Editor’s Note: This is the concluding installment of SHOOT’s three-part report on Sundance.
PARK CITY, Utah—As soon as visitors set foot on snowy Main Street, Park City’s central artery, they knew that the 2001 Sundance Film Festival would be a different affair than last year’s. Even this quaint resort town reflected the market volatility of recent months. In the words of Trevor Macy, COO of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films, "What I noticed this year was the deafening silence of the dot-coms."
Stepping in to fill the digital void was Sundance itself, which, ironically, had weathered criticism at the 2000 Festival for its seeming reluctance to embrace new technology. Contrary to the so-called alternative festivals, such as Nodance and Digidance, which descend on Park City each January to trumpet their digital wares, last year’s Sundance appeared to side with traditional film techniques.
Not anymore. More than 50 films at Sundance this year were digitally produced and/or projected. Other digital offerings included the inaugural Sundance Online Film Festival and a newly christened Sundance Digital Center (formerly the New Media and Technology Center), which took over 10,000 square feet of prime Main Street real estate in addition to its original venue at Prospector Square.
Produced by StreamSearch. com, the Online Festival featured 18 entries. Among them were Great Big Cartoony Club Show, directed by George Evelyn of San Francisco-based animation studio Wild Brain; and Untitled: OO1-Darkness, a 12-minute film by executive producer Steve Kazanjian, producer/creative director Eric Saks and creative director Michael Goedecke of Santa Monica-based Belief. Meanwhile, the Digital Center hosted panels and featured demos of cutting-edge technologies, from 24P HD digital cinematography to streaming media tools and digital projection equipment. Exhibitors included Panasonic, Sony and Avid.
In spite of an increasing number of digital films and other digital fare at Sundance, what did not change in the course of the past 12 months was the ongoing debate over digital filmmaking itself—specifically, whether digital video (DV) has artistic value in a world where celluloid exists, and whether it will democratize the film industry due to its affordability.
"It’s surprising how accepting Sundance has been in terms of digital video," said producer Henry Lu of Portland, Ore.-based Wieden+Kennedy, who was at Sundance with his short film, Miguel. "It’s like going back to your video camera."
Some filmmakers, in fact, were publicly uncomfortable about the quality of the images they got on screen in digital projection. According to USA Today, director Richard Linklater suggested that the format is still being invented. "It’s in an interim phase," stated Linklater, whose Sundance American Spectrum film Tape and Sundance premiere Waking Life were presented on Sony HD Cam. "Two years from now … [it] will look a lot better."
By then, the industry undoubtedly will have changed, as well. The question, according to Frank Scherma, co-proprietor of bicoastal/international @radical.media, is whether it will be a change for the better. "The buzz is that a lot of digital filmmaking is going on," he observed. "But all that means is that you’re going to have to wade through 2,000 films to find a good one."
"You don’t really notice the massive proliferation of digital films that was predicted," added Macy. "More people will try to make films, but the cream still rises to the top. Putting a camera in someone’s hands doesn’t necessarily make them a good filmmaker."
Lu, however, suggested that in some cases DV can be more effective than film, as evidenced by director Kirby Dick’s Chain Camera, part of Sundance’s documentary competition. The film consists of autobiographical footage captured by high school students who were given digital cameras. Arguably, had Dick used traditional equipment, logistics alone would have effected a different story.
Director Jamie Thraves of Hollywood-based Oil Factory, who attended Sundance with his feature debut, the dramatic entry The Low Down, also noted: "If the old-school filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and George Lucas are interested, there must be some potential."
But Susan Froemke of New York-based Maysles Films begs to differ. "I’m a classicist," said the co-director of Sundance documentary entry LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy of Cotton. "I like 16mm. There’s nothing like sunlight through celluloid."
For Froemke’s collaborator, director/cinematographer Albert Maysles, the rule of thumb is this: "Innovations should move one closer to the human spirit, not farther away."
Considering that the digital debate is poised to continue for years to come, it’s an appropriate observation—one that stands up both as an argument for digital technology and against it.
