Small Fish

Prior to the advent of digital technologies, the two biggest obstacles facing aspiring film makers and television producers were production cost and access to the means of distribution. The large amounts of capital required for production, and the reliance upon a third party broadcaster or distributor helped to maintain a dominant orthodoxy in both film and television. Digital technology allows the subversion these power structures. For filmmakers, the cost of shooting a movie is of paramount importance. It is perhaps less so for those wishing to make television shows as video has already lowered the cost of producing broadcast quality programming. Both are shackled to the means of distribution, be it via the cinema circuit or by contract to broadcasters. Digital video and editing has brought the cost of production crashing through the floor, whilst the Internet allows direct access to the audience, bypassing the need for conventional broadcasters and distributors. Roger Raderman, founder and co-chairman of iFilm, a website which both distributes digital films and acts as a forum for film makers and industry executives to meet and talk, describes the emancipation of the artist from the studio:

'The idea of a movie studio is changing as we watch. What is a studio? If you think of it as a place where movies are developed, produced, marketed and distributed, then we are very close to having a technology where one person can do all that by himself. Each person can be his own studio.'

Whilst on-line distribution is not yet a direct replacement for the traditional model, for producers the opportunity to act as their own broadcaster is liberating.

'The Internet is not about replicating TV online, but about the democratisation of distribution. By bringing down the cost of distribution it blows away the hierarchy that has controlled the dissemination of media for all time. Anyone can launch a label, and soon anyone can have a channel.'

('It's great having your own network - you should try it' 10/04/2000, The Guardian (Media))

 

With these claims in mind, this chapter will examine how digital video has dramatically reduced the costs of film and programme making, the phenomena of Microcinema, and the benefits this has brought about for producers. Then the supposed revolution brought about by digital distribution via the Internet will be considered; does this represent total autonomy for producers?

 

Production

The effect of DV (Digital Video) upon production costs is astounding. Digital tape is cheap and reusable (unlike celluloid) and does not deteriorate like conventional video. Even the most basic models of camera can record broadcast quality images. For aesthetic (and indeed sentimental) reasons, many film makers may prefer the warmth of celluloid, but for the budget producer DV is unparalleled in clarity and definition. The editing process is aided by the ability of a home computer to directly access the camera's output (PC editing of an analogue source requires a 'capturing' process which often produces less than ideal results). The end result is to bring the entire production cost down to a level that is far more affordable.

Consider this comparison:

'To make a 20-minute celluloid short, you need a dozen 400-foot reels of 16-mm film at $150 each. Throw in processing fees of $22 per reel, spend a week in an editing office at $200 per hour, add another day in a sound lab, order a final print - and you're looking at a budget of more than $40,000 before you pay your cast and crew.'

'If you shoot the same picture on DV, 10 bucks buys you a single two-hour cassette that you can use over and over again. The camera - a Sony VX1000, say, or the popular Canon XL1 - costs about $4,000, comparable to the price of a professional film camera. There are no processing fees, and you edit at home on your G3 using a $700 software package like Adobe Premiere. So, for around $10,000 you can make as many movies as you want.'

This last part is crucial. The ability to 'make as many movies as you want' is invaluable to the aspiring film maker. The high cost of producing films previosuly meant that experimentation was an expensive business, with every second of extra footage shot an increase in expenditure. DV allows for the budget minded film maker to free themselves of that constraint. For students of film and television, this mean 'learning by doing' is a more financially feasible option. Even for a well known film maker this can be of great advantage. The highly acclaimed Beuna Vista Social Club, was shot on DV by its director Wim Wenders, using both professional digital betacams and domestic 'mini-DV' models. Whereas a traditional movie shoot may consume fifteen times more film than makes it to the final edit, the low cost of DV allowed Wenders to shoot roughly one hundred times more material than he aimed to use. In fact the film was an entirely digital production, right through editing, until it was burnt onto celluloid for its theatrical release.

Digital Video is one of the major factors in the recent rapid growth of Microcinema. The term describes low budget unconventional movie making, which having benefited from recent technological devlopements appears to be gaining in both popularity and stature. At one extreme is Silence, a short film by Brent Sims and John Taylor that was shot using a Nintendo Gameboy Camera, cost less than $100, and was shown at Cannes. More readily identifiable by mainstream audiences would be The Blair Witch Project, the 'holy grail of convergence'. Although shot on conventional film and video, the low budget ethic is a key factor in the film's success. A lack of marketing budget was overcome by a ingenious Internet based campaign. Produced for $40,000, it's world-wide gross is expected to exceed $150 million.

Microcinema is about more than producing 'surprise' box office hits. The fact that The Blair Witch Project generated such a fantastic dollar spent to dollar taken ratio is less important than the fact it was made at all (I suspect that had it been filmed and edited on digital, it would have cost even less). What is crucially important about Microcinema is its democratising nature, its subversion of traditional film making practices. The shift has been from elaborate and collaborative to personal and direct. Community groups, schools and institutions may now be able to provide their members with the 'digitools' needed to become producers as well as consumers of media. A desire to act as media producers is already evidenced by the massive success of the home video camera (3.5 million sold in the US in 1993 (Negroponte)). What microcinema represents is a bridge between the home movie and the Hollywood blockbuster; allowing non professionals to create a professional looking product.

These changes in the methods of media production are of great importance, but in isolation from the means of distribution, they are rendered somewhat impotent. The real change, which has the traditional media organisations in turmoil, is the coupling of these developments with self distribution via the Internet.

 

 

 

Distribution and Broadcast

The real change for independent producers comes when they are able to be as self sufficient in the distribution of their work as they are in its production. Film makers are reliant upon the distributors to print copies of their film and ship it to cinemas, television producers depend upon broadcast networks to sanction their idea and transmit the finished product.

The principle effect of the Internet upon the broadcasting environment is a vast increase in the amount of bandwidth available. Terrestrial television broadcasting is of such limited bandwidth that transmission licences are limited to a handful of public service broadcasters, and large commercial stations in each country. Cable and Satellite television offers bandwidth for many more channels, but the huge investment required to establish cable networks ensures that the cable network is dominated by commercial concerns. Although Cable networks often provide space for local access channels (in the US cable franchises are often granted with this proviso), this is a small concession. Local access is by it's very nature a limited platform from which to speak, and more controversial material may not always be accepted by the service providers. Broadcasting on a national or international scale has previously been impossible without the sponsorship of either public service or commercial broadcasters, which despite the best intentions of broadcaster remits leads inevitably to exclusion of certain discourses.

The Internet upsets this oligarchy:

'The right to broadcast has historically been the preserve of an elite group who have been protected from competition by the high entry cost and lack of bandwidth. Broadband [Internet] is an affordable alternative to traditional means of distribution which will allow producers to distribute their own output.'

('It's great having your own network - you should try it' 10/04/2000, The Guardian (Media))

The net is already awash with media content from both corporate and independent sources, with a vast range of styles and genres. At its simplest level it is the inclusion of video files available for download from a website. Any home Internet account will allow enough personal webspace for a limited quantity of audio visual material. When a group of friends and myself produced our no-budget horror film Pickled, we made clips available on our website for any Internet user to view. As a consequence of this, our film has gained its own small audience, with server logs showing downloads from both the UK and abroad. Pickled is by our own admission an awful film, and would have stood no chance of distribution or broadcast by conventional means. Whilst downloadable movie clips may be acceptable on a limited scale, (short low quality segments to decrease download times) they are too much trouble for all but the most dedicated audiences. To attract casual 'surfing' viewers, streaming video is necessary.

Streaming video is more akin to television, whereas downloadable video is analogous to playing an electronic video cassette. Streaming video is (supposedly) instantaneous; improved download speeds allow the video to play as it is sent to the end user. The pioneers of streaming video (and indeed e-commerce) on the Internet were, and are, pornographers. The vast quantity of adult material available online has resulted in a highly competitive market place that has been quick to adopt new technology, and has utilised it in its own innovative way. As pornography websites are one of the few consistently profitable Internet businesses, it was inevitable that mainstream sites should follow their lead. The popularity of porn on the Internet demonstrated the ability and inclination of audiences to choose what they wanted to see when they wanted to see it. This is encouraging for producers of any media; instead of subjecting themselves to the demands of broadcasters and distributors, they can remove the middleman and let the audience decide. It is this empowerment that has allowed for the proliferation of online broadcasters: Atom Films, ProteinTV, Honkworm and the Digital Entertainment Network, to name but a few, have all attracted attention from Internet users, advertsers and investors. They have achieved this by creating and distributing media products that were unattractive to the traditional broadcasters. Whilst the quality of Internet video still leaves something to be desired, it is worth remembering that this is a young medium. In the United Kingdom there was only one television broadcaster for the first thirty years of its existence; in just 5 years the number of Internet broadcasts available has already far exceeded the viewing capacity of any one individual.

DV's effect on the cost of production pales into insignificance when compared to the effect that the Internet will have upon distribution. The same computer that has been used to edit the digital video can be used to prepare it as streaming media; Real Networks offer all the necessary software for $550 (£350). This then has to be hosted on a third party server, which is permanently connected to the Internet. This may be an adequate level of autonomy for most, but alternatively a producer could buy an entry level server for £1500, connect it to a DSL connection (approximately £50 per month), and purchase the Real Server software ($3000 / £2000). After the purchase of a digital camera and PC, this could represent an independent television station, capable of broadcasting to the 100 million users of Real Player, for less than £10,000.

Of course the ability to broadcast online is dependent upon certain technologies, and the ability to receive streaming video requires both appropriate software and generous bandwidth. In the example above, the chosen form of delivering streaming video was via Real Networks' software. There are several other competing formats, with Real Player at present being the most popular. The next chapter will discuss these new networks, and their position in the digital broadcasting sphere. Bandwidth too is an important issue, and effects of, and demand for broadband Internet broadcasting will be examined later.

Independence from broadcasters and distributors, is not a complete independence. In addition to the dependence upon computer hardware and software manufacturers, the provision of Internet access is as important as the supply of electricity. Equally independent broadcasters must remain aware of legal responsibilities, no matter how they distribute their work. Of principal concern are the laws regarding obscenity, blasphemy, libel and copyright. Whilst the first two have had little effect upon Internet development other than some conservative tutting and the creation of a lucrative child security software market, the latter are likely to become as serious a concern in cyberspace as they are 'offline'. For large media organisations, a watchful eye is kept upon any potentially problematic material by in-house legal teams, but for the small digitally empowered broadcaster these represent real dangers. With regard to libel, a recent case surrounding Demon Internet highlights the perilous position ISP's are placed in. Regarded as a test bed case for ISP's responsibilities in the UK, it saw Demon pay damages and costs estimated at £200,000 for failing to remove libellous postings on one of its newsgroups after receiving complaints from their subject. For media producers hosting their material on third party servers this is ominous. If threatened with litigation an ISP is more likely to dump any offending material than risk an expensive court case. Alternatively an ISP that is forced to pay damages in court may then seek to recoup that cost by launching its own suit against the author of the material, claiming breach of its code of accepted practice. Although this case related to text postings on a Newsgroup, the logic clearly extends to broadcasters, perhaps more so as 'visual evidence' could be seen to corroborate a libellous statement.

Fears of copyright theft on the Internet are perhaps well founded for established media organisations, and despite the complexity of prosecuting those who re-distribute material online, the threat of damaging legal action is very real. IcraveTV rebroadcast free-to-air Canadian terrestrial channels (including those originating the US), which is legal in Canada as long as no charge is levied. However by broadcasting via the Internet this allowed effective redistribution throughout the world. In addition, IcraveTV made a profit on their service by surrounding the on screen viewing area with banner advertisements. Needless to say, major content providers such as the NFL (National Football League) and NBA (National Basketball Association), were unhappy about their sudden lack of control over local markets and sued, forcing IcraveTV to suspend its service. The importance of this case for independent broadcasters, is that their ability to transcend national boundaries carries certain dangers as well as the obvious benefits. The Internet is often regarded, because of its ethereal and international nature, as being immune from local laws. This may prove untrue, the net potentially subject to all national laws, rather than none.

However for the independent producer, local laws and policy are generally in their favour. Keen to capitalise on the new economy, some European governments see these developments as an opportunity to resist the cultural dominance of the United States. The Danish Film Institute is actively encouraging the distribution of independent films via broadband networks, citing the rapid growth of the MP3 music format as an example of how monolithic media organisations are failing to dominate the Internet. Likewise the general acceptance of a laissez-faire approach to Internet regulation by Western Governments, is encouraging the unrestrained growth of the new media industry. Internet broadcasters, it would appear, have only as much to fear as any media producer.

For independent film makers, artists, producers and broadcasters recent technological developments can only be encouraging. Digitools have greatly reduced the cost of producing audio visual material, and the Internet has allowed producers to become their own distributors and broadcasters. Whether the potential for a fully interactive media environment will be fulfilled is dependent on current promises being realised. Increased bandwidth in both directions (from the home as much as too the home) must increase, and the Internet must resist total commercial colonisation. Film makers are caught in a trap to some extent: microcinema and online broadcasting may be a great way to get noticed, but private capital is still required to mount bigger productions. Hence the popularity of 'showcase' sites such as atomfilms.com and ifilm.net. Both provided a forum for aspiring talent to demonstrate their work to both Internet audiences, and Hollywood executives. The nature of Internet broadcasting allows these sites to transmit material that would previously have not made it out of the producers bedroom (one of the most popular animations on atomfilms.com features a hamster being microwaved). Being your own broadcaster is one thing, but a collective effort like atomfilms or ifilm adds weight to the independents' cause. That is not to say that these projects are entirely altruistic however, both are backed by private capital and have their own commercial interests. Atomfilms raised $4 million in investment capital and seeks a return on that by selling showcased films to 'off line' audiences: Cable television, in flight programming and on DVD for example. This digital reconstruction of the artists co-operative is one of the most commercially viable (and therefore most likely to survive) applications of new media technology . For producers it represents a means of marketing their product, for big media a way of finding new talent, and for the intermediaries an opportunity to make a lot of money.