The Disposable Film Festival: Interview

POSTED BY Wesley Scoggins, 19 August 2008

DFF Promo from Disposable Film Festival on Vimeo.

This is a promo for the Disposable Film Festival, founded in 2007 by filmmakers Eric Slatkin and Carlton Evans, it's purpose is to create a forum and explore the possibilities of creating good films with the cheapest cameras possible. I thought it was a really fascinating idea when I first heard about it, but then I was lucky enough to get to talk to the Founders and ask them a few questions about their festival, and I thought the answers were fantastic.

Wes: Tell us exactly what the Disposable Film Festival is, and where did you get the inspiration to organize this event?

DFF: We started the Disposable Film Festival in 2007 to celebrate the artistic potential of disposable video, which we see as an emerging form of filmmaking. We screen mostly short films, made on readily available devices: cell phones, one-time use video cameras, helmet cams, spy cams, point and shoot cameras, webcams, computer screen capture software, and other easy-to-use consumer level equipment that is flooding the market. People use these cameras to post random clips online, but this is a step beyond documenting a Saturday night out. We're taking the best of this material and moving it from the computer screen to the big screen.

The motto of your festival seems to definitely be that technical limitations shouldn't also limit creativity, what are things that filmmakers can focus on to make their work really stand out working in such a limited format?

In some ways, the limitations of the formats end up placing a great emphasis on the fundamentals of filmmaking: shot composition, montage, sound. But we also feel that the limitations are worth investigating. Some of these devices do interesting things with light and color, which are not easy to control but rather produce some interesting accidents. Even the noise that you find in low light shots can be used in interesting ways. Each device has its own visual language, it's important in this kind of filmmaking to use the inherent aspects of this.

Do you have any advice to filmmakers working in lo-fi formats about things they can do to really "push the limit" of the format and help their work stand out?

Get to know your equipment. There is a myriad of different devices out there, each has its own quirks and interesting effects. Think about what you can do with it that you can't do with a mini DV cam or other more expensive cameras.

What are some of the more creative solutions you've seen filmmakers create to try to overcome the traditional limitations of working with such definitively uncinematic equipment.

We wouldn't call them solutions, but rather new creative avenues that these devices open up. Some of our filmmakers have experimented by tying them to a bunch of helium balloons and sending it off above a city (see: Balloon Project), taping it to the back of a bus to get a city shot or to their bikes. People have created makeshift tripods, steadicams, and dollies as the image stabilization is often not very good (though shakiness can also be used as a device in one's film). There are a number of interesting possibilities that are demonstrating in our '08 program, which you can see here (http://disposablefilmfest.com/watch/)

With image capturing technology continuing to approve dramatically, with cameras reaching for higher and higher resolutions, while fitting in increasingly smaller and smaller packages, do you eventually see the distinction between 'cinematic' and 'uncinematic' equipment dissolving? What do you think the future of content creation will be when within the next 10 or 15 years, when filmmakers will be able to get HD pro-quality images from something like their new cellphone or a off the shelf "disposable" camera?

We're already starting to see HD creeping into digital point and shoot cameras, and we think it's closer to 5 years when most new devices will shoot in HD standard. But the devices that have been made in the past few years will hopefully attain a cult status (similar to Pixelvision) and people will seek them out to shoot on them specifically. One misconception we feel is that if it's shot in HD it's inevitably better. Sure, the colors can be brighter, the picture can be clearer, and if shot in 24p can 'replicate' more of a filmic look-but if someone doesn't have a good story to tell, isn't thinking about the framing and movement of their shots and their environment, HD isn't going to magically turn it into a good film.

What do you think filmmakers are going to have to do to get their content noticed, and really make their films stand out as "quality" in the world of the future, where less and less experienced people will be able to obtain such quality for their films with presumably less hard work? Have there been any films that really made you stand up and really re-examine them because you were just shocked that they were filmed on such "sub-standard" equipment, and was it because of how good they were able to make it LOOK, or how good they were able to make it period?

The landscape of PR is changing dramatically; people can do almost as good of a job these days with all the tools on the internet and ways to access influential media sources than a hired PR person could. Obviously understanding SEO is important, and spreading your film to as many different host sites you can if you want to get it out there.

In terms of films that have shocked us, all the films in the Disposable Film Fest wow us.

With technology really changing the landscape so much within the last decade, off the shelf HD cameras for under $1000 dollars, worldwide free-access distribution and marketing networks, high-speed internet allowing unprecedentedly collaborative projects to become more and more user friendly, where do you see things heading within the NEXT decade? Now that the infrastructure is being lain down, what is the next step? Furthermore, do you see larger more top-heavy institutions like Hollywood being threatened from these developments?

Juggernauts like Hollywood will adapt and continue to exist-but more incidents like teenagers that create their own Apple iPod commercials will get those commercials actually picked up by Apple, etc. This is the cutting edge of a much larger phenomenon, which is that digital technology has made filmmaking cheaper and more accessible to everyone, and now we're seeing this explosion at every level. Where the minimum cost of making a film used to be something like 100K, we're now seeing films that were made in the $5-10K range, with collectives donating their services and seeing returns on the back end. It's a model that's working because the filmmakers are also self-distributing their films, and recouping $10K when the filmmaker is seeing all the revenues from sales is getting to be very easy to do.

In terms of the collaboration, as data speeds increase as well, people will be able to work on films and pass them on, like the audio project Telephono where people continually add onto a song and pass it on, people will pass on films and re-edit, re-mix, etc. And there will also be better online video editors like the ones Adobe is coming out with and seen on Jumpcut (an online video editing system) that people can collaboratively create films that way.

There has always been nay-sayers with new technology, when filmmaking first developed, many people didn't see it as a real art form and were dismissive of it, years later when electronic image capturing became possible, by this time people had definitely come around and most thought filmmaking was a real art form but didn't think Video would ever compare. Now living in an age where we can have relatively 'low-budget' films shot totally on digital video like 28 Days Later and Cloverfield not only be treated like a "real films" but win awards and be successful at the box office, what do you have to say about people dismissive of things simply because they are new? Currently living in an age where many many people are dismissive of free distributed content, and the lo-fi quality of many of the content on the internet, do you see see this festival and the people that share your particular mindsets and aesthetics as being the advance guard of an upcoming paradigm shift towards how much of this content is looked at and treated by mainstream audiences?

We feel the paradigm is already shifting-whether people are cognizant or not, technology is moving at such a rate, that people have to adapt whether they like it or not.

Taking that in consideration, do you think it's possible that within the next decade or so we could see a film created on an "uncinematic" device possibly winning awards or acclaim from the mainstream community? If not that early, in what kind of time frame do you see it occuring, if ever?

It will take a long time before big, establishment organizations like the Academy recognize films like this (if ever), but we're already seeing it happen in film festivals, where films made more on the fly are winning awards. We're looking forward to seeing this trend increase over the coming years.

Overall, what is the most important lesson or word of advice you have to give to people that wish to submit to the festival?

You have the power to make something that affect people-it doesn't have to have a lot of special effects and explosions and you don't have to be a professional -- but it's a good idea to think about what you want to make, pay close attention to the films you love, learn how they work, and implement some of those practices into your work. And have FUN.

Thank you for the interview, I hope the festival goes fantastic.

Remember to check out their website at: http://disposablefilmfestival.com/

If you have work you think would fit into the festival, submit it here: http://disposablefilmfestival.com/submit/

But hurry up! The Deadline is August 31st!

And their Vimeo page at: http://www.vimeo.com/user399403

To watch some great videos and examine past entries in the competition.