Ars Est Pecunia - Copyright in the Internet Age

This year we are fortunate enough to have Les Blank participate in the festival. While telling my children a bit about the trailblazing documentarian, I mentioned "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe" - one of his most famous productions - in which Werner Herzog, having lost a bet with a fellow filmmaker, spends 20 minutes cooking and eating his shoe.

The kids, like children everywhere, thought their mother was full of crap. So to prove it to them I did a quick Google search, found what looked like several clips of the documentary, and played one of them. To my delight, I realized that we were watching not just a clip, but the full 20 minute documentary! I had just finished mentally congratulating the internet for helping to introduce a great filmmaker to the next generation when I noticed a comment posted (three years ago) to the page from Les Blank himself...asking that the film be removed from the page, as he supports himself by distributing his work and illegally putting his film online makes it impossible for him to do that.

And there, in a nutshell, is the promise and the peril of the internet for the independent filmmaker. The same thing that allows anyone, anywhere to have instant access to your work also makes it that much harder to actually pay your bills.

Copyright protection is important to artists. It allows them to produce work with the confidence that they will have the opportunity to make a living from their efforts. Without that assurance, they have no incentive to devote their lives to artistic pursuits and would instead have to take up more profitable professions, removing innumerable threads from the tapestry of human understanding.

But putting events in their proper perspective is important as well. The internet is only the latest in a long line of technologies that was supposed to have killed the (film / recording / music publishing) industry, joining the VCR, cassette tapes, and radio as the enemies of artists in their day.

In the 1930s, songwriters (under the aegis of ASCAP) fretted that radio stations were providing "free music" and pressed for larger and larger royalty fees from radio stations. The result was that the main radio networks formed a rival songwriters' organization (BMI), and not only did the established songwriters of ASCAP see their royalty fees cut, but lost ground to the newer sound of the BMI songwriters, out of whose ranks came the pioneers of rock and roll.

The music recording industry has since gone on to survive the rise of the cassette tape and advent of the recordable CD. The same has been true of the visual arts. The facts have not been kind to Jack Valenti's famous assertion that "the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone", as home video distribution became not a threat to, but a vital part of studios' marketing strategy. Netflix now provides an online alternative to piracy, accounting for 30% of all evening internet traffic (on the other hand, BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer filesharing network, generates 21% of traffic) and is set to pay almost $2 billion in licensing fees to studios next year.

To be sure, there have been losers along the way. Songwriters may have come through the radio age battered but still afloat, but vaudeville theater did not fare so well. Vinyl manufacturers have had to find new outlets for their product (but for some reason I'm not too worried about them), and CD production will likely go the same way, as digital sales are forecast to surpass CD sales sometime in 2012 (ironically, that's also when a majority of theater screens are predicted to have been converted to digital projection). And, following a year of decreased audiences and decreased profits, it is possible that the theater as a means for distributing film will soon be feeling the pinch.

Granted, tools are still needed to address copyright infringement in the digital age. The internet is definitely better, faster, and more efficient than anything seen before when it comes to distributing unauthorized copies of media. But if the past is a guide, we stand at the edge of another shift in how the media we love is delivered to us, not the death of the art that we love.

299,792 kilometers per second ... Real or FX?

299,792 kilometres per second ... Real or FX?
movement to old-school sci-fi creativity in a kickstarter project 
a DCIFF Short by Russ Imrie

Computer Graphics (CGI), green screens, rendered 3-D models, particle generators and wireframe models are part of the modern film toolkit. They enable time and reality to be molded and mashed up at will by the filmmaker. 



But in an article at TechZwin, Sci-Fi filmmakers Derek Van Gorder and Otto Stockmeier tell how they will work with  models, not computer generated  vehicles and scenery on their film "C 299792 kilometers per second."  (The title refers to the speed of light as it is accepted to be today.)

The film is about occupying technology and diverting it from war, a dramatic theme that  is  facilitated by a softer, more artful feel.

sector screenshot from trailer

Freed from the need to accommodate lighting parameters of green screen or  staging or to try  and match imperfect rendered objects, they can focus more on emotional intensity, story, and  character development. It can mean savings too. And it "looks better."


(see our article "Money, Money, Money" on crowd funding for Indie Film) 

Film Production in the District, December 5, 2011

Film Production in the District, December 5, 2011

An update from DCIFF, 

Film DC, on Facebook  pushed out news Friday (December 2) that Mayor Gray met with film producers in New York to encourage filming in the District, as he has in Los Angeles.  As locales from Seattle to New Orleans vie for productions which bring jobs and public relations manna, DC has a unique "something" that brings big production here. Argo (Warner Brothers),  Marcher (Universal and fourth in the 'Bourne Identity'/Ludlum features) and HBO series Veep, are all filmed in DC.  While the large, top-tier productions sustain a viable film industry, our constant concern is the environment for the independent filmmaker and we hope this will have a positive impact on the independent film world too.  Two innovative local indie film productions to keep an eye on are the DC-based web series Anacostia the web series  (2nd. season, 80% shot in DMV area) and  Different Daze, shot by Howard University students. 

 Location and permissions costs are always a challenge, but the DC Film Office's  Crystal Palmer is a supporter of independent filmmakers having their due and being able to film freely in DC.  Production costs and taxes always seem to be central to the focus of the Independent Film "On the Hill" event that DCIFF hosts every year during the festival: March 1st, 2012. Watch this space.

DCIFF Alumni Spotlight - Evan Marshall and Jim Nabti

Winner of the audience award for Best Documentary at last year's DCIFF, Jim Nabti and Evan Marshall's Late Rounders followed its standing room only screening at DCIFF (which also earned director Evan Marshall the New Filmmaker Award) with a successful run at the Atlanta Film Festival and honors at the LA International Film Festival. Evan and Jim are currently transforming their award-winning documentary - which follows three college football stars and their agents while their last chance for their dreams to come true unfolds during the final round of the NFL draft - into a reality television series. The duo are making sure to keep their entire production team together so that the flavor of the original film translates to the small screen. Additionally, the team have a "super secret documentary" in the works. For more information on the film, the filmmakers, or players and agents featured in the movie, make sure to visit www.laterounders.com.

They paved Paradiso and put up a parking lot

In the old days (or what many people like to call "the 80s"), if you referred to someone as a "filmmaker" then that meant that he or she made features on well, film - in other words, moving pictures on celluloid reels that were the physical location of a moving image, and were at once tactile, transitory, temperamental...(and very flammable!) At that time, the indie filmmaker hoping for their feature to get a decent distribution deal really had only one format available to them - 35mm.

Today, the choices for the indie filmmaker seem endless. Regardless of what you use to capture your masterpiece, or how you hope to exhibit it, they are indeed real options, not merely compromises, to suit many budgets and voices. At DCIFF, we hope to support and exhibit artistic programming in whatever mediums our filmmakers choose to work in - which means that the weeks leading up to the festival will be spent securing the equipment necessary to best support those choices, no matter how obscure. The diversity of artistic expression that the rich array of formats affords makes this a labor of love.

These efforts will come at a pivotal time in film technology. 2011 opened with the release of Happy Slapping, the first feature-length film shot entirely on a smartphone. Last month, the three major global camera manufacturers (AARI, Panavision, and Aeton) announced they would stop producing 35mm movie cameras, focusing instead solely on digital equipment. Additionally, just a few weeks ago, a report by the IHS Screen Digest Cinema Intelligence service projected that, by DCIFF 2012's opening night, a majority of movie screens globally will have converted to digital projection. What's more, by 2015 it is predicted that only 17% of screens will support 35mm film, essentially making film-based projection a niche market rather than the industry standard.

Granted, this does not mean that in another year's time everything will be produced digitally. Indie film auteurs often require the warm tones that only 35mm can provide, so many will use that format regardless of the constraints. Camera manufacturers still plan to sell, repair and rent their equipment for the foreseeable future. Such leading lights as Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino have gone so far as to insist that they will retire from filmmaking altogether the day theaters stop playing films on 35mm. And Michael Bay, a director whose special effects continue to lead the field, still prefers to use 35mm to capture his images, even if that means digitizing the 2D 35mm film into 3D in post production. However, this means that there will limit the venues where their films could be shown, and the audience that can experience their art.

Then why stop making something so beloved by such an important segment of users? We all know the answer - supply and demand (and cheaper production costs in other countries). Just as the bottom fell out of the typewriter market when word processors became the norm, and Kodak no longer manufactures film still cameras for the everyday consumer, the 35mm camera may be slated to go the way of the dinosaurs. This cannot solely be laid at the feet of the manufacturers - their production choices live and die by the bottom line.

The technological advances that have made 3D more accessible to more filmmakers, as well as the strides that were made in virtual CG and animation have done their part. Moreover, the audience has come to expect content which is best produced (sometimes can *only* be produced) digitally and released to support the need for instant gratification. A generation that has grown up with reality TV and YouTube will not blink at a film like Paranormal Activity - shot (by a video game programmer who had never directed before) on a digital camera is also likely to embrace the feature made with nothing more than an iPhone.

No one can argue that, by lowering the cost of production, these technological strides are a great friend to the indie filmmaker and his often limited budget. Robert Rodriguez estimates that 90% of El Mariachi's original production costs were film-related. David Lynch (who has been directing since P.T. Anderson and Tarantino were still in diapers) prefers digital precisely because it gives the indie filmmaker more freedom - not only financially, but also in terms of distribution and marketing options, and as an artist and storyteller. It can fulfill his vision without requiring the vast resources of a meddlesome studio, whose motives may relate more to finances and a successful weekend release than the auteur's autonomy.

Filmmakers are at a crossroads, not a dead end, and as they give in to the lure of new technologies they will yearn for the things they no longer "need". For the next few years at least, the industry will still have a place for such "nostalgia," and the heights to which technology will take us will further anchor that niche in place. Whether its hand-cranked ice cream or 35mm film, the very obsolescence of these things is what endears them to us and preserves their value.

DCIFF Alumni Spotlight - Sean Fallon and Charlotte Barrett

They have been compared to the Cohen Brothers, and their independent film Virgin Alexander has been lauded as a latter-day Raising Arizona or Bottle Rocket, so it is no surprise that It continues to be a whirlwind year for husband-and-wife filmmaking team Sean Fallon and Charlotte Barrett.  Since the rough cut of Virgin Alexander premiered last year at DCIFF and swept last year's audience and jury awards for best feature it has been featured at dozens of prestigious festivals across the country, where it has met with full houses and been honored with multiple awards, including its selection as the Opening Night Film at the Orlando Film Festival (where it also won Best Ensemble), Best Feature at the Black Hills Film Festival, and Best Editing at New York's esteemed Vision Film Festival. The pair, who met while enrolled at NYU's famous Tisch film school, are currently taking their film on a tour of festivals throughout the midwest. They are presently at the East Lansing Film Festival in Michigan, where they will be on hand to discuss their work with audiences there. For more information on Virgin Alexander, its cast and crew along with upcoming screenings and appearances, please check out their website at www.virginalexander.com.

DCIFF Alumni Spotlight - Brad Crowe

Since its premiere at DCIFF this March, Brad Crowe's short film Potter's Field has been featured in more than a dozen US film festivals, including the LA Shorts Festival, and was most notably for recently taking home honors for Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography from the SCBFF. Brad is currently in pre-production, working on feature-length films with his wife, filmmaker and DCIFF 2011 alum Cat Youell, whose film, The Mischievous Case of Cordelia Botkin, had its world premiere at last year's festival. For more information on Brad Crowe or his critically acclaimed short Potter's Field, including upcoming screenings, go to the film's website www.pottersfieldmovie.com.