Across these blogs I'll keep returning to the concept of
digitisation, the ongoing process of change and transformation of our
media, a key element of which is the opening up of opportunities for
micro-budget media producers to (occasionally!) attract large audiences
and even make some money...
We mustn't forget that giant global
conglomerates remain utterly dominant, but the possibilities for someone
with a digital camera and a Mac are infinitely higher now than 10, 20
years ago. There have always been amateur/debut film-makers somehow bringing together feature films on infinitesimally small budgets, from Wes Craven's Last House on the Left and John Carpenter's Halloween, through Alex Cox's Repo Man (see his superb book X Films: True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker, there's a copy in Lib/F6), Kevin Smith's Clerks and closer to home the rather more dubious Colin!
Here's an interesting example of a horror buff with her own successful blog, Final Girl,
who made a short film ... and monetised it through this blog, charging
$5 for a DVD of the 10min short film! The short is a postmodern lesbian
vampire skit using knock-off Barbie dolls, reflecting the filmmaker's
feminist sensibilities. If you do watch it, remember its NOT a feature
film - shorts can be rather quirkier. It is, whatever you make of the
film itself (the sound is nicely done and the mise-en-scene well handled
given the size of the characters!), a great example of how digitisation
has expanded the possibilities for enthusiastic amateur filmmakers and
media producers generally to go ahead and create, distribute and exhibit
work without having to sign deals with larger media firms.
'Final Girl' runs a monthly slasher film club; check it out and if you blog on it she may add a link to your blog on hers!
There is of course another example of a self-publishing filmmaker closer to home, and we will be looking at a trailer for his latest production
in Friday's lessons, and with a bit of luck hearing a little from the
filmmaker himself on how he went about it, and his plans for this new
opus...
We'll also have a look at the film Monsters, a good example of how digitisation has opened up possibilities for filmmakers to produce slick work on very limited money and with a crew barely bigger than a Media coursework group; I have previously blogged on this and various other examples of digitisation, plus analyses, in a wide range of posts you should be looking over whether for AS/A2 exam or AS/A2 coursework (especially Evaluation)...
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