Cinema of the Masses

So no sooner do I write something about DV and it's usefulness when suddenly the magazine Moviemaker has several articles about "Budget-lite" movies & "the teen film revolution. As I've said previously in this meandering blog about filmmaking I started to make films when I was in my early teens, and that was back in the good old days of Super-8. Now with DV more & more young filmmakers are sprouting up. All you need is a digital camera, a firewire board, and a computer. Now instead of splicing tape, and looking through actual film one can create a movie just like the pros & some would even say better then the pros. The youth of today is bombarded by every type of media there is. Computer, cable, TV, radio, & print all covert the 16 to 24 year old demographic. It was only inevitable that this generation as well as it's younger brethren would begin to make their own media. That's where I find the idea of DV liberating, and fulfilling. With so much disconnection between the generations I believe that DV can provide a voice to some who feel disconnected, but yet have something they like to say. This concept is nothing new. Rodger Larson did just that in the late seventies early eighties in New York city. Larson called it Young Filmmakers, and his organization provided teens with the tools to create films. These films were shot and edited on 16mm, and every so often their would be screenings of the teens work together with their peers. Now in schools across this nation media programs are popping up, and becoming popular with the students. A new generation is beginning to think "media smart". These students are becoming aware of the tools that the media uses to get them to buy things, and are turning the media back onto itself. There are also more and more microcinema filmmakers out there who work on a small scale, but whose films are no less important and who have an audience. As cameras get smaller and the technology becomes more and more proliferated we are going to see more and more of these films. Wait till films are delivered through broadband into our very homes and schools. There will be no holding this wave back, and Hollywood will do what it always does. Hollywood will try and copy the success of a few and try to cash in on this "niche" only to find out that it's audience is a bit too smart, and it bites back. The future is wide open.