The future of the digital filmmaking may be tapeless sooner than you think. According to Bernie Mitchell, president of Silver Platter productions and a Panasonic consultant, “I personally believe that tape will be gone in two years… If you’re still shooting on tape you will have to figure out a way to get off of it pretty quick.” He gave a presentation along with filmmakers who used Panasonic HD cameras for their Slamdance entries. The high end Panasonic P2 cameras record uncompressed digital HD and start at $6,000, going up in price rapidly. For lower budgets, the AVC HD cameras start below $2,000 and use much cheaper SD cards that record on the MP4 format. Every take is recorded as a separate file on the card so you can pick the takes you want to load on to your computer instead of using batch capture from tape. A 16 GB card will hold about 160 minutes worth of footage. Bernie says a filmmaker should think of the SD card less as a replacement for tape and more of “a transport mechanism. You want to get data/footage on the SD card and then off the SD card,” so that the card can be reused. With just a couple of SD cards in the field, Bernie believes directors are more likely to run out of battery power than data space.
Slamdance also addressed changing technology at their 2010 Filmmaker Summit, where they asked the question about the relevancy of film festivals especially since VOD (Video on Demand such as YouTube) offers content immediately to the masses and film sales have vanished in recent years. Slamdance President Peter Baxter, Slamdance co-founder Paul Rachman and former Tribecca Institute CEO Brian Newman tackled this question. Brian Newman said that filmmakers are discovering that they need to go to festivals “to find their audience, not necessarily their distributor.” The festivals help create exposure and build a community around a film. Paul Rachman believes “film festivals can really give something back to the filmmakers in terms of the brand and building in their community.” He loves the idea of films starting up in their home town and go on an alternative circuit through venues like museums and colleges, much like the art or music world. Peter Baxter said “What is changing here is that it used to be a few years ago you really needed a festival after you made your film as a platform maybe to find distribution, a manager or an agent for your picture. [For a filmmaker] once they finish a film it is just the beginning. They have to take charge and they have to take control of that now. They cannot rely on just the festival alone to do that. They have to have a plan. It’s as important as your production.” Peter also hopes in the future more festivals will work closer together to help filmmakers get more exposure.
Also, at the Filmmaker Summit, Slamdance announced a partnership with Microsoft to show movies through their X-Box and Zune platforms year around. Peter Baxter says that not only will this help Slamdance, but more importantly for filmmakers “help to find popular and world wide audiences for these independent films that we believe can be successful.” The filmmakers will get royalties, and daily tracking on the number of views, as well as retaining the rights of their films.
Bands helped entertain folks at Slamdance.
The first three days of the festivals at Park City were bustling with world premières, special parties, tourists, waiting lines at restaurants, snow, snow and more snow. Walking along the street it seemed that everybody glanced at your face for a second or two to check if you were a celebrity. By Monday, however, many people had left, going back to their day jobs. Main Street seemed like a ghost town even though filmmakers and enthusiasts were still walking around – jumping into a coffee shop or coming out of a showing. It just wasn’t shoulder to shoulder any longer on the sidewalks. The movie screenings that had been packed now had several empty chairs. The films continued throughout the week, but sadly, this reporter had to return home.
