New and Experienced Filmmakers Embracing Digital Video

The medium is not the message--at least not yet. On a recent afternoon here, a documentary called “Raw Deal” was projected digitally, a technical achievement not available only a few years ago.

In the film, interviews with frat boys and the stripper who accused them of raping her were extraordinarily visually sharp, although it was difficult to appreciate the image quality, given the content. It can only be called a mercy that the alleged rape, which the boys actually taped, was originally shot on video rather than digitally. Some things we don’t want to see too clearly.

“Raw Deal” is one of 23 films at this year’s festival that are digital (as opposed to 17 last year). The festival also has a Digital Center. It is sponsoring more than a dozen “digital dialogues.” All the venues in Park City are equipped with digital projection.

Why should anyone other than filmmakers and computer nerds care? Because this technology will affect what audiences will see in the future, though in what way is a matter of debate. Because digital video, or DV, is cheap, some see it first and foremost as a way for filmmakers who don’t have much money to make a movie. The filmmaker owns the means of production (a camera or two) and post-production (a computer to edit the footage), so DV “democratizes” the process. Production companies already have stepped in to take advantage of the technology. Blow-Up Films and Madstone Films, to name just two outfits, are dedicated to providing seed money for digital filmmakers--and perhaps, in some peoples’ view, save indie filmmaking from itself.

“We felt that independent film was foundering, that it was being written for Sundance and to attract indie actors, like Harvey Keitel,” says Blow-Up’s Jason Kliot (last year’s digital “Chuck and Buck,” this year’s digital “Series 7”), who describes this phenomenon as”the Indiewoodization of indie film.”

“When digital came, that was just a fulcrum we could use to get back to the basics of true independent movies.”

Ironically, more established filmmakers--or, as Kliot would have it, Indiewood--are getting into the act, too. Richard Linklater (“Before Sunrise”), who has two films at the festival (“Tape,” “Wide Awake”), says that he made “Tape” on DV because it was cheap and because the conception--it’s essentially a chamber piece--just wasn’t big enough to warrant film production. Allison Anders (“Mi Vida Loca”) shot her festival entry “Things Behind the Sun” digitally because she had fixed costs--music, locations--that DV helped ameliorate.

Whatever their reasons for using DV, a lot of people cite Lars von Trier’s 1998 film “Celebration” as a DV production that opened their eyes to the possibilities of the medium.

“ ‘Celebration’ was like a bolt of lightning to me,” says John Sloss, a partner in InDigEnt, which is financing DV films for established filmmakers and has two films at the festival (“Tape,” “Women in Film”). “This is like an infusion of lifeblood in the filmmaking process. It’s just good storytelling stripped down.”

“ ‘Celebration’ was shot on a camera designed to shoot a baby’s first steps,” marvels Peter Broderick of Next Wave Films, which also has two digital movies at the festival (“Some Body,” “Manic”).

However, for festival co-director Geoffrey Gilmore, who actually has to watch this stuff, the access provided by DV is a mixed blessing. Apparently many filmmakers sent him the equivalent of baby’s first steps, which may explain why there’s only one DV movie in the dramatic competition (“Some Body”).

“We are always worried when one lowers the standard and says, ‘Look, now you don’t have to have this much money to shoot a movie, even with no development on a script,’ ” he says. “You may find a lot of people jumping in and shooting without giving a lot of thought to it.”

Director Billy Corben, who shot “Raw Deal,” blames the “Blair Witch” phenomenon for encouraging every Tom, Dick and Harry to pick up a camera, thinking they’re the next Orson Welles. According to Corben, “Blair Witch Project,” which purported to be found footage and therefore was very raw (but was not shot in DV), gave the impression that script development, acting and lighting were unimportant.

However, many DV proponents contend that the traditional production process doesn’t necessarily apply to DV, especially script. Filmmakers can shoot, edit, and reshoot over and over again, essentially crafting the script on the set and in the computer. Henry Barrial, Stephanie Bennett and Geoffrey Peopos, the makers of “Some Body,” say they did just that. Bennett, who acts in the film, says the camera followed her for more than two years. However, Gilmore contends this is nothing new, that independent filmmakers have always shot sporadically, whenever they had the time and money, since the very beginning of the indie movement.

What everyone does agree on is that DV allows filmmakers to shoot the digital equivalent of miles of footage. Whereas a typical cash-strapped indie might shoot at a 4-1 or 5-1 ratio (that is, 5 minutes shot for every minute used) and a studio might have the wherewithal to shoot at 10-1 or 15-1, the sky is the limit for DV makers. The “Some Body” people shot 100 hours. The film is 80 minutes long, so that works out to a ratio of 75-1. It took them a year of six-hour days to edit the footage.

*

Bruce Wagner says he was fortunate that the talky nature of his movie (“Women in Film”) necessitated only 30 to 35 hours of footage, which is on the low end of the scale. “Series 7” director Daniel Minahan, a veteran of cutting documentaries for the BBC, knew enough to keep the ratio down, but even so he shot three times more than he would have on film.

“I think if you’re shooting on a luxurious schedule it can happen, but I don’t have those kinds of schedules,” says Anders of footage overload. “You decide what takes you want and load them. If you’re new to this, I think that what you do is work with a DP [director of photography] and an editor who are experienced with the medium.”

Documentarians, on the other hand, need a lot of footage to get what they want, so DV is ideal for their work (which may be why three quarters of the docs in competition are on DV). Many documentary makers also like the fact that with DV they don’t have to reload the camera every 10 minutes, thus interrupting the flow of an on-camera interview. However, Susan Froemke (“Lalee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton”), an old hand at documentary filmmaking, claims that reloading allows everyone time to think and relax. She also believes that it teaches discipline and that DV footage profligacy inspires sloppy filmmaking.

Kate Davis, who directed “Southern Comfort,” a documentary about a female-to-male transsexual who is dying of ovarian cancer, says she wouldn’t have been able to earn her subjects’ trust without the uninterrupted nature of DV filmmaking and the ability to take the camera everywhere.

“The cameras are really light compared to film cameras,” says Davis, who shot 65 hours over a year. “If you’re shooting all day long, it makes a big difference. Your back won’t be broken at the end of the day.”

Portability and the amount of footage that can be shot have their advantages on the feature film side too. Because the camera is unobtrusive and innocuous, filmmakers have been known to steal shots in public places while passersby think they’re just shooting a home movie. And many filmmakers say that because they can keep the camera rolling and lighting requirements are minimal, actors are more “in the moment.” As a consequence, DV has gained a reputation as an actor’s medium.

Gilmore says he doesn’t see much difference in performance and adds that all the traditional elements--script development in particular--are just as important on DV as they are on film. He thinks that digital video’s real value will come from filmmakers’ ability to manipulate the image, to experiment.

Anders, who believes that “Things Behind the Sun” is the best movie she’s ever made, says, “I love it. I felt a freedom I never felt with film. I think it’s a fabulous medium for women filmmakers and personal filmmakers. It’s a friendly medium.”

What everyone seems to agree on is that audiences will accept the way digital video looks (especially when it can be made to look like film). Gilmore adds that younger people in particular, who were raised on computer games and the Web, will embrace the digital aesthetic. The last people on board, as is usually the case, will be Hollywood (with the notable exception of George Lucas)--including, ironically, the major independents.

“October Films didn’t want people to know that ‘Celebration’ was shot digitally,” Broderick says. “They were concerned that the movie wouldn’t be treated the same way that a movie on film would. There’s this kind of lag that happens in the industry. A year from now at Sundance the question of what it was shot on and how it’s projected won’t be asked.”