Seasoned Director’s View – Should We All Be Scared?
Robin Schmidt is a British director who often shoots and edits commercial work. From his blog’s about statement:
I’m an ex-music video director, editor and cameraman, founding director firstly of Chrome Productions and now Buzz Films, blasting full steam ahead for a career in the movies and have embraced DSLR filmmaking with complete disregard for my own sanity and financial security. Join me as I careen headfirst into a world that I genuinely know nothing about. You may even learn something. I’m writing a guide for the uninitiated trying to explain just what all the fuss is about and dispel a few internet untruths along the way.
Robin wrote a lengthy article called “Should We All Be Scared” where he has some interesting things to say about the way video DSLRs are changing filmmaking:
What’s really doing my head in is the way this has suddenly opened up high production value to the man on the street. The films linked above are just a small sample of the ridiculously high quality work being created for Vincent Laforet’s ‘The Story Beyond the Still’ competition. Proof, if it were needed, that the game has changed, big time. As a director you spend many many hours busting your balls to earn the right to sit at the table of ‘big’ production, where you’ve got the budget to spend on kit and you can shoot on 35mm and you have all those great resources to make stuff look great all the time. Indeed it’s actually the hallmark of success that people will give you the budget and so your work stands out. Now, there’s guys who haven’t had to put that time in who can achieve those results on no money and dazzle people with how slick and professional their work looks. That’s made the already competitive environment for directors ever more baffling.
He goes on to say:
This is the reason I’ve jumped on board the 7D train, climbed on the roof and joined the growing number of folks up there. Yes, there’s tons of people who’ve bought a 7D and can shoot nice looking stuff on it, but I know it won’t look as good as the stuff I shoot because I’ve got the experience to edit, the experience to direct, the experience to tell a fucking good story and now I have a 7D too.
and
It’s a scary time to be a director, the kids are hungry and they have the tools to compete the way we never did when we were starting out but competition is good. If you’re getting scared too then look at it this way, the more you have to fight for stuff, the better it is when you get there. No-one ever said this would be easy.
I think Robin’s perspective is right on the mark. Be sure to check out the whole article and poke around his blog. While these tools open up the world of high quality filmmaking to the masses, they won’t make you Scorsese overnight and it won’t drastically change who the gatekeepers are in Hollywood. Early Apple computers were the VDSLRs of their day, disruptive to publishing by allowing anyone to put out high quality printed material. The desktop publishing phenomenon didn’t kill the magazine and print industry, it took the internet to accomplish that. It will be interesting to see what happens when you combine inexpensive high quality filmmaking tools with online distribution. I suspect that there will still need to be gatekeepers who are arbiters of good taste to sort out the chaff and allow the talented to flourish. But I would be willing to bet they are not the same entities working today under outdated distribution models and out of touch with their consumers and technology. Ask 19th Century weavers if it is a good plan to hold power by stifling innovation and technology.
