That Was Then, This Is Now...

By Erin Ferdinand

Last Christmas, I was visited by the Ghost of Filmmaking's Future. He appeared in the form of my 15-year-old nephew, Michael Alan, soliciting cash for a camera to shoot and direct a self-written horror trilogy.

Without warning, my previous life as an aspiring filmmaker flashed before my eyes: exorbitant student loans to finance film school; the kindly Boston real-estate-mogul-turned-independent-producer who took me under his wing while I worked on his first film, Next Stop, Wonderland; an amazing three-month internship with my childhood filmmaking hero, Richard Donner; the crash-course career in Hollywood feature film development that ended almost as abruptly as it began; the stunning realization that my storytelling sensibilities made me a square peg in the round hole of entertainment - and that, in order for my vision to persevere, I would have to do it myself.

The lesson that took me years (and more than $100,000) to learn took my nephew an afternoon of Internet research. Thanks to burgeoning digital technology, an entire generation of filmmakers now has access to the information and even some of the gear once available only to the industry elite. Whether you?re interested in filmmaking as a profession or you just love to watch good, honest movies, here's a quick look at the evolution of do-it-yourself filmmaking.

	Then	Now
The Ultimate Screening Room Venue	Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah	Rad Digital Film Festival in West Hollywood, CA
The Trailblazer	Robert Rodriguez (director, El Mariachi)	This space for rent
The Pedigree	Emercon College Film School ($24,000 annual tuition)	www.cyberfilmschool.com ($49 tuition)
The Networking Scene	$300 lunch at La Maison, Los Angeles	Sierra Nevada Pale Ale at your local film salon
The Funding	Credit card loans	Piggybank raids
The Camera	16mm film	Digital video
The Crew	Friends from film school, unpaid interns	Your neighbors' kids
The Performers Contract	Screen Actors Guild scale, anywhere from $115 to $4,000 a day	Gas, food, lodging... and a DVD burn
The Editing	Cut and splice	iMac Final Cut Pro
The Distribution	Indie arm of a Hollywood studio	Email network

http://www.utne.com/community/diyfilmmaking.aspx#ixzz39pF7nd1K