Never mind Cannes. All film-makers need for that blockbuster is a laptop
I'm on my way out of the Cannes Film Festival, where I've spent the past week helping film-makers who want to put their work online. Between watching a ton of short films and spending many hours in my hotel room in front of my computer, I've managed to spend some time reading the film-industry press. Every day brings article after article worrying about why movies are having such a hard time at the moment. Is it down to fear of a recession in the US? Is it because the dollar is too weak?
It's hard to say for sure. But one thing's clear: this is not a time when studios want to spend big unless they're sure they're going to get their money back. If you're making Indiana Jones, you might be in luck, but otherwise you're going to have a hard time.
This is where the internet comes into its own, with its economics of free distribution and unlimited choice. There are more than 1.2 billion people online. Hundreds of millions of videos are watched on YouTube every day. And whether you're a major film studio or an independent film-maker, that offers you an opportunity you can't ignore.
You've no idea what it feels like if you've been struggling to get anyone to pay any attention to your work to suddenly have something seen by 300,000 people online, not just as passive viewers but as active participants, leaving ratings, comments and video responses. It gives film-makers an amazing focus; because there's so much material on the internet, they have to think hard about who their audience is and how to target them.
We're starting to see ever more sophisticated uses of the medium, from major studios as well as indepen-dent film-makers. Of course, most people simply put their finished work on YouTube to promote their films and to make some money from advertising. But many are putting experimental ideas on the site to gauge the reaction and refine their plans, while others have used viewer feedback to determine where in the world to arrange showings when distribution budgets are tight. The point is that film-makers are involving the viewer in every stage of the process – from ideas-generation, to editing, to distribution.
Movie-making has always been about collaboration. But the new kinds of interactivity we're seeing are blurring the division between fans and film-makers. Look at m.strange's We Are the Strange, which viewers have translated into 17 different languages; look at
Four Eyed Monsters, which is about the couple who made it and how they met on a social networking site, and which has drawn so many video responses from viewers that they've edited their favourites into a follow-up film.
The mainstream is catching on. After its success online, Four Eyed Monsters got a DVD release, and after 32 million views, an amateur nature film called Battle at Kruger has been adapted for an hour-long National Geographic special.
We now live in a world of amateur film-makers, where the ubiquity of video camera phones and cheap recording equipment has opened up opportunities for everyone to create. The ingredients of raw talent – an ear for dialogue, an eye for the perfect shot and the creative brilliance to craft something that touches and inspires the viewer – are increasingly all that are needed to shine through.
And as more people become aware of the talent emerging and blossoming online, there's no doubt that one day we'll see a blockbuster mainstream cinema release originate from a 90- second clip online.
It's hard to say for sure. But one thing's clear: this is not a time when studios want to spend big unless they're sure they're going to get their money back. If you're making Indiana Jones, you might be in luck, but otherwise you're going to have a hard time.
This is where the internet comes into its own, with its economics of free distribution and unlimited choice. There are more than 1.2 billion people online. Hundreds of millions of videos are watched on YouTube every day. And whether you're a major film studio or an independent film-maker, that offers you an opportunity you can't ignore.
You've no idea what it feels like if you've been struggling to get anyone to pay any attention to your work to suddenly have something seen by 300,000 people online, not just as passive viewers but as active participants, leaving ratings, comments and video responses. It gives film-makers an amazing focus; because there's so much material on the internet, they have to think hard about who their audience is and how to target them.
We're starting to see ever more sophisticated uses of the medium, from major studios as well as indepen-dent film-makers. Of course, most people simply put their finished work on YouTube to promote their films and to make some money from advertising. But many are putting experimental ideas on the site to gauge the reaction and refine their plans, while others have used viewer feedback to determine where in the world to arrange showings when distribution budgets are tight. The point is that film-makers are involving the viewer in every stage of the process – from ideas-generation, to editing, to distribution.
Movie-making has always been about collaboration. But the new kinds of interactivity we're seeing are blurring the division between fans and film-makers. Look at m.strange's We Are the Strange, which viewers have translated into 17 different languages; look at
Four Eyed Monsters, which is about the couple who made it and how they met on a social networking site, and which has drawn so many video responses from viewers that they've edited their favourites into a follow-up film.
The mainstream is catching on. After its success online, Four Eyed Monsters got a DVD release, and after 32 million views, an amateur nature film called Battle at Kruger has been adapted for an hour-long National Geographic special.
We now live in a world of amateur film-makers, where the ubiquity of video camera phones and cheap recording equipment has opened up opportunities for everyone to create. The ingredients of raw talent – an ear for dialogue, an eye for the perfect shot and the creative brilliance to craft something that touches and inspires the viewer – are increasingly all that are needed to shine through.
And as more people become aware of the talent emerging and blossoming online, there's no doubt that one day we'll see a blockbuster mainstream cinema release originate from a 90- second clip online.
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