WE ARE SO SPOILT
Ten years ago a young El Skid was setting out teaching himself how to shoot, direct and edit, using a PD150, a bulbous plastic iMac and zero experience. He learned that letterboxing his footage made it look better, as did deinterlacing it. Using the proc amp filter in FCP1 gave the footage a more contrasty, interesting look. The render times were horrific but the footage was elevated beyond the mundane and that was pretty satisfying. It took an awful lot of work to make the PD150 look in anyway decent. We used to shoot snowboarding and basejumping up in the mountains of Verbier, Switzerland. Plenty of natural light and the camera actually thrived. It was all we had. But it was a hell of a lot more than the generation before us had had. We were the new punksters, fighting an unnatural war against the big boys and, crucially, winning. That was the start of it and I was right there when it happened.
This DSLR explosion is constantly called a revolution and I simply don’t feel it is. The revolution actually happened way earlier with those first iMacs that could edit DV and the first home studio setups. The advent of DSLR filmmaking has simply seen that revolution mature and find its way into mass acceptance. And man are we spoilt. It’s insane how quickly the tools of privilege, enjoyed by the successful few have been democratised and turned over to the masses. As one who fought a desperate battle to gain access to the privileged world it’s funny how I’ve stepped back down to the punk guerilla level I started out at. Except now I know a lot more. That’s both a blessing and a curse. I know more therefore I manage what I do to a much greater degree. Sometimes you just have to let go. This is what I admire about the kids. They’re fearless and just get on with it. This is good.
Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle
The tools we now have at our disposal go beyond simply cameras. While we can all go gaga about 4:4:4 s-log, in reality those camera packages are still the reserve of the higher end practitioner. A nanoflash used to be a similar out of reach item, but soon you’ll be able to purchase the Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle, an uncompressed outboard recorder that’ll retail for less than the average camera lens. The Sony Nex FS100 pumps out a 4:4:4 hdmi signal. Hello doggy… It seems outlandish to imagine a consumer camera that ships with 4:4:4 s-log, but then it seemed outlandish to imagine super 35mm sensors in the hands of anyone who had $500 to their name just 18 months ago. Final Cut X looks like it will be an absolute bargain at $299, computers are so powerful that we can relatively easily concoct high level CG animation in our bedrooms. Motion capture with an Xbox? No problem. Wow. There’s no doubt, we’re very very spoilt right now.
Familiarity breeds contempt of course and being spoilt it’s easy to lose sight of what we actually have in our hands. Nothing is easy and, while the tools at our disposal enable us to achieve more for less there’s no doubt that the biggest investment you ever make is in education. No matter how immediate and simple the access to equipment is these days, learning the skills required is exactly as challenging and time consuming as it always was. As a now relatively experienced production gun I’m having to step up my game, acquire a new set of skills in order to cope with the influx of new, young, hungry talent. What they don’t have is my experience. That still counts for a lot and you can’t really put a price on it.
I remember reading about something called the quarter life crisis a few years back. My generation were becoming depressed about a lack of success in their twenties, pointing to the young stars in TV and music and believing that they should have been successful far earlier in their lives than they were. There are more and more examples of young entrepreneurs (Mark Zuckerberg being the prime example) against which we inevitably measure ourselves. The quarter life crisis hit those in their mid twenties, but I’m already starting to see a teen crisis plaguing those who feel they should have achieved more by the time they hit their twenties. This is staggering. It seems to be afflicting filmmakers more than ever and I meet so many people who feel they should have turned out a feature film by the time they’re 25, or maybe even two. There is no shame in spending your twenties getting really good at your craft before launching yourself big time when you’re in your thirties. Filmmaking is a craft that deals in emotions and, for me at least, I hadn’t really matured enough emotionally to do that with any great skill until I hit my thirties. That’s not the case for everybody but certainly, I’m glad that it’s taken this long. I’ve taken a battering along the way and come out okay on the other side.
As Tyler Durden says: ‘How much can you know about yourself, you’ve never been in a fight? I don’t wanna die without any scars.’
Production is a fight and the easier you have it from the equipment the more energy you should have for the scrap. So buckle up, and be prepared to work much much harder, because it’s never been so competitive.
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