just further proof that talent is talent, and most film schools are filled with an enormous lack of it. Bad effects don't help bad filmmaking.
I'd be embarrassed to put that sh*t online...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Netflix is a corporation, and so therefore will restrict access to certain materials.
Once broadband is more establisheda, a better distribution system would be an open source p2p network with trusted peer mechanisms. Peer reviews would act as a filtering mechanism.
Once the triage occurs via trusted peer evaluation, p2p + broadband distributes.
The audiovideo entertainment would be free for download, and would be paid for by embedded product placment commercials.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Well, if your script calls for something you can't acquire, maybe you should just change the script. I had to do that multiple times. Granted, getting the sets/locations one needs is difficult for a student project (unless your dad's a millionaire or you have very good connections) but it doesn't help your film any to blame the drag on inadequate sets. If they were that inadequate, you shouldn't have used them in the first place.
While special effects programs can give you the backgrounds you may need for a particular scene, you then have the problem that you will most likely be working with student actors who do not have much experience and will certainly not be used to doing greenscreen work. CG tends to also be more time consuming for student projects, because as students, you will just be learning the software as you need to use it.
There are problems either way - technology does not solve all problems, it merely changes the ones you have to deal with. Production, our teachers told us repeatedly, is all about problem solving. Two big rules are KISS and "If it's simple and it works, it ain't stupid." Some people will be able to solve the problem with sets, others with CG. The issue is not the problem, but whether it is solved effectively. The audience doesn't care that you couldn't find just the location you needed or that you didn't have the software you needed - all they care about is whether the film was any good.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
You're telling Slashdot that Hardware gets cheaper and more accessible over time? *Gasp!*
BAD MOVIES.
Eh, ok, maybe I'm too hard on them.
But yeah, 99% of student films are crap, regardless of whether or not they have special effects. It's good to learn how to use the tools of the trade, though.
"Seven Swans" has a great artistic look, compared to the other film linked. Reminds me of the old Riven/Myst cutscenes.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
So when it came time to do the VFX (which nearly every other film eschewed), we had to use the film scanner and recorder (they had a leased, donated Quantel Domino, which scanned and recorded film at 3K resolution). Ah the pain. There were at least two guys trying to finish very complicated heavy VFX films in the basement, and for all I know they're still in there. (I'm talking about you, Eric)
I'm still surprised anyobdy making a serious film would consider shooting it on standard definition video (such as DV) unless there are specific aesthetic or operational needs, such as looking for a handheld documentary look (which I hate) or shooting in the middle of the Ocean (such as Open Water). Given the color depth, resolution, and just sheer great look of film, it's a shame when people are forced to use DV for budgetary reasons.
Film school -- great fun -- poor investment.
Oh yea, I'm trying to get an ipod also: http://www.freeipods.com/?r=12669514/
If you don't believe it, watch the Wallace and Grommit series!!
As in Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks?
Was there a point to this article? Sorry, but composite shots have been around for alomst 100 years now. Just because technology has made it easy, doesn't mean every shot of every student film needs to be done using it. There are things refered to as "story" and "character" which are far more important for a film maker to learn, unless you plan to work in the movie mill Hollywood.
...meaning that it is neither inherently good or bad, but rather, context-sensitive.
As the writer/director of two shorts that worked with SCFX (The Gamers and Garageband) I feel that I might lend some insight to the grumblings I sometimes hear about the death and/or salvation of creativity at the hands of digital technology.
In response to those who bemoan the death of story at the hands of wealthy, spoiled technobrats at the elite film schools of America, I say this: There have been and always will be those who leverage their resources to compensate for a lack of creativity or ambition.
Technobrat though I might be, I am certainly not wealthy. For those of us who love telling stories in fantasy/adventure genres, though, digital technology is a godsend. The Gamers was produced, against all odds and with no official school backing or funding for a tiny fraction of what it should have cost. This is due, in large part, to the team of dedicated, resourceful, tech savvy production and post-production crew members who were supporting me and making every dollar of our $8,000 budget count.
On the other hand, in response to those who laude the advent of digital technology, let me just say this: it isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Sure, we could set a mage's hands on fire using particle effects, or build a digital church for our climactic setting, but I can assure you it would have looked far better and taken less energy had we been able to use real fire or a real set. Of course, one makes decisions based on what resources one has available (in our case we had 3 G4s, plenty of time, and very little money) but I will still say that I developed a whole new appreciation for practical effects and soundstages. There ain't nothing like the real thing, baby.
The bottom line: digital technology is an important tool that, when used properly, can put unprecedented power in the hands of creative filmmakers. Students should be using digital video and CG if for no other reason than to learn what these tools can and cannot do for them, and I for one believe that they have given me a much better perspective on the importance of story and character in cinema.
I predict we will see many more students fumbling with these new technologies, and I could think of nothing better. For all of the scoffing I hear about them, the undeniable fact is that schools like USC Cinema do put powerful tools in the hands of creative people and force them to produce material, make mistakes, and LEARN about their craft. Student films aren't about the finished product, they're about the process. And I, for one, feel far better prepared having experienced both the goods and evils that digital technology imposes on the creative process of filmmaking.
Oh, and (shameless plug) check out the Gamers website: www.gamersthemovie.com
I majored in Video Production, and the school I went to focused on the single-camera-narrative style (as opposed to multi-camera studio productions) - basically, film school, although we were never required to shoot on film (many did). For the first three years, we had to shoot on ancient VHS camcorders held together with duct tape and prayers, and cut everything together on A/B roll machines. If you were accepted into one of the 9 available spots for the Advanced Production class your senior year, you got to use Hi-8 or BetaCam and edit on a Media 100 or Casablanca. I now own a Mini-DV camcorder and a computer with Adobe Premeiere, tools that surpass anything available to me in college, but I don't regret my college experience at all - We were forced to keep production and post-production as simple as possible, which made us all far better writers and directors. I have seen a few amateur films recently that had amazing special effects, and I would still rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick rather than watch them due to the poor story and acting. Many of my projects were as far from "technically innovative" as you could get, but just about everyone always thought they were entertaining...
http://www.ysrnry.co.uk/tvprog/
For instance, here's a work-in-progress documentary about the Sinclair machines and their games.
Currently 15 mins worth of footage is available to download. It was all generated using custom-written Perl scripts using NetPbm, VirtualDub and TMPGEnc.
(Next chapter due out by the end of the year)
People have been able to make cheap "films" for a long time. Ever since the creation of the camcorder, really (8mm, VHS, whatever). Now they can just have cheap special effects, too. The key is still how widely they're distrubted, or how positive word-of-mouth is.
As I'm sure it's been said before, I don't think cheap film technology will cause the degradation of the film medium any more than the internet has resulted in the degradation of literature.
You might not agree, but I'd have enjoyed traditional photography 10x times more than digital one.
"Evil thrives when good men do nothing"
I swear I think they have sold the
community. Hey you can do compositing with
blender, you can also do animation work,
you can probably get the motion capture in
there, pipe it into yoru armature. Believe
me, this is so unimpressive a press release,
all I can see is Zemekis' marketing.. Didn't
he do Ghostbusters? Well..
I'm still waiting for that film college to kick off
somewhere in New Mexico here.. I mean, if they did I
would probably attend, maybe teach some classes on computer graphics, animation, who knows what..
Actually movies have gotten to the point where I
know I can't do a lot of what I see now.. But it didn't always used to be that way.. Like scenes from
Fifth Element or Die Hard, apart from Bruce Willis,
the excessive fire effects, is just layered explosion footage.. And the fifth element with all the cars flying around, Z buffer reuse..
Best way to leanr film, get a camera.. Get some
software, get some friends, go shoot something, edit it.. See it.. Repeat..
Well..
There is two kinds of movies, those you slave for a long time to produce money for, just so that everyone can see how brilliant you are, and make lots of money.. And then there are the movies that you just have to get made because the thought of not having it out there is driving you up the wall. I'm from the later crowd, but more my thoughts are about
scenes and lighting, not stories.. And the movie would have to serve some purpose.. Entertainment is pretty useless.. Well pick the lesser of two weevills.
Just say no to license servers!!
I'm going to take an optimistic shot and say that in 10 years any visual or sound effect whatsoever will be possible and cheap. Independent filmmakers will be able to synthesize entire movies that look as good as anything from a studio. The cost of making movies will drop to the point where the movies themselves will no longer have to make money. They will merely be bait for marketing tie-ins. Studios will shift from making movies to buying the product rights to the work of promising independent directors. They might even realize that it is no longer worth waging war against technology to prevent "piracy," because free exposure means a bigger market for the toys, games, clothes, etc.
As an aside, it's worth noting that Hollywood has already proven its ability to reinvent itself. In the 80s the big studio production machines morphed into an army of specialized subcontractors that supply equipment, costumes, sets, casting, management, effects, etc. Studios tend to form temporary companies that hire dozens of these subs to work together on one movie and then disband.
the DV revolution has been a long time coming in the film world. All the good ol' boys at the top of the game need to wake up and realize that DV is the ultimate evolution of film-making, especially for upcoming film makers and and film students. If you have enough cash to shoot 35mm, by all means, go ahead...but for the price of your film stock alone i could make a down payment on an HD cam. Bring on digital projection, while we're at it.