Thursday, March 02, 2006

Folk Films on the Rise!

As I just posted on my art blog, I recently found a site with a fun little interactive animation creation tool. Reading further into the website of the Flipbook! creators, I found that they had received an award for their creation from the Japan Media Arts Festival and are going to have a permanent exhibit at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. Interesting that such a seemingly silly (though fun) tool could be getting such recognition from the art world.

It seems, to me, to be a further step in the recent wave of democratization of cinema. As you put cheaper and easier filmmaking tools into the hands of everyone worldwide, it's bound to change things. And with the great awe, magic, and power taken away from the process, what does that mean for the medium itself? Many people say that it is a good thing. That it means that the tools are reaching amazing artists who never would have had access in the past. Some say that it means that there is a bigger pile of crap ever forming that we must now sift through in order to get to the good stuff. Both are true in my mind. I mean if you want to see evidence for the first point, see Tarnation, and if you want to see evidence for the second point, go to iFilm.com and look for something good. Or even go to this animation site. Most of it truly is silly crap. Fun to make, but not much to watch. But some of them are absolutely brilliant. Check out some of the ones in the top ten, they are wonderful!

I think that this democratization is bringing about a new, homemade subgenre of cinema; something that's somewhere between independent films and home movies, a sort of folk film if you will. And although I lean more towards the second school of thought in the debate over what this all means (i.e. lots more crap) I am excited to see where this new development will take us. We are at the dawn of a very exciting era in art and technology, and we have front row seats!

We may have to wait awhile to see what the new era has to offer us, but in the meantime, check out my contribution to heaping pile of cine-crap.


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2 comments:

Elisabeth said...

Thought I would post some good ones to watch:

"Happy Valentine's Day"
"Pirate and Tiel"
"Home Sweet Home"
"Elephant Hunt"
"Caught One"
"Mr. Mouse Goes to Work, Part 1"
"Muscle Mania"
"Circulation"
"Grow"
"About the Old Woman"

And go here if you want to make your own.

Teddi said...

Maybe part of the evolution of this is to 1st have all of the crap. Even crap can be inspirational to the right person.

 

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