Growlersworld.com - The Hackney Herb's Film Rant 3

THE HACKNEY HERB’S FILM RANT

INDEX

The intention of my writing is to offer my honest opinions of films, film culture and current practice.

As a highly opinionated, frustrated filmmaker, my writing may piss people off.

I may include reviews, or comment on filmmakers, actors, studio trends etc.

INDIES DAY AND THE TEMPLE OF CG

Hurrah for the Independent movie.

Good news, Jim Jarmusch is completing a new movie sometime in 2003, see his website for further info: here.

As Hollywood veers toward the CG sector, the whole face of movie making will change.

We have already seen the first all GC “real life” characters movie – “Final Fantasy” and also the short on the “Animatrix”.

Much of the Matrix used the wonderful new technologies to create all CG environments.

All these technologies, which are improving all the time, are driving towards the day when a movie will be made all CG and audience will believe it is real.

Real actors and real locations etc. That will be the turning point.

Eventually CG stars will emerge.

Perhaps some of the big stars will license CG versions of themselves, freeing them up to play golf all day every day!!

Hollywood is a big business.

Run on business lines and as such anywhere savings can be made, they will be made.

The more computers can do, the less you need to pay people to do.

Why pay an actor to do 20, 30 or more takes when a CG character will get it in one?

Or a cavalier director running way over budget in their quest for perfection.

With the advent of AI even writers may become redundant, after all most narratives are based on a limited number of structures.

So you just need to programme in a few variables and away you go, no more expensive re-writes.

And of course some great movies will come out of these, after all a business needs to make money so the product needs to appeal.

This new era will raise many questions over the meaning of art.

There will be a fascination with this new breed of movies.

However, something will be missing.

The human touch, the soul. And audiences will crave this.

Which is where the independent sector will come to its own.

Also the theatre might find a new lease of life, after all you know the actors are going to be real there.

The independent sector has a great history of making challenging and very creative pieces, without the constraints of big studios.

Some of them are closely associated with Hollywood, others are further removed from it.

Independents take in both big budgets, and incredibly small ones.

Indies range from auteur hip (Jarmusch), quirky (Cohens, Kevin Smith), through highly original works (Memento and Being John Malkovich) to genre pieces (horror, thriller etc) and classics (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest).