Reel Deal: The Future of Film

Jack Black in Be Kind Rewind

Film has never been so accessible and democratric. With the explosion of digital technology and hi-speed internet, we can now rent, download, view and even create film whenever, wherever and however we choose. But although the moving image is increasingly powerful and seductive, what does this free-for-all actually mean for the consumer and film-maker, and are our viewing habits changing for the better?

On the face of it, you’d think that cinema-going would be on the decline. Not so. With the rise of the multiplex, Vue, Showcase, even Easy Cinema, cinema’s  once plummeting audiences are again on the up. The UK's overall box office takings have jumped 56 per cent over the past 10 years.
And online DVD rental services from the likes of LoveFilm are booming, and you can ( should you feel inclined to break the law  ) download almost anything you want on the web within days of its release.

Cinema is undoubtedly the natural habitat of film - seeing the big stars, on the big screen accompanied by big surround sound is unbeatable.
But going to the local picture house has become a generic experience. Movies about terrorists, aliens, serial killers, explorers, fantasy figures and real-life heroes, watched in characterless multi-screen chain cinemas, can all look and sound the same.

The buzz of getting dressed up, munching through popcorn and enjoying an evening of celluloid magic -  which flourished with the invention of the arthouse in the 1920s – has pretty much evaporated.
Repertory cinemas showing alternative, independent and foreign films are, in comparison,  relatively few and far between. And with cinema prices rising, the temptation for some to watch pirated versions of the big blockbusters – online, with minimal effort, and for free - is high; 600,000 films are illegally downloaded every day. 

The onset of digital technology, set to take over distribution in the next few years, may only make things worse.
Cinemas are gradually chucking traditional movie-projectors in favour of new digital ones, as increasing numbers of films from the major studios are being shot digitally.
The likes of Apocalypto, Superman Returns and Cloverfield can now be screened without a film reel in sight.
And with a better quality of projected image, and no scratches, digital ‘prints’ are definitely the way forward.

Handling film in digital format instead of on rolls of celluloid (costing £3000 per print) makes it even easier for cinemas to increase the number of auditoria showing a popular movie if it were, say, to sell out, and to pull completely those that perform less well.
This will undoubtedly mean more screen time for the lucrative movies, and even less variety at cinemas already dominated by multiple staggered screenings of the big releases.
On the positive side, in theory even films shot on the lowliest of video cameras could be seen on the big screen, allowing emerging film-makers to battle for screen time against the big guns.
With many established film-makers sticking to 35mm, it may be down to the new wave of aspiring film-makers to see in the new technologies.
As long as, of course, their work is deemed commercially viable.   

While the cinemas are giving us less choice, online DVD rental services are offering more with piles of black and red LoveFilm envelopes becoming a familiar sight to thousands.
Offering over 50,000 titles, including the obscure as well as the mainstream, this multi-million dollar enterprise may be the new arthouse.
The service caters to some 900,000 subscribers since its merger with Amazon earlier this year, and it seems people aren’t just fighting over the same high profile releases - in fact 35,000 different films are mailed out every day in the US.
Although we flock in our droves to see Will Ferrell in Semi-Pro, when it comes to sitting back and switching on, we remain stubbornly divided.

The LoveFilm phenomenon proves that films with limited appeal could be just as successful as those for the mainstream, if they were able to reach their target audience.
But although the quality films are often the wild cards, those that people care enough about to either love or hate, the big studios will rarely take that risk.

Releases appealing to the masses are a safe bet – most people might see them, and will probably be at least mildly entertained.

The ones which miss their mark are dispatched straight to DVD (Jessica Simpson’s Blonde Ambition) or straight to download (Madonna’s Filth and Wisdom). No surprise there.
Warner Bros’ Invasion starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, which interestingly topped the DVD chart early this year, was denied a proper UK press release after it was panned in the US.

For years the internet has awarded film-goers greater sway over the success or failure of film releases through blogs and fansites – the online hype surrounding Snakes on a Plane transformed this unremarkable movie into a sure-fire hit.
Now the success of interactive video-sharing websites is blurring the boundaries between the amateur and the professional. Anyone can be a film maker and get the work seen. According to Screen Digest, 47% of all video watched online in US is user-generated, forecast to rise to 55% by 2010, and over 100 million videos are viewed every day.
Many of these are poor, but the better ones may find YouTube a useful jumping off point.
No-budget short films can be submitted via the site to established festival showcases like FutureShorts, which runs across the country till the end of March.

While thousands of YouTubers and MySpacers are mimicking and remixing what they see at the cinema in their own mash-ups and spoofs, big-name directors are tapping into the video-sharing communities for inspiration.
Gus Van Sant’s skateboarder drama Paranoid Park used non-professional actors found on MySpace; Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass recently extolled the guerilla film-makers rejigging his own budget-busting chase sequences into superior edits.

These new viewing platforms on the web are allowing film-makers to connect directly with a niche audience, and in some cases to bypass conventional distribution methods completely through ‘crowd funding’.
Open-source film project A Swarm of Angels, conceived by Matt Hanson - founder of the onedotzero digital film festival and winner of the 2006 Next Big Web Thing award - will be funded, marketed, and distributed for free online.
A donation of £25 gets you membership of the 50,000 strong ‘swarm’ community, exclusive media access, and input to creative and marketing decisions.

On a similar wave, MySpace is releasing ‘the world’s first user-generated feature film’, Faintheart, later this year, directed by BAFTA nominated Vito Rocco.
But despite its user-generated status, Faintheart is a class act. Rocco is hardly the average MySpace user – he names Simon Pegg, David Walliams and Jessica Hynes as some of his actor friends.
Is just another way of wrapping up film in a pretty package for resale to the consumer?

Perhaps a more earnest take on anti-commercial film-making is offered by director Michel Gondry.
In latest film Be Kind Rewind, two oddballs manning a video store accidentally erase every tape in the collection and replace the mainstream titles with their own low-tech remakes which turn out to be more popular with the customers than the originals.
Gondry, who uses amateur style effects in his own films, and still classifies himself as a ‘beginner’, imagines a utopia where people create their own entertainment rather than passively consuming the rubbish they are spoon-fed by Hollywood execs; a cinema by, and for the people.
 In an attempt to make this a reality, a replica of the Be Kind Rewind video-store has been erected at Deitch Projects in SoHo, New York.
Inside there are makeshift sets where people can shoot and edit their own movies, which are then stockpiled at the store and can be viewed by future visitors.

But, by all accounts, these are not films you’d want to watch.
Even Gondry would have to admit that some people, like himself, are better at crafting than others, and not everyone can bag a gig with Charlie Kaufmann and Kate Winslet.

D-I-Y distribution does provide film-makers with a creative freedom usually surrendered to the project investors.
The challenge is weeding out those that are talented enough to make the most of this freedom. Because the fact is, most people should not be let loose with a video camera.

The parasitic products of the YouTube ecosystem rarely throw up anything truly original, and should not be given any more airtime than they already have. Talent will out, and if you don’t have it, well, it won’t. 
Yes,cutting the big studios out of the equation sabotages the hierarchy of an industry which places the consumer at the bottom.
But who says democracy in film is a good thing? Why should film-makers try to give the people what they want? What results is surely a watered-down, tepid product with nothing interesting to say.

Film is collaborative by nature, but as the Faintheart instigators  must know very well, there must be someone masterminding the whole operation.

Luckily, enough people share the left field visions of the real-deal directors - the Coen brothers, Scorsese, Tim Burton - to make their films both critical and commercial successes.
This is how we should exercise our independence, and have our say – by continuing to turn out to watch these films at the cinema.
Because keeping these geniuses working is worth the price of a ticket.    

Rosie Jackson


LIKE THIS FEATURE?  THEN YOU MAY BE OPEN TO:
Be Kind Rewind
Our review of Gondry's movie
Filth and Wisdom
Interview with Madonna on her directing debut
Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens
We review the film of the iconic photographer's life

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