Unlocking the Potential

I write this at a time when the paradigm of filmmaking is shifting. Sure, we have witnessed the steady progression of tools, equipment, lowering of barriers over the last 5 years, but now... suddenly...we are seeing the major players in digital filmmaking breaking down those barriers. I feel that there are many digital filmmaking rebels out there that have been waiting in the wings...waiting for the pieces to fall into place so they could take a stab at storytelling without committing themsleves to the endeavor and telling their family and friends they are "making a movie" - cue eyerolls.

There is a large crowd of hobbyists, enthusiasts, and professionals who want to create something to watch, something interesting to themselves and, hopefully, to others. These are what I call "potential filmmakers", people who are not sure they can make a movie, even a short film, but who want to try as long as it doesn't put them into debt or ridicule. Their measure of success is not a finished film, or profit, or festival acclaim, or Netflix rental... it is more that they OWN the possibility of doing all those things. Let's face it, almost no one in this community gets a movie deal, or makes any money off their films, but many thousands of "potential filmmakers" want to buy their ticket to try. They want the freedom to be able to turn a vacation or road trip into a location shoot, simply because they happened to be in the right place at the right time. To know that playing around with an edit could end up being the fuel that starts them on the big push to make a real film.

These possibilities have been around for years... technology has been in place to try and test ideas. But now its a little different. Last year, you had to dream about either taking out a mortgage to dive into RED or some other high end package, or you played around with the HV20 in your backyard. But next year, you will probably own one of three new DSLR's and, using the lenses you already own, be able to produce shots that... in their deliverable viewing format (.MPEG-2, .MOV, .WMV) are nearly indistinguishable from those 'dream' cameras.

The DLSR movie camera opens up some serious possibilities for the "potential filmmaker". It basically unlocks the potential. I have spent my professional media career in visual effects making nothing into something... and now that nothing can start out looking like something... which makes it far easier to impress people. Now... the last barrier... the one most cannot see until its too late (and they fail)....is talent.