(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[film trend] – I think amateurs will have more leeway in the future. Thanks to digital equipment and the web, people have the opportunity to showcase what they have done, without having to spend a lot of resources on it. The talents come up and forward faster.
This is what Terje Strømstad, producer of the greatest amateur success of all time in Norway, Kill Buljo, says in a comment on this weekend's Norwegian premiere of Be Kind, Rewind. Strømstad tells Ny Tid that the distinction between amateurs and professionals is now being erased. And the process will intensify.
The reason is clear: Never before have amateurs had such great opportunities to frolic with vivid pictures. A new generation of inexpensive cameras and editing platforms now enables you to create sophisticated quality films.
In addition, the web has become a launch channel that for the first time gives amateurs an opportunity to reach the world with their films. And to top it all off, there is an undercurrent in cultural life that is intrigued by the amateurish.
An example of this is Michel Gondry's Be Kind, Rewind, which has a cinema premiere in Norway on April 18. Here, a video store employee and his buddy have to solve a bizarre problem: Accidentally deleted the contents of all VHS cartridges in the store. Thus, they must record their own amateur versions of well-known films such as Ghostbusters, Robocop, Driving Miss Daisy, The Lion King and Rush Hour 2.
Eventually, however, the duo comes to the idea of creating something their own. They get creative seriously and start their own film.
It's hardly a coincidence that just Gondry made this movie. The Frenchman has a stated agenda that speaks to the game's price. Gondry describes himself as part of the Lego generation, and sees play as a cure for passivity.
culture consumption
Traditionally, cultural self-activity has been an integral part of people's lives. Of course, some were greater talents than others, even in the old days, but in the wake of the industrial revolution, a whole new distinction was created between professionalized cultural producers and passivated cultural consumers.
In today's world we listen to recorded music instead of playing and singing ourselves. And drama is something we encounter on film and television. This narrowing of Hvermannsen's creative potential is hampered not only by the time constraint, but also by the fact that the resourceful have put so many – and strong – guidelines on what is required for a cultural product to be worth spending time on. The level between amateurs and professionals has long seemed insurmountable.
But now the amateurs are coming. Cheap technology has shrunk the old gap. Today's amateurs actually have equipment that is at least as advanced as the professional filmmakers had a couple of decades ago. And at a time when there is an abundance of seamless and digitally polished films, sooner or later a craving for rougher expressions will be created. Feel free to call it cinematic punk.
The interest in amateur playfulness therefore seems to be a sign of the times. NRK's Store Studio interviewed Chris Strompolos earlier this year, who spent 7 years making his own version of The Hunt for the Lost Treasure.
Nor is it just Michel Gondry who makes amateur film a theme in a professionally made feature film. Garth Jenning's Son of Rambow is another example. The film depicts how two boys in the early 1980s get an outlet for their creative and rebellious sides by making a home-knit sequel to Sylvester Stallone's first Rambo film, First Blood.
Sometimes the distinction between amateurs and professional actors becomes very vague. The Star Trek: The New Voyages project is a telling example. It all started with fans of the famous science fiction series coming together to make new episodes – on a volunteer basis and with themselves in the lead roles. But since Star Trek is a copyrighted concept, Paramount and CBS had to be contacted.
In the end, the media companies gave the amateurs the green light, provided that no sponsors or other forms of income would be linked to the project. And the result was so well made and exciting that actors from the original series would join. The episodes are downloaded for free from the series' website.
The amateur revolution
Drammen resident Roar Tollefsen has been active as an amateur filmmaker since 1990. He has shown a dozen of his short films at festivals and local television, and had a local cinema screening of the feature film Juvet. Tollefsen believes he has seen a drastic change in the conditions for amateur filmmakers.
- PCs and cheap minidv cameras have revolutionized amateur film. Compared to before, the possibilities are enormous. And the internet has of course opened up opportunities for everyone who wants to do film, says Tollefsen.
- The difference between the best amateurs and the professionals is sometimes just that the professionals make money from what they do.
The main problem for amateur films has always been distribution, something Tollefsen is well aware of.
- In the 90s, it was only at festivals that you could show your films. Grimstad was the professionals' festival and the eye of the needle was narrow. There were a number of amateur film festivals, but these were only held once a year. Throughout the 90s, local television became an option.
But thanks to the web, completely new opportunities open up. Tollefsen has recently launched a short film, the horror Jigsaw, on YouTube. Mostly to "check the response", as he says.
- I have not been so good at using the internet, but I will do so in the future. I see that everything is happening online, and it fits the short film format perfectly.
But as demonstrated in Be Kind, Rewind; the professional part of the industry has "programmed" us in relation to what we expect from a film. The two main characters in Gondry's film have to go an extra round with themselves before they free themselves from the sources of inspiration, and start making their own film, completely on their own terms.
- If we talk about Norwegian short film, then I have never understood what is a «good short film». Have often seen prize winners from Grimstad and been left as a big question mark afterwards: What was this? If a film fails to convey something, without having to be explained afterwards, you can, in my opinion, put it in the art category. I personally have therefore had no problems freeing myself from the professional guidelines. At least not those that apply in Norwegian short film, says Tollefsen.
- But do you not end up quickly trying to copy what people with many times bigger budget do, if you try on conventional genre film?
- Many have their role models in Hollywood, and dream of making something magnificent and grandiose. But that is exactly what is so fun and educational about amateur film, that you can make relatively simple techniques look good on film. Just see what Robert Rodriguez did with El Mariachi, or Peter Jackson's Bad Taste, Tollefsen says enthusiastically.
Jumped over the gap
Peter Jackson's early films have been an important source of inspiration for many. Among others for Terje Strømstad, producer for Kill Buljo, who these days is busy filming the next film from the production company Yellow Bastard; the zombie movie Red Snow.
- It was probably an advantage to have had Jackson as a source of inspiration. When you saw what he got at home in the kitchen, it seemed very inspiring, says Strømstad on a crackling mobile line from Finnmark.
The Yellow Bastard gang is so far the only amateur community in this country that is about to take the leap directly from amateurism to professional status. And the process began with the posting of a trailer for the as yet unfinished Kill Buljo online. The response was enormous.
- Would you have completed Kill Buljo without the attention the web gave you?
- I think so. But it is clear that the media boom helped us tremendously. Supporters, such as the municipality, came on the field. It's not so easy to scrape together 900.000 kroner like that without further ado.
- Was it ever relevant to launch Kill Buljo directly online?
- No. It was decided early on that it was going to the cinema. So when we had a semi-finished product, we showed what we had for the distributors. And it was a snap right away, says Strømstad.
Future income
But can cheap enthusiast productions, often launched on media platforms with small windows, also have a commercial role? Maybe. Technology blogger Scott Kirsner is one of several who have commented on the future prospects. He compares the critique of today's online snippets with the snobbish indulgence of the 1890s with the film .:
"The first films that were shown were amateurish compared to the sophisticated theater offer. (…) They were dumb, short and in black and white, while the theater boasted speech, colors and music, in performances that stretched over an entire evening. "
But the film still ended up dominating the theater, despite being an "inferior product".
Glen Emerson Morris, who has a background in technology consulting for companies such as Yahoo !, Adobe and Apple, wrote the following in a commentary on the fan-based Star Trek series:
"Star Trek: New Voyages may be the exception, in the sense that the series is based on an existing concept. Pretty soon, several new series will appear, which are entirely the work of amateurs. Until recently, the most serious problem for advertisers was a fragmented audience, with 250 channels instead of 4 or 5. But now advertisers are experiencing a disappearing audience, as more and more people search for ad-free online media channels, such as Live365.com or YouTube. A fragmented audience can be dealt with, but no audience at all is a completely different problem, "points out Emerson Morris.
In this context, the website Revver is interesting. The website works according to the YouTube principle, with the difference that each impression ends with an ad. The revenue from ad sales is then divided 50/50 between Revver and the filmmakers. The industry magazine Rushprint has calculated that the Norwegian YouTube hero Lasse Gjertsen could have earned more than 950.000 kroner, if he had posted his films on Revver.
In the March issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Michael Hirschorn addressed the issue. Hirschorn has a background in the television industry, and is not a newly saved technophile. But even he believes that amateurs will play a far greater role in the future.
"The traditional television medium will have to change character. In the future, television will be synonymous with a blissful mix of professional programs and amateur contributions downloaded from a wealth of different platforms. In this cacophonous and democratized media reality, the really big question is: 'Who gets paid by whom to deliver what to whom?' »
There is still no good and universal answer to that question. So far, we can only state that the amateurs are here to stay.
