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Digital editing has opened doors independent filmmakers can afford to step through. Digital Rising Will Oakland Take Digital Media for a Ride? By Joaquin Alvarado The implications of the recent implosion of dot-com capital hysteria are proving hazier than the vague promises and poorly defined objectives that fueled it. Anyone with even modest technical familiarity knew from the beginning that the Internet would never supplant the entrenched star power and production values of traditional media. When it came right down to it, viewers were infinitely more willing to continue sitting on their comfy couches for reruns of Friends than put up with slow downloads of experimental short films via the Internet. For start-ups that had visions of competing with the content model of Hollywood, the disasters are now legendary. Who can forget DEN, the Digital Entertainment Network? Better yet, who can remember? While some of these efforts may have suffered from severe cases of hubris and outright greed, it is important to consider why they resonated so strongly not only with investors, but with artists and producers as well. Successfully producing any work of art is a daunting task. Unlike some forms, however, media intended for mass-market distribution (however modest the audience) are forced to confront a number of difficult and expensive obstacles. The filmmaker is generally the most expensive of these obstacles. Assuming that producers and directors are able to negotiate through the delays, payrolls, and random melt-downs of production, a long and arduous post-production process looms. Many films make it to the can and stay there. If by some small miracle the independent film manages to get completed, then the worst of all enemies awaits: distribution. This has always been the death knell to the major-ity of independent films. Enter the Internet and the promise of free international distribution and creative control. The theory sounded great, the practice was another story. At about the same time that America Online was giving away free hours for Americans to log-on (who knew they had so many to spare?), the word digital started creeping into the collective imagination of production people everywhere. Soon there were rumors that everything was turning into ones and zeros and we could all start wearing hemp shirts and living in Marin. For many this was old news. Digital technologies had been around for a while, if you could afford them. The major differences now were in the two most critical technical areas of filmmaking: shooting and editing. Soon there were digital video cameras hitting the street that were comparatively cheap and could capture a high-quality image. No more home-video auteur; the new independent would make all the personal, political, and provocative films that Hollywood refuses to pay for. Better yet, these films would be edited using desktop computers and off-the-shelf editing software. This mini-revolution had an impact not only in Hollywood, but also around the country. For minorities and women, typically on the outside looking in through the steel-plated windows of motion picture production, this meant thousands of stories getting told that never existed before. And to top it off, the Internet was quickly considered the way they would get out to the rest of the world. So why didn't it happen? Some historical context is important. There are reasons why Los Angeles remains the film capital of the world, both economically and in cultural influence. Stars like living in L.A.; it suits them. They can drive to the lot, read some cue cards, and make a game at the Staples Center by 7pm. There are also trickle down economics involved, economics that benefit the guerrilla filmmaker. When you need to buy discount film at 4:30pm, there are plenty of places to choose from. That's not the case that if you're shooting in Oakland. Central-ization helps. The film industry's success, though, has not nec-essarily extended to independent digital productions, which have proven to be a much more geographically diverse and decentralized phenomena. Here's where history steps in. When art forms are in their infancy they tend to occur spontaneously in many different places; then economics and intervention coalesce them in particular locations. There are many technologies and ideas converging under the digital media umbrella, but most of them are temporary challenges, not qualitative conditions. Networks capable of sending high-quality video in real time exist today. Digital video con-tinues to become cheaper and look better. Several companies have already developed digital imaging that has greater resolution than 35mm film. It is certain that new media will grow from these seeds, and it won't simply be a vehicle for more Tom Cruise. Oakland's proximity to where these new tools are being born is almost too obvious to bear mention. What remains to be seen is whether the city will be proactive about promoting and facilitating opportunities for these productions to grow within its borders. Oakland has a desirable mix of creative, educated, and diverse commun-ities, as well as a history of seminal artists. Now the question is how and what the city, in its population and its civic structure, can do to realize this new artistic growth. Oakland is in the unique position of having the right ingredients, without being beholden to the entertain-ment industrial complex, to establish itself as the hub of a truly new media. With vision and commit- ment, the stories waiting to be told have the potential to be distinctly East Bay. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]