It wasn’t until recently that IMDB, AMAZON, and WITHOUTABOX all became one. In this quickly changing landscape of film distribution, and the fact that festival exposure is starting to be the sole theatrical distribution for some films; it’s about time. The “system” has been kept too close to the vest for far too long. There were a few that held the keys, and very few of us who knew what to do with them once we got them. All of us staring at food just beyond the locked gate. If only we knew how to use these things. Well…no longer.
Coppola was right. Every little girl in middle/mid coast America has gotten a hold of a camera and made a film. Amazon might just be trying to answer the call…but wait, I’m not that stupid. It’s money. There’s not enough of it to go around, and no one wants to share. Like the end of the bloated eighties, we’ve gone a whole decade not remembering how to share and pass the wealth on down to the next. It’s everywhere. From art, to film, to business; most of us are poor, but some are just poor in brains. I must be one of them. I’ll explain. I finished a film called Johnny five years ago; it was a sweet film about my wife, me, and my constant struggle to understand rage disguised as joy. It had a live, played in a gallery soundtrack. It was alive, it crackled, it was the shit…it’s sat on a shelf for five years. I had another film…called Norman, OK. We went to document tornado chasers during the most inactive months of 2003. It’s cinema verite. Fuck…it is what it is and I’m proud of every frame, BUT…also buried for five to six years. Along comes imdb/Amazon/createspace…wait we need a name…createanimdbzon? It’s a real hydra. With the promise of IMDB pages (which I keep pimping out here) I signed up, and NOW, you can order both short films on Amazon…soon to be able to see them on Amazon VOD (Video on demand…for the layman) And it hasn’t sold a single copy.
But really…why should it. I feel a bit like the fella who ordered the miracle vacuum at 3 AM in the morning and then got the thing only to find out it couldn’t pick up a chip crumb in outer space. Like I said poor in brains…or lack of 20/20 vision. This is the digital gold rush essentially. It’s a promise of dividends on your blood, sweat, and tears to feed a machine of instant access. We are over saturated and we know it…yet we keep thinking these models will somehow give us justification and validation. For me…it wasn’t the end of the world…I got a kick out of having student films on Amazon…right next to Johnny Mnemonic. (look it up…it’s hilarious) BUT, for the person whose seriously looking at these new venues of distribution you have to wonder if it’s helping or hurting. Are we over saturating something that was once thought of as a authority in selection, OR was it inevitable? Is this all just the natural course of things once the film disto beast gets a hold of it?
Your thoughts?
John
