Mayo Uno Martin
It's probably the most understated milestone this summer, but Yoda figuring in his own fight scene, with a light saber to boot, is leaving more than just Sith lords quaking in their boots.
The venerable Jedi master's transformation from cuddly puppet to fierce warrior in George Lucas' "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" is more than a triumph in mobility. It highlights the possibilities that current developments in film has opened for the medium. What some have, in fact, called a revolution of sorts.
With computer graphics becoming an essential weapon in Hollywood's arsenal, it's safe to say that digital has gone mainstream. And Lucas' recent opus has only underscored the point. The latest Star Wars installment was shot entirely on digital camera. At the recent Cannes film festival, four of the 22 films fighting it out for the Palme d'Or were shot with a digicam, including the new DreamWorks animated feature "Spirit" and the indie feature "Waking Life."
The new technology has taken the sweat out of filmmaking. With even hand-held digital cameras, budding filmmakers can, as Lucas points out, "shoot a Roman epic because it's going to cost a lot less than it ever would have done." The low-cost digital camera captures video and audio as digital information, which can be edited and manipulated like computer data, and later rendered in high quality.
Though making Roman epics aren't exactly in the minds of Pinoy filmmakers, digital filmmaking has been creating a relative stir in the local indie film scene.
Last January, the first digital film festival in the country was held in Greenbelt. ".MOV: the digital moviefest" featured a slew of alternative movies, all of which were shot or post-produced digitally. These included local and foreign digital features from directors like Cannes & Sundance winner Rob Nilsson ("Chalk", "Stroke", & "Winter Oranges"), Kidlat Tahimik ("Banal Kahoy" [Holy Wood]), Jon Red ("Still Lives"), Raymond Red ("Kamada"), Mike de Leon ("Bilanggo sa Dilim") and Todd Verow ("Once & Future Queen"); experimental, music, documentary and animation short videos; entries to Silvershorts, the first indie short film contest, including winners Jolly Feliciano's "Kawala," Mo Zee's "Sulyap" and Arleen Cuevas and Elizabeth Balitaan's "Taguan."
Festival director Khavn dela Cruz has been recognized as one of the purveyors of the local digital revolution. At the turn of the millenium, he formed Filmless Films with editor-animator Gatla Gunawin. The independent film outfit has so far released six digital films: Dela Cruz's "The Twelve" (starring Angel Aquino) and "Greaseman" (starring Eric Quizon and Lou Veloso), Gunawin's "Datgilab," JJ Duque's "Journey," Roxlee's "Tronong Ginto" and Mes De Guzman's "Imposible"; some of which have been awarded at the Gawad-CCP For Alternative Cinema.
The outfit has also featured works by other alternative filmmakers through occasional events like the "Digital Dreams: a filmless filmfest" held last year at De La Salle University, and the multi-media arts event "Digital Sunsets: film, music, & poetry from sunset to midnight" at the CCP's Manila Film Center.
"Today's digital film tools are empowering new and underground filmmakers to tell the stories they've been longing to tell without having to sell their souls," says Dela Cruz. "More and more independent filmmakers are enticed to make films because of the liberating qualities of the medium. The digital films we featured have fresh new ways of telling their stories. They don't have big budget and big stars; all they have are good stories to tell."
Despite minimal media mileage, the festival was sustained by the alternative movie watching community, namely students, filmmakers and art organizations. There have also been invitations to tour .MOV in the provinces.
Dela Cruz notes that the festival has created an interest on the various technical aspects of the medium. Interspersed with the screenings were seminars on the different aspects of film production, all of which were well attended by students and professionals from the broadcast, advertising, and film industries. The next step is to generate more government support and more digital full-length films from the filmmakers themselves. Indeed, going digital is not just a matter of medium but, as the Filmless Films' manifesto insist: "to express your heart whether in a jar or in the cosmos."
For further information & updates, sign-up your email address at the .MOV website, www.indieman.com.
Back to Top^^
