Though I could be wrong, I just don’t see Allen ever shooting DSLR 10 thousand dollar budgeted films and releasing directly to iTunes. Also, like Cassavetes, Burns’ access to Hollywood allows him to summon favors from A list friend for a less than a shoe string budget film. So it’s such a great inspiration, to see an established filmmaker embrace DSLR filmmaking, the “digital wave” movement and return to his roots of independent cinema, like Burn has. Similarly, kudos to George Lucas for endorsing the possibilities of DSLR technology in Red Tails, ditto for Darren Aronofsky for shooting parts of Black Swan on the Canon 7D and TV shows like House M.D. and Mad Men for shooting on the 5D and many others.

It makes me giddy at the thought that anyone can make a film with technology that’s almost on par with what Hollywood has and how it must send a chill through their collective spine. DSLRs, along with the internet, have leveled the field. Yes YOU can compete with Hollywood studios. A filmmaker today has more creative control than at any time ever. Not to mention control over how your film gets distributed. What once was considered ancillary markets, like VOD, cable, Netflix and online streaming are soon becoming primary outlets for film and TV distribution. A well told story made independently can be as good or better than what crap the status quo is churning out week in and out. You don’t need theatrical distribution!

Filmmaking is no longer reserved to the few with the financial means nor those with the inside connections. You have a story, you shoot it and you distribute it. That simple!

“When I talk to student filmmakers, I tell them ‘Read as much as possible. Write as much as possible. Go read (director) Robert Rodriguez’s book Rebel Without a Crew. Get the mistakes out. Write bad. Direct bad. Learn how to tell stories as you do. Find that short film that says exactly who you are and the stories you want to tell. Make it and submit it to the festival process and realize that you may be great, you may be terrible. You won’t find out until you try to get other people to judge your work.”

Jason Reitman
Orlando Sentinel
December 2009

I’ve read somewhere that with more access to improved, inexpensive equipment and post production software will translate to an increase influx of bad films being made. Because the assumption is that everyone and their mothers are going to think themselves a filmmaker. I say SO WHAT! It can only get better. Moreover it’s that greedy elitist thinking that would like you think so, to not even attempt it. But Hollywood’s got that market cornered already. It’s got a strangle hold on today’s mediocre cinema. They’re afraid the ‘lunatics are taking over the asylum’ again, but this time they’re burning it to the ground.

Thank you Ed Burns and any game changers out there for continuing to listen to their independent soul in you, inspiring and providing a blue print for the independent filmmaker today and tomorrow.

I have searched for a DVD copy so it can be once again shared with staff, volunteers and students. There are a few 16mm copies in school collections. If anyone knows of a source for a DVD of Perils of Priscilla, Pasadena Humane Society & SPCA would like to know.

I’d love to work on a project with Jimmy – one day I hope.