Today marks my 13 year anniversary of shooting HD, which is crazy to think about. I had borrowed a Sony FX1 camcorder and shot some test footage of a chase for Leap 2. We shot at 1080i, but I was hooked. A few months later, I bought the Canon Rebel T2i and could now shoot 1080 at 24p! I think back to that time in my life and how exciting it was to be a filmmaker.
The technology was new. For the first time, an indie filmmaker could shoot an image that looked like film! At the same time, I started learning visual effects by means of Adobe After Effects. The possibilities of what I could do seemed to be endless. I could take Hollywood by storm.
Today, all that excitement is gone. We’ve had affordable cinema quality cameras for over a decade. Today, anybody can borrow their mom’s Txi camera, shoot a movie, and edit it for free with DaVinci Resolve. Then they can do all the effects and the sound mix and color in the same software, using Hollywood quality tools! Therein lies the problem: Anybody can do it. Good movies and bad movies alike now flood the marketplace. Streaming has mostly replaced physical media and attention spans are shorter.
It used to be that making a feature film was a badge of honor, but now the response is usually, “that’s cool”. The new celebrities are YouTubers and TikTok stars. That’s what we’ve done with this amazing technology.
I long for the days when people thought it was cool to make a movie. When you could get some friends together, come up with a fun story and spend a few weeks shooting it. As I get ready to shoot Leap 3 this summer, I have no idea how this is going to go. The novelty factor is gone for most people. The story will have to sell itself. We shall see what happens.