The DVD: democratizing video distribution
Hello All,
For aspiring Stanley Kubricks — or "Super-sized" Morgan Spurlocks — digital technology and DVDs have become the great equalizer.
Anyone with a bright idea, a camera and a little luck can wind up with a consumer review of his or her movie "posted on Amazon.com, right next to Roger Ebert's," as one filmmaker put it.
In this era of revelation and very public soul-baring — "Running With Scissors," Augusten Burroughs' raunchy memoir of his youth, and "The Kiss," Kathryn Harrison's tale of a four-year affair with her father, are literary examples — the DVD offers people with personal stories to tell a potentially lucrative niche in which to do it.
"Digital video cameras have spawned a whole generation of do-it-yourself filmmakers," said Darren Stein, 33, co-director of "Put the Camera on Me," the story of growing up gay and Jewish in an Encino cul-de-sac, which comes out on DVD July 12 from Wellspring. "The system has been democratized — you don't have to be David Lynch to tell your story."
Shot with cameras that cost as little as $500 and edited on home computers, these movies often gain exposure through the film festival route. If a project is accepted, it might catch the attention of independent distribution companies such as Wellspring and ThinkFilm or subsidiaries of major studios such as Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics.
Even if a theatrical release returns only minimal revenues, the risk is low because the cost is, too.
DVDs offer niche material another alternative and occasionally even spur a theatrical release. Lions Gate Entertainment signed Tyler Perry ("Diary of a Mad Black Woman") to a film deal after seeing how well self-distributed DVDs of his plays sold on his website. Robert Greenwald's "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" opened in theaters two weeks after it landed successfully online.
On July 26 Kirby Dick's "Chain Camera," which consists of 16 video diaries shot by students at Los Feliz's John Marshall High School, is making its home entertainment debut. This year's Oscar-winning documentary "Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids" comes out Sept. 1 on DVD. In it, filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman ask children of prostitutes to record their surroundings, giving them a sense of purpose and possibility. Such a move would have been impossible before the late 1990s, the filmmakers concede, when cheaper portable digital equipment came into its own.
The $8,000 "Put the Camera on Me," which Stein directed with childhood chum Adam Shell, follows on the heels of last month's DVD debut of the critically acclaimed "Tarnation," also released by Wellspring. In it, Jonathan Caouette creates a portrait of a dysfunctional American family through a psychedelic mélange of snapshots, Super 8 home movies, answering-machine messages, and snippets of pop culture. Bringing the audience inside his head, the director's goal, required only $218 — the cost of videotape and photocopies. (That sum, however, rose to $500,000 after the visual quality was upgraded and rights were cleared for "Tarnation's" theatrical release.)
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Talk to ya soon,
Donnie Hoover
www.cheap-dvds-advisor.com
Your One Stop Source For Cheap DVDS !!
DVD Reviews
For aspiring Stanley Kubricks — or "Super-sized" Morgan Spurlocks — digital technology and DVDs have become the great equalizer.
Anyone with a bright idea, a camera and a little luck can wind up with a consumer review of his or her movie "posted on Amazon.com, right next to Roger Ebert's," as one filmmaker put it.
In this era of revelation and very public soul-baring — "Running With Scissors," Augusten Burroughs' raunchy memoir of his youth, and "The Kiss," Kathryn Harrison's tale of a four-year affair with her father, are literary examples — the DVD offers people with personal stories to tell a potentially lucrative niche in which to do it.
"Digital video cameras have spawned a whole generation of do-it-yourself filmmakers," said Darren Stein, 33, co-director of "Put the Camera on Me," the story of growing up gay and Jewish in an Encino cul-de-sac, which comes out on DVD July 12 from Wellspring. "The system has been democratized — you don't have to be David Lynch to tell your story."
Shot with cameras that cost as little as $500 and edited on home computers, these movies often gain exposure through the film festival route. If a project is accepted, it might catch the attention of independent distribution companies such as Wellspring and ThinkFilm or subsidiaries of major studios such as Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics.
Even if a theatrical release returns only minimal revenues, the risk is low because the cost is, too.
DVDs offer niche material another alternative and occasionally even spur a theatrical release. Lions Gate Entertainment signed Tyler Perry ("Diary of a Mad Black Woman") to a film deal after seeing how well self-distributed DVDs of his plays sold on his website. Robert Greenwald's "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" opened in theaters two weeks after it landed successfully online.
On July 26 Kirby Dick's "Chain Camera," which consists of 16 video diaries shot by students at Los Feliz's John Marshall High School, is making its home entertainment debut. This year's Oscar-winning documentary "Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids" comes out Sept. 1 on DVD. In it, filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman ask children of prostitutes to record their surroundings, giving them a sense of purpose and possibility. Such a move would have been impossible before the late 1990s, the filmmakers concede, when cheaper portable digital equipment came into its own.
The $8,000 "Put the Camera on Me," which Stein directed with childhood chum Adam Shell, follows on the heels of last month's DVD debut of the critically acclaimed "Tarnation," also released by Wellspring. In it, Jonathan Caouette creates a portrait of a dysfunctional American family through a psychedelic mélange of snapshots, Super 8 home movies, answering-machine messages, and snippets of pop culture. Bringing the audience inside his head, the director's goal, required only $218 — the cost of videotape and photocopies. (That sum, however, rose to $500,000 after the visual quality was upgraded and rights were cleared for "Tarnation's" theatrical release.)
To read the rest of the article Click Here
Talk to ya soon,
Donnie Hoover
www.cheap-dvds-advisor.com
Your One Stop Source For Cheap DVDS !!
DVD Reviews
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