Internet

Video blogs, vodcasts, YouTube -- in many ways it seems that independent filmmakers have taken the internet by force.  But what about independent films picked up for distribution?  In many cases, they are notably missing from the online arena.  Companies like Zipporah Films, Women Make Movies and Davidson Films still stick with their tried-and-true model of

What happened at AIVF over the last 30 years?

I first became aware of AIVF when Martha Gever was editor of The Independent. I marveled at this national organization that put out each month a magazine chock full of weighty, intellectual and critical articles on film and video.

For years, the holy grail of independent distribution was Miramax. Then mid-sized companies like ThinkFilm, Magnolia Pictures, and IFC Films emerged around the millennium, while mini-majors such as Sony Classics formed to compete with the Weinsteins. Meanwhile, smaller, mom-and-pop operations, trusted for their integrity—Kino, New Yorker, and Zietgeist—inhabited

“I don’t know how big of a historian you are,” begins David Dundas, one of the founders of YouAreTV, a video hosting site launched at the beginning of this year. “But this whole technology thing is kind of equivalent to when the printing press came out.”

Dear Doc Doctor:

All I can afford in terms of marketing my documentary is my Internet connection and email account. What’s the best way to use them?

For filmmakers, being experimental isn’t as easy as it used to be. Fifty years ago, tossing aside Hollywood’s conventions of narrative, acting, cinematography, and format exposed plenty of directions in which to push the envelope. Maya Deren challenged viewers by confusing them. Stan Brakhage manipulated his film by hand to create images never seen in the real world.

Oftentimes an independent filmmaker requires the support of an army of many—actors and crew—to nurture his or her film into fruition. In the case of director-producer Sam Chen’s computer-animated short film Eternal Gaze, a biopic on the life and art of Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, the required support came down to an army of one.

Digital non-linear video editing has crept into the life of nearly every filmmaker. From independents on shoestring budgets to high school students making video reports, editing with computers is the norm. Much of the credit for the popularity of non-linear editing goes to Apple’s Final Cut Pro (FCP). Apple’s savvy marketing and pricing of FCP has brought non-linear editing to the masses. It is no longer the sole province of those with stratospheric budgets and a technical support staff.

The past few years have seen significant advances in the tools for creating visual effects with desktop computers. Yet these tools cost at least a few hundred dollars and can quickly move into the thousands with the addition of plug-ins and ancillary tools. For the independent filmmaker interested in creating the illusions of visual effects in their work, there is no cheap way to experiment with these programs and learn the concepts of visual effects production.