Every year when the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) meet in Vegas it’s a great time to get look at the latest, greatest production equipment. The big dogs like Sony, Panasonic and AVID have large impressive display areas. This year there were 1,600 companies and 900,000 square feet of exhibit space.
With only a few days to soak it all in you have to pick and chose what you want to focus on. (Or how much walking your feet can take.) It’s more technical than creative, but it does allow creative people to notice trends. And from a screenwriting & independent filmmaking perspective one trend I see is the shift toward smaller and smaller equipment.
For instance the above photo is the Canon ESO 5D Mark II (If you hang with the technical people you know they love to talk in numbers). It’s a digital still photo camera that also shoots stunning 1080i video. It is seen here with a Redrock matte box and rails to make it look like a mini Panavision camera. This camera is amazing and signals yet another shift in digital technology. When the camera was released last year it got a lot of attention from photographers and cameramen. A film called Searching for Sonny is said to be the first feature film shot with the Canon.
Over the last couple days I’ve written a lot about the future of filmmaking and the rise of webisodes and the like of online storytelling. I’ve quoted people like Spielberg and Lucas who see more and more emphasis toward web films. Sure it may be five or ten years before this comes to fruition but it is coming.
Keep in mind You Tube is not even five years old and already has more content produced on it than the entire history of television. You Tube has the power to help transform an unknown 47-year old singer from Britain into a world wide celebrity in a matter of days. In just a few weeks the Susan Boyle video has been viewed more than 43 million times. (Before she sang she said, “I’ve always wanted to perform before a large audience.” Cheers to Susan for hanging on to her dreams all these years.)
It would be possible to take this little Canon camera and shoot a musical starring Miss Boyle and have it be in the theaters (or online) in weeks taking advantage of the media buzz. This is how fast things are moving. This should be encouraging for screenwriters and filmmakers who have seen their projects in development hell for years before dying a slow death.
One of the things that helped turn out some of the greatest films in the 30s and 40s was that they were just making a heck of a lot of films. Without TV, DVD and the Internet, people back in the day flocked to movies on a regular basis — sometimes to double features. That’s why John Ford directed 144 films.
Think of the learning that could occur if writers and directors were making that many pictures over a lifetime. The problem for the last 30 years is Hollywood has been focused on big tent pole movies searching for the next blockbuster film. But I predict that as the Internet floodgate opens up there will be a return to more character driven stories providing many opportunities for writers, actors, and filmmakers like has never been seen before.
Sure there will still be a pyramid of talent, but as someone has said that pyramid is going to be a lot bigger. And there will be less need to live in L.A. to be a part of the pyramid.
Photo & text copyright 2009 Scott W. Smith
Screenwriting from Iowa 