First: Something to Wake You Up!

Prosumers: The Future of Motion Picture Entertainment Why Hollywood Will Be Obsolete By: Andrew Hookway

What Is a Prosumer? Prosumer – A professional consumer. One who uses off-the-shelf items to create a professional product.

Why We Need Prosumers Hollywood films have become stale. Independent film makers are creating Hollywood grade films with the consumer products of today. –Films can be made for less money. –Quality is much the same as Hollywood films in terms of acting, special effects, and distribution.

Hollywood is Stale

Cost: Clerks vs. UCF Clerks was a black-and-white independent film from Shot on film stock. Edited on a special linear editing suite that was not forgiving to mistakes. Total budget: $27,575. Clerks (1994) Directed by Kevin Smith Distributed by Miramax Films

Cost: Clerks vs. UCF UCF is an independent film released in Shot on video. Edited on a PC with off-the-shelf software. Total budget: $300. UCF: Toronto Cybercide (2006) Directed by Laszlo Kovacs Distributed by Customflix

Technical Ability Independent filmmakers keep surprising the industry- and viewers- by demonstrating high levels if skill in their craft. If shown scenes from a high-grade prosumer film next to scenes from an average Hollywood film, many viewers would not be able to tell the difference.

The Film Look Prosumers use camcorders instead of film cameras, giving a very different feel to the footage. MiniDV is smaller than film stock. MiniDV colors are not as saturated as film stock. Camcorders lack the ability to produce adequate depth of field.

Ability: Revenge vs. Revelations After shooting, went off to a team of editors. Sent to Industrial Light and Magic, a team of highly-skilled people in the same location. –Small changes, such as color adjustment. –In-your-face effects, such as creatures, lightsabers, and exotic locales. Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2006) Directed by George Lucas Distributed by 20 th Century Fox

Ability: Revenge vs. Revelations After shooting, went off to Shane Felux for editing. Sent over the Internet to a worldwide community of prosumer special effects artists. –Small changes, such as color adjustment. –In-your-face effects, such as creatures, lightsabers, and exotic locales. Star Wars: Revelations (2006) Directed by Shane Felux Distributed online; TheForce.net Theater primarily

Which is which?

Ability: Revenge vs. Revelations Comparisons: exotic cityscapes, space battles, alien planets.

Review Prosumers create fresh content for the love of their craft instead of banking on sequels and remakes to rake in the dough. Equipment and software is much cheaper than it used to be, allowing Prosumers to create movies on a lower budget. Prosumers can create a movie that is just as good as - if not better than - big-budget productions.

So What? So watch independent films!

References CyberpunkReview.com. Various articles. CyberpunkReview.com. Retrieved November 14, 2006 from Digital Digest. “Capturing from VHS - Part 1 - Best Resolution.” Digital Digest. Retrieved April 11, 2006 from Felux, Shane (2005). “Behind the Scenes: The Revelations of a Movie.” Revelations [bonus feature on DVD]. Panic Struck Productions. Integrated Imaging. “miniDV information Info.” Integrated Imaging. Retrieved April 11, 2006 from Internet Movie Database. “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.” Internet Movie Database. Retrieved April 12, 2006 from Internet Movie Database. Various articles. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved November 14, 2006 from McCallum, Rick (2005). “Within A Minute: The Making of Episode III.” Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith [bonus feature on DVD]. Lucasfilm Ltd. Pilato, Fabrizio (2004). “Highest Resolution Camcorder: Sony HDR-FX1.” MobileMag: The Mobile Technology Magazine. Retrieved April 11, 2006 from San Francisco School of Digital Filming. “Sony F950 HighDef 24p camera bought by SFSDF and PixelCorps.” San Francisco School of Digital Filming. Retrieved April 12, 2006 from View Askew Productions. “Clerks: Movie Info.” View Askew Productions. Retrieved April 4, 2006 from Wolf, Ben (2005). “Sony HDR-FX1.” CNET.com. Retrieved April 11, 2006 from

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