Features on DV

[Marty Hamrick]

Hi,

We've kicked this around for awhile on this and cinematography.net.I've had a chance to see a few of these films,one I saw on 35mm and I can't really say I've been bowled over.

Yet, what does impress me is the fact that some of these folks,besides Mr.Rodriguez,have made some progress in the cash flow department.

I have a friend who works as a news shooter like myself for a competing station and he has made 3 features using Canon XL-1's.Haven't seen any of them and so far they have been straight to video release.One is titled Crackerjack,distributed by Maverick and as I understand is available at Blockbuster.

What my friend tells me is that he made Crackerjack for something like 7G(hmm sounds like a familiar budget) and sold it outright for something like 35 G which gave him the capital to do more movies.

I have yet to see any of his films so I can't comment on their story content on cinematography.Yet it seems to be we're seeing a trend here of a viable business at least for the time being.Could be just another trend for now.We saw a similar trend 20 years ago when low budget schlock horror was pumped out to a then new straight to video market.It didn't take long for that market to peter out.I have a few friends in LA who had brief careers as schlock horror directors then.

Any comments?Another trend or something more viable?

Marty

[GeorgeSelinsky]

I myself am wondering what this could be about. It would indeed be necessary to verify this videomaker's info, track down the movie, maybe see it, etc. I still think that straight to tape from DV stuff that one can find at B-buster is mostly if not virtually all exploitation type stuff. I actually haven't been over to B-buster in a while because mine doesn't carry the movies that I really want to see most of the time!

 

I think that the DVD market sort of gave a small pump to straight to tape product in general, sort of a faint image of the way VHS permitted a film like "Polish Vampire in Burbank" to actually make money (which I think even a drive in audience would have booed off the screen). I've seen plenty of exploitation product marketed on DVD, often they're ONLY on DVD.

 

I haven't been about festivals as much but DV films are definitely gaining more acceptance, or at least it seems that way from the festivals. I continually hear that more and more filmmakers are shooting on DV.

 

But I think the upcoming HDTV revolution, which is not too far around the corner, is going to create huge heaps of XL-1's that will be as valuable as the Canon L-2 is now - maybe even less. Anything shot in DV at that point will be not of interest anymore - if someone plunks down enough cash for their HDTV set, they'll be even less inclined to rent some low rez low budget flick.

 

Then we will have to wait for the next generation of HDTV prosumer cameras and see what happens there. This is one of the reasons I never decided to invest in a serious mini DV camera - I can see the format has a very limited future ahead of it.

 

- G.

[David Mullen ASC]

It depends a lot on your market. The indie art film, for example, really isn't sold on its technical quality but on its reviews, its cast, etc. But for the commercial staright-to-video fare, your markets are really home video and cable TV, worldwide. And technical standards have to be a lot higher generally because the buyer can take or leave the film, and not really caring to judge it by its artistic value, they judge it by its production value. If it meets their standards for broadcast or whatever, and they think someone out there will watch it at 2AM in the morning, they will buy it.

 

Just the other day, I saw a film I shot called "The Perfect Tenant" playing on Lifetime or USA Network, I think. At the time it was made, the main buyer was German TV, who had incredibly strict standards, so we had to shoot all of those films in 35mm with no diffusion and get a well-exposed image, etc. Which was great in some ways except that they wanted these horribly flat and cold transfers in PAL.

 

Some schlocky horror film shot in DV may find a few buyers like Blockbuster but they may not hit every market out there worldwide, which is something most people rely on in order to make money on these straight-to-video films. It adds up.

 

Of course, we all know of the famous exceptions where a cheap DV horror film goes on to mke it big at the box office...

[Matt Pacini]

"Of course, we all know of the famous exceptions where a cheap DV horror film goes on to mke it big at the box office..."

"Of course, we all know of the famous exceptions where a cheap DV horror film goes on to mke it big at the box office..."

 

(MP): Not to mention the most famous example, (BWP) shot on Hi-8, which for some bizarre reason, people keep using as an example of how DV is viable for feature films.

Hey, why not just shoot on Hi-8?

 

MP