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DIRECTORS CUT

Soon you won’t need to go to the megaplex to see a movie. You won’t even need Hollywood to make it for you.

Text: DON TAPSCOTT

AUG '04

Last spring, I put together a videotape of my 18-year-old son, Alex, playing football. It was the first film I’d ever made, and it’s a zinger. The tape highlights Alex’s power and speed and strings together examples of his tackles, blocks, pressures, sacks and receptions. I added some AC/DC in the background to make the whole thing more lively and pumped up the crowd noise. I showed different angles of the same scenes, some in slow motion. I even added in special effects.

My son’s football team regularly videotapes its games, and I had some footage I had taken myself. I used Apple’s iMovie program, which makes video editing as simple as editing a memo with a word processor.

I made the film because Alex applied for admission to a half dozen American universities. Along with being a good student, he is an excellent football player – playing both defensive end and tight end on offence – and all the universities asked to see his football "highlights tape." They just assumed he would have one. In the U.S., this is standard. Not so in Canada.

Once my football video was done, I had a friend make multiple copies at his production house. Alex sent the tape to six top universities, and all of them wanted to sign him up. He starts next month at Amherst College in Massachusetts. I figure it was my video that did the trick, though his credentials as a superior student-athlete might have had something to do with it.

A half century ago, the television networks brought video to the masses. But inexpensive camcorders and powerful personal computers herald video by the masses. While we often read that technology is revolutionizing Hollywood, it’s video at the grassroots level that has more profound implications. People like me can make great home movies, and video is becoming the medium of choice for aspiring directors and actors. It looks like today’s reality TV is just the start of a much larger boom.

Four years ago, a pair of Hollywood special-effects artists captured international media attention for 405, a three-minute film they distributed on the Internet about a DC-10 landing on a California highway. It had an almost Lord of the Rings realistic image quality, and movie industry insiders were stunned that the film was made with only a camcorder and a pair of personal computers. The film won a number of awards. Today such wizardry is commonplace. (To see the variety and high quality of material now being produced, tune in to CBC-TV’s great late-night program ZeD. It features independent short video productions from artists around the world. They range from sad to hilarious, and most are produced on a shoestring budget.)

This creative energy is turbocharged by the Internet. In the dot-com giddiness of the late 1990s, a number of Websites opened for business with a pay-per-view offering of short movies. Most went out of business because they were ahead of their time. Broadband Internet access wasn’t well established, and the video productions were relatively expensive to make.

Now the economics have improved, and on-line independent video distribution is taking off. One example is Atomfilms.com. It streams 3 million short video and animation movies a month to viewers at no cost, while making money from the commercials that precede each movie.

The downside of video-on-demand via the Internet is that you have to watch the film on your computer screen. But earlier this year, an American company announced that it will start to distribute movies over the Internet that are intended for viewing on your TV. The service is called Akimbo. Subscribers pay US$10 a month for access to more than 10,000 hours of video programming, such as movies, short films, music videos, specialty programs and documentaries. Much of it is original content not previously aired on television. The content is downloaded on demand to a special appliance that sits on top of your television. It can store 200 hours of programming with DVD-like picture quality. And the service features all the convenience of a DVD player, such as pause, rewind and fast-forward.

As technology like the Akimbo Service grows in popularity, the current 500-channel universe will become 500,000 channels. Highly specialized programming will become economically feasible, from college Shakespeare productions to low-carb, peanut-free Thai cooking lessons.

Soon we’ll all be directors. More importantly, we’ll have video by the people, for the people. [ ]

ADD YOUR COMMENTS > dtapscott@enroutemag.net

AUG '04