Dear Adam Gregory,
I'm delighted by your sympathetic yet sceptical views regarding a
shift from market driven, multinational corporation dominated motion
picture production to democratic, community nurturing motion picture
crafting processes. You are probably right that people will continue
to be overwhelmed by egoism and other self sabotaging temptations.
There are glimmerings of hope in as much as motion picture crafting
technology has dropped in price to levels affordable to community drama
clubs. It is a fact that community drama clubs are alive and well and
that it is only a matter of time before they recognize the efficient,
modular nature of crafting drama in motion picture format. People will
be drawn to the fact that they can put their best performance forward
and preserve it forever. They will take pride in building an archive of
community made movies. Families will establish traditions and the craft
of motion pictures will assume its humble, yet potent role as a record
of our diverse and evolving humanity.
As to the difficulty of gathering enough volunteers to pull off
works of community cinema, I say look no further than community theatre
groups. Theatre is time consuming and relatively expensive too, but it
still thrives. There are two very active groups here in my relatively
small rural community. One is progressive and produces original work,
the other is more traditional, but both enjoy solid support. I just
worked with a group of sixteen grade four and five kids to show them how
to make their own movies. Once they understood the process, they wrote,
shot , directed, performed in and edited eight shorts -then projected
them full screen in their school auditorium. This bodes well for
ordinary people and the corporations that manufacture affordable movie
making technology. It challenges the corporate domination of the story
telling and distribution process. As more ordinary people craft their
own movies, the art of motion pictures will transform. How we share and
appreciate these new works may happen differently. Time will tell.
Cheers!
Kimberly Smith
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