The DVD: democratizing video distribution

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 melange 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.)

As part of Apple Computer’s “Made on a Mac” seminars, Caouette is demonstrating the software program in Apple stores nationwide -- for a sum Apple declines to disclose.

“People who didn’t see ‘Tarnation’ in theaters, who aren’t drawn to the subject matter, are interested in it as a piece of technology,” said Marie Therese Guirgis, head of acquisitions for Wellspring.

“Twenty-five years ago, it was only the studio system, with a few mavericks like John Cassavetes and Robert Altman making films on the side,” Guirgis adds. “This is a golden age for independent film, a much broader landscape -- and the consumer is the beneficiary.”

Stein and Shell used a $1,500 Apple Final Cut Pro editing program to weave archival home movies Stein shot with his dad’s camcorder in the early 1980s. Among his 50 mini-genre films, cast with neighborhood kids: a musical (“I Have No Friends”), a takeoff on TV journalism (“Crazy News”) and riffs on subjects ranging from ninja fighting to Stein’s hypersexuality.

Using a football-size “pro-sumer” camera ($3,000) favored by independent filmmakers, the duo shot additional footage of the children’s parents -- before and after watching the videos.

The 70-minute “Put the Camera on Me” generated good reviews on the festival circuit. (The Boston Phoenix even said it was reminiscent of work by Steven Spielberg and New German Cinema enfant terrible Rainer Werner Fassbinder.) It never made it to theaters, however. As the filmmakers tell it, a New York City art house was interested but would have had to rent a digital projector or pay to transfer the movie to film.

Having a DVD, in any case, exceeds Stein and Shell’s wildest dreams. “Jawbreaker,” Stein’s previous film, took in $25 million in that format after a lackluster theatrical run. And the format permits them to include 10 home movies in their entirety, in response to fan demand.

“DVDs have opened up doors shut for so long,” said Shell, 29, who describes himself as the “straight, fat kid” in the movies. “The studios are no longer the gatekeepers.”

In his Oscar-nominated documentary “Twist of Faith,” airing on HBO on June 28, Kirby Dick put a camera in the hands of a man who was abused by a priest as a child. And in “Chain Camera” he employed a similar technique, giving equipment to 10 high school students. They recorded their lives for a week, then passed the Super 8 cameras to 10 friends. Over the course of a year, 200 stories emerged.

“The cameras were a tool of expression -- a way of empowering the students,” said Dick, 52. “The first film that gave cameras to people in a comprehensive way, it sidestepped not only the studios, but in some aspects the director as well.

“The portrayal of Angeleno youth is far more realistic than the one served up by mainstream shows such as ‘Beverly Hills, 90210,’ ” he adds. “And the Internet jumped all over it because it was made with teens -- heavy users of the Web.”

Funded by HBO’s Cinemax, “Chain Camera” cost slightly more than $100,000 -- in part because the two producers and director worked for free. They’ll be reaping money from DVDs, however, which will be distributed by Zeitgeist Films. Four stories have been added, with commentary by the student filmmakers.

“There’s less at stake with DVDs,” said Dick. “That frees you from the 90-minute or 120-minute mind-set and leads to experimentation.”

“Born Into Brothels” took in $3.5 million at the box office.

“We’re a perfect example of the leveled playing field because we essentially came out of nowhere,” said Kauffman, who co-wrote and co-directed the Academy Award-winning film. “Without digital technology, this could never have been done because it was shot in very tight circumstances that didn’t permit a sound crew.”

Some viewers found Briski too intrusive in the on-camera sequences. Kauffman disagrees. While she wasn’t initially intended to be on camera, he says, the London photojournalist was, in fact, the protagonist. “The definition of documentaries has broadened,” he said. “People are getting used to personal stories from filmmakers. In ‘Tarnation’ and ‘Super Size Me,’ the directors were also part of the action -- and handled it in an entertaining, nonindulgent way. With freedom comes responsibility.”

Wellspring’s Guirgis is all for the change -- but it’s not without drawbacks, she maintains. “Fifty percent of the population under 25 wants to make a film,” she said. “It’s far more of an ambition than writing. “While it’s good to make the means of creation more accessible, a lot of the material won’t cut it.”