The latest luminary to hit our cinema screens is not Renee Zellweger or Vinnie Jones. In fact, it's not even a person, but a more modest machine: the digital video camera. Infusing new energy into film-making, the versatility of digital media has generated a new genre of experimental features ranging from British director Mike Figgis's Time Code to Julian Donkey-Boy, directed by Harmony Korine.
Digital film-making, pioneered by Lars von Trier's Dogme95 movement, is not only inspiring an established core of movie-makers - the convergence of technology, art and animation through digital media has thrown open the doors of film production to fine artists, graphic designers and broadcasters as well as young film-makers. The result is a new form of narrative through moving images which is challenging the concept of story-telling on film. In the early 1990s, the advent of desktop publishing revolutionised the print and graphic design industry - now it's the turn of the film industry. Low-cost yet easy-to-use digital technology has removed many of the barriers to film production, formerly the exclusive terrain of the studio corporations.
A complete digital production unit capable of shooting, editing and outputting a film of broadcast quality can now be purchased for about £6,000. A onechip DV camera comes with a price tag of between £1,000 and £1,500. For sophisticated editing, high-end computers, such as the Apple G4 with its vinyl cut software, cost about £5,000. Other powerful software used for editing and transferring digital film include, FireWire, Premiere, Avid and Media100.
But it is not just the low-cost factor which makes digital technology an attractive option for young film-makers. Digital film also simplifies the whole production process, according to film producer Martina Niland.
With a degree in Film and Broadcasting Communication, Niland has worked as a producer on a freelance basis and more recently with Dublin-based Samson Films. Through her work with digital and celluloid film, she appreciates the benefits of both mediums when approaching a film project.
On celluloid, Niland's work ranges from being the independent producer of a short feature Short to a role in the Irish production team for Docklands, a Channel 4 film directed by Jimmy McGovern.
Under the Irish Film Board and the RTE scheme Short Cuts, Niland and director Karl Golden were awarded £45,000 to make Dogs Body, shot on 35mm, which is due to be broadcast on RTE this autumn. More recently, Niland was associate producer on a Samson/Hot Film feature film, The Most Fertile Man in Ireland, financed by Sky Pictures, the Irish Film Board and the Northern Ireland Film Board.
The difference between digital and celluloid film is budget ratio, says Niland, who has exploited the advantages of digital media for two independent projects currently in postproduction, a short feature Bite to Eat and an hour-long documentary about mountaineering, Five Peak Challenge.
"If you shoot over on celluloid film, it is not just the [extra] stock that adds to your budget. There is a knock-on effect all the way down the line because you have to process the film in a lab and transfer to digital format for editing, so all costs are upped," says Niland. Whereas with digital film, stock tapes are comparatively cheap and the film is already digitised for editing.
Monetary considerations dictated the decision to use digital for Bite to Eat, as producer Niland and writer/director Imogen Murphy are financing the short feature themselves.
With relatively few restraints on the amount of footage shot, the DV camera offers more freedom and control when filming. The removal of lab work reduces the time lag between shooting and viewing footage. Quick decisions can be made on re-shoots, alternative angles and on pre-production tests. This gives young directors more leverage to experiment and amend mistakes. The Five Peak Challenge project, which Niland is co-directing and producing with Cait Barden, was shot by Michael Collier using a mini DV camera. To ensure the challenge was fully documented, the climbers also carried SVHSC (mini-VHS camera) for the more difficult parts of the climb. The mix of technology allowed the film-makers capture images which would not have been possible using bulky celluloid cameras.
LOW-BUDGET blockbuster The Blair Witch Project gave the film industry a taste of how streaming digital video over the Internet can be used by first-time film-makers as an alternative outlet to showcase their work.
AtomFilms, www.atomfilms.com, is a forerunner among the numerous online film distribution outlets online. As well as streaming home-made digital shorts and animations over the Internet, it sells-on film-makers' work to TV stations, Internet and broadband services, airlines and DVD/video producers. For Niland, AtomFilms provided a distribution outlet for her first independent production, Short, a 10minute feature about a dwarf, also written and directed by Murphy. Funded by a £7,000 Film Base/RTE Short Cuts award, it was filmed on 16mm film over five days. AtomFilms has sold Short onto Broadsave, Blockbuster, WindowsMedia and a number of airlines, passing on a percentage of profit made from the sales to the film-makers.
Says Niland: "We are now starting to make a little bit of a profit on Short, which is rare for a something of its budget and would probably not have happened without the Internet and AtomFilms."
Film festivals, traditionally the main outlets for young film-makers, have not eluded the digital shake-up, with new festival programmes emerging to promote the new art forms inspired by digital media.
In 1999, Sink Digital Media, www.sink.ie, launched Ireland's first annual digital film festival, Darklight Digital Film Festival, www.darklight- filmfestival.com. It brings together a diverse range of material produced through digital technology: avant-garde feature films, DV shorts and animations, online art websites, CD-rom artwork, TV commercials and DJ scratching with images.
According Nicky Gogan, a founding director of Sink, the response to Darklight has been very positive, with this year's event attracting about 600 submissions from as far away as Chile, South Australia and the US, as well as Ireland and Europe.
Following on from the 1970s trend of infusing visual art and performance into fine artwork, fine artists are now turning to film-making as digital technology affords creative freedom and control, Gogan says, so heralding a new age of digital film-makers.
Another genre experiencing a type of "liberation" through digital film is documentary film-making. Cost considerations and the ease in which opticals can be inserted into films has generated a new style of documentary narrative.
In post-production, software packages such as AfterEffects, Debabalizer and Photoshop have eliminated lab work when it comes to cleaning-up the final image and inserting opticals (freeze frames, credits and dissolves) or graphics. While sound can be processed and manipulated using software like SoundEdit 16 and ProTools.
Responding to the diversity of submissions, this year's Darklight programme, under the direction of Susan Patterson, Mary Farrelly, Gogan, and Dan Patterson, introduced a special section for DV shorts and documentaries.
Irish Award schemes for shorts:
FilmBase/RTE Short Film Awards: Three awards of between £4,400 and £6,000 for drama, documentary, animation and experimental works. Contact: filmbase@iol.ie
Arts Council Film and Video Awards Schemes: Funding for shorts, experimental film and video, community film and video. www.artscouncil.ie
The Irish Film Board, Film Makers Ireland and European distributor, UIP, run three awards (www.filmboard.ie/info-stoppress-f.html); Best Emerging Irish Film Director; Best Short Cuts/Oscailt; and Best Frameworks. Contact: info@filmboard.ie