Using Internet For Filmmaking

Filmmakers all know the tedious works and relatively high budgets one need to make films and movies for the big screen. But now with the internet, things are changing... and this is what I discovered at the recent Digital Media Festival Singapore.

Making Movie Using The Internet
This may sound new to some like myself, but not for Timo Vuorensola, a film producer from Finland.

His movie, Starwreck, was actually done a lot online (maybe except filmming with the actors), and taking a good 7 years to do so.

Now what is interesting is that he actually got a fair bit of the online community to actually be part of his movie project - eg. some parties helped developed the spaceships for his sci-fiction movie.

This method came good as he only had a shoe string budget (15000 euros only). How Timo survived 7 years for his project with his tight budget is interesting, but what makes it more interesting is that this movie had 8 million online downloads since launched! Now that is quite something for a first time producer... and especially for an independent movie coming from Finland (have you watched a Finnish movie? - well, that was his question).


Timo Vuorensola, Iolo Jones, Hugh Hancock


More Insights On Digital Filmmaking
Another interesting key speaker is producer Hugh Hancock who showed the potential in the tv/ flim industry going online - and how ordinary folks like ourselves can be part of it as well.

He contribute this mainly because of the low entries, like the relatively low budget films (he does funny cook shows for less than $100/episode). This means nearly any Tom, Dick or Harry can be an instant film maker/ show producer.

The only drawback, he cautions is - Noise (ie too many players) hence the difficulty of getting heard or in this case, seen. But even though he understands this, this positive outlook personality still insists on aspiring film makers to just go out there to make their films.

And what happens if the film/ movie is bad? Just do another one! (Of course, these are more for mini series rather than feature length movies).

More To Just Making Films
Of course, we all know (and should know) that there is much more to film making than just producing it like finding the right platform to showcase it - from using the internet and even mobile phones or even the traditional theatre and DVD release, which was actually shared by a few other speakers... Add all these and the going is not as easy as it seems, though it can be lucrative and huge when breakthrough.

But for now, let's all know that at least, that the internet can help filmmakers in film making and who knows, creating that blockbuster hit!