WEST HOLLYWOOD, California -- Generally, the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival's new media forum is a relatively tame affair, attended mainly by diehards who swear that mainstream digital film is around the corner.
On Sunday, it was standing-room only.
"I've been moderating these panels for four years, and I've never seen anything like it," said Peter Broderick, whose Next Wave Films helps independent filmmakers find funding for low-budget digital films. "Two-thirds of the people in the room were making digital films and one third had already made them."
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What was it that propelled a couple of hundred filmmakers to a sweaty room at West Hollywood's Laugh Factory to listen to two panels of digital artists?
For the first time, technology advances are allowing independents to produce cinema-quality digital video for, in some cases, under US$10,000. That means a young filmmaker on a shoestring budget might produce a film that's as visually compelling as something created by a Hollywood producer who's working with a couple of million dollars.
Two recent digital films helped fuel the popularity of Sunday's forum. The Celebration, a Danish film, was filmed using a single Sony PC7 digital video camera and a tiny crew. It went on to win the New York and LA Film Critics awards for best foreign film. Panelist Bennett Miller's digital documentary The Cruise, which he shot alone with a $3,000 Sony camera atop a New York tour bus, won top honors at the Berlin Film Festival.
"Being a one-man crew and having low costs enabled an intimate portrait that wouldn't have been possible in [conventional] film because of the conspicuousness of the people and equipment," Miller said. "It invites filmmakers to get a little kooky with what they do. You don't have to conform to standards and genres."
New digital film techniques offer new hope to beleaguered independent film producers, who are having more trouble getting their movies made as production costs soar and studios back only the most commercial fare.
With fading access to movie theaters, independents increasingly must turn to other distribution media -- such as the Internet and cable television -- to get their films to the public, panelists said.
"For sheer promotional value, the Web has proven power," said Roger Raderman, founder of San Francisco-based iFilm.net, which posts clips from 125 independent films on the Web. His goal is to become "a one-stop portal for independent films on the Internet."
Most audience questions Sunday focused on technical details, like what kind of cameras and digital encoding panelists preferred.
No one on the panels or in the audience seemed interested in digital effects of the Phantom Menace variety.
"I'm definitely more old-school influenced," said Miller, who hasn't given much thought to distributing his films over the Internet or any other medium besides film. "I love old black-and-white movies. I love the idea of people getting together in a darkened room."
Indeed, one of Miller's major costs was transferring The Cruise from digital videotape to analog film so that it could be shown a theaters.
Seeking to remove that cost and promote digital films, panelist and Res Magazine editor Jonathan Wells said the next Resfest will use only digital projectors to screen movies. The digital film festival will tour San Francisco in September, New York in October, Los Angeles in November, and Chicago sometime after that.
The democratization of film has its down side, panelists said. With more films flooding the market, artists will have more trouble getting their projects noticed, as people around for the early days of the Web recall. And since anyone will soon be able to produce a film, anyone probably will.
Digital filmmaking "will invite mass mediocrity," said Miller. "It will inspire false hopes. It will encourage reckless and irresponsible filmmaking. And it might just enable some genius to make a film that hasn't been made."
