Internet becomes major tool for amateur filmmakers

Wired on Friday: Amateur, low budget, underground, alternative - the name changes but the values remain the same. From the first time the general public could get hold of the tools of the trade, they've created home movies: films particular to their own vision, funny clips, aspirational short films to show the world what they were capable of.

Now, as in so many areas, the quality of equipment and the ease of distribution is pushing these amateur works into production values and audiences comparable to their professional counterparts.

Take Star Wars: Revelations. You won't see this Lucas-inspired film in any cinemas this summer, but it's all over the internet. It's a fan film, produced by and for the community of truly hardcore Star Wars fans.

The acting is nothing to write to Variety about, but the effects could be - the long loving shots of the Star Wars environments and technology give you an insight to what really moves the fans, as do the copious light saber battles.

It's sheer enthusiasm that makes the whole production work - both as a experience and as an enormous, distributed co-ordinated endeavour. It's a beast apart from mainstream cinema but a viewership of millions confirms it's fun enough to watch.

Lucas has an informal agreement that allows fan art, as long as it is non-commercial and doesn't insult his original. It's a position that makes him popular with his fans.

"He's said the next film makers... are the guys out of their garage making films. He's a champion of independent film making," says Shane Felux, Revelations creator.

Star Wars: Revelations couldn't have happened a moment earlier. It not only couldn't have happened without the internet but couldn't have happened without widespread broadband. The effects team was recruited from public forums focused on computer-generated effects from all over the internet, and the world.

Co-ordinated via a net forum set up by Felux, participants in the project got to know each other, and everyone could see and contribute ideas to each other's project. "I would shoot, edit, upload and they would download and work on the effects, and they would upload what they'd done. Everyone saw what everyone else was doing... everyone grew together, everyone helped each other out."

Felux used the net to recruit cast and crew, and manage the schedule and communications. But where the internet really came into its own was Revelations's opening day, when the movie became available via various sites for download, both conventionally and via BitTorrent's peer-to-peer system.

Revelations became a hit online, with more than three million downloads in six weeks.

While Felux and his fellow creators didn't, and legally couldn't, make a penny off their creation, they did get to show their vision to millions of people around the world.

Still, that's not why everyone makes movies. Jason Santo, creator of the microcinemascene.com website, sees the filmmakers' motives as guiding the technical and logistical path of movies.

"A Hollywood movie is made to be consumed by a large number of people, created by highly skilled craftsmen, working on universal themes to appeal to a wide audience."

Indies are often looking for more of a niche audience. "Like any other artform, it all comes down to motive - what is your vehicle? For friends, yourself, public access, put out a DVD, going to ifilm.com? Half of [ microcinema creators] want to move into the mainstream, and half of them want to not follow the rules for various reasons."

With Moore's law taking care of cheaper equipment that can produce professional grade quality, Santo sees internet communities creating and growing a huge scene of low to no-budget filmmakers, pooling their talents and knowledge.

After what many describe as a death of independent film in the late 1980s, non-professional cinema is being reborn in these communities.

That in itself can create interesting problems. US comic Richard Jeni once said of the variety of people and culture available on the internet: "Type in 'Find people that have sex with goats that are on fire' and the computer will say 'Specify type of goat'." After a while in those chatrooms, you forget that canoodling with burning goats isn't normal.

This frustrates Santo. "The biggest problem [ microcinema] faces is the echo chamber, where people are unwilling to look outside for other ideas."

Being good enough to draw praise from what is largely an audience of peers can stunt the absolute growth of a filmmaker.

"For it to grow out it needs to improve, move away from being a training ground. We need to learn from the 100-year history of film."

Motive drives distribution as well as style of production. For filmmakers with a message to convey, or a reputation to establish, spreading their films via the net makes the most sense. But many people who have invested six figures or more in making their movie, that investment can lock up the movie itself and prevent it from ever being seen unless big distribution picks it up.

Ironically, the no-budgets amateurs can get a wider audience than the struggling professional. And the biggest problem with the new amateurs may not be fulfilling the age-old dreams of artistic vision and a wide appreciative audience, but finding out how to keep all of that, while exchanging their enthusiasm for a pay cheque.