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Focus on Technology
LET’SDOTHESHOWRIGH
DIGITAL PRODUCTION OFFERS AN ASTONISHING NEW FREEDOM FOR YOUNG FILM-MAKERS. BUT IS IT THE FUTURE FOR ALL? ANWAR BRETT REPORTS
Digital cinema allows us to get back to the basis of film-making and human relationships”, whoops British director Mike Figgis, with the zeal of a pioneer. What, apart from Figgis’s hype, is undeni- able is the freedom that advances in tech- nology of digital hardware, videotape and the computer software developed to com- plement it, now allow film-makers.
Some, like Figgis, have eagerly taken up the challenge of testing out the bound- aries within this new format. The result is his critically acclaimed, groundbreaking movie Time Code.
Seen in four split screens, these indi- vidual stories unfold in a semi-improvised fashion in real time, as the relationships between the characters slowly
become clear and the film builds
to a rousing climax. Using the lat-
est handheld video cameras,
Figgis was able to shoot in con-
tinuous takes because, unlike
film, digital videotape can record
for several hours where tradition-
al film magazines hold only ten
minutes worth of stock.
“It’s such an interesting time
right now,” Figgis says. “It’s hard
to judge how things are going to pan out. There are lots of changes in the film world and possibly two very divided camps will emerge. I know which one I will be in. Every era has its movement where people say enough of the over-pro- duced, over-manipulated, high-end stuff. We’re in the midst of that right now.”
Certainly for so successful an experi- mental filmmaker as Figgis this will be true. And with his background in music it is hard to avoid a comparison between the director of a film like Time Code and the conductor of a vast and complex symphony.
But if digital is the punk new wave blowing away the staid old world of cellu- loid, then the metaphor breaks down slightly. These things go in waves, and fash- ions inevitably dictate that what is consid- ered passé one day is desirable the next.
In reality the music parallels are important in a wholly different sense. Digital, live action filmmaking offers the freedom to the fledgling filmmaker in the same way that eight track tape recorders allowed wannabe rock stars to commit a professional standard sound to tape. It is a liberating development that, because of the significantly lower cost of tape means
more people will have the opportunity to create a feature film.
“The entry fee for filmmakers has plummeted,” agrees Miguel Arteta, whose debut American feature Chuck & Buck was shot on digital videotape. “It’s a very exciting time. And the same is true in the editing process too, since Apple Mac have come up with a computer programme called Final Cut Pro. Now every film stu- dent in America is editing their film on their laptop computer.”
And not just America. National Film & TV school graduate Tony Fisher has recent- ly done his own first feature, The Trouble With Men & Women on digital video (DV) and saw first hand the benefits of shooting in such low key and radical way.
“We were able to film on the street anditwouldbejustafewofusandour actors,” he explains. “Sometimes people would come up and ask if we were famous, but we said we were just filming our friends and walk off.
“There’s no brouhaha around it, it’s very discreet. If you’re shooting in daylight there’s no lighting needed, plus you can go out and shoot in places that would be absolutely ver- boten if you were a normal feature, places that if you had the full crew you’d have to pay thousands of pounds in location costs. In that sense it’s a liberating experience.
The cheapness of the raw stock is also a factor, Arteta adds. “When you work on an independent film every time you say ‘Action!’‚ it costs 150 dollars. When you say ‘Action!’ on a digital film it costs about ten cents. So you shoot a lot more stock and arrive at the editing room with a lot more options.
“It’s also very liberating for the actors, there’s not so much pressure on them because you’re not spending so much money every time you do a take. And it encourages people to take risks, at every level.
“It also creates a very intimate envi- ronment on set. There are less people needed to take care of the equipment, and I think the ultimate look when it gets transferred to film has a silkiness to it that that feels more immediate.
“That’s we wanted for Chuck & Buck, for it to feel like you were reading your best friend’s diary, for it to be so intimate that it felt intrusive. I thought the quality of that image was great. And also, because we used a lot of non actors, they weren’t intimidated by being on the ‘set’. There was this five pound plastic camera point- ing at them and that was it. Suddenly it became less self conscious thing for them and more performance orientated.”
New films are being shot on DV all the time, often citing the effect that the for- mat gives with words like “intimacy”, “immediacy”‚ and “energy”. Acclaimed cameraman Robby Muller has just fin- ished shooting FilmFour’s My Brother on DV for these reasons. Headline-grabbing Harmony Khorine’s latest, Julien Donkey- Boy, is another DV offering.
Similarly, Fisher shot his film with Sony’s latest PD150 camera, and also used Sony DV, recording the soundtrack for the film directly onto DAT (digital audiotape). With its production company, Next Wave, firmly committed to helping young filmmakers get their movies seen by the widest possible audience, digital production seems an ideal solution to the biggest problem of any film - cost.
But it is hard to avoid spending a lot of money in post production. For while editing might effectively be done on com- puter, transferring DV to film for a more traditional theatrical release is still a major obstacle that only more wide- spread digital exhibition will overcome.
It does, though, allow a filmmaker like Fisher to create his film, and have a high quality finished edit on videotape to offer as a calling card to distributors for whom the cost of striking new prints is factored into every release they undertake. Whether all this means that the feature will inevitably be a digital one for film- makers is doubtful.
“I think it’s extremely premature to suggest that this is the future for all filmmakers” Fisher adds. “We’ll have to see how the technology develops, because it does have some shortcom- ings compared to 35mm for example. On the other hand, I made a short two years ago on a DV camera, and just in
that time so much new technology has developed.
“But things like Time Code help, they show people that this is just another means of recording an image, another way of making a film. From my point of view as a first time director it was per- fect, it was really hard to raise the money to make this on film. If you go the usual route you can end up waiting years. But the script was written in February, and in the time since then it’s been cast, shot and edited. That’s astonishing really.”
Do not mourn the passing of cellu- loid yet. Every new art form - from jazz in music to fauvism in art - carries with it the notion that it will sweep away all that has gone before and
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