mony -pre-class Jenkins

“The availability of low-cost camcorders and, more
recently, digital cameras has empowered more and more
people to begin to enter directly into the filmmaking
process…This ability to exhibit grassroots cultural
productions has in turn fostered a new excitement
about self-expression and creativity.” - Jenkins



Yeah…now we can all be filmmakers and make sh***y shorts.

Okay, I am a movie snob. I believe that digital cameras have given aspiring filmmakers grandiose visions of making the next Blair Witch Project. Film festivals receive thousands of entries of Joe Blow’s “artistic” vision that contains nothing but mediocre narratives, combined with camera techniques that only a Full Sail student could construct. Look at youtube, it contains millions of digital pieces and none of them conation any film value outside of a laugh. Jenkins idea that the digital film era will bring us back to “grassroots creativity” needs only to be compared to what the arrival of the video camcorder produced , nothing but documented vacations and a few laughable submissions to America’s Funniest Home Video. Digital film is the simulacra to the authentic film medium and the film experience. I also blame the theory of media convergence for this. Yes, digital film is cheaper and more accessible, but soon quantity will replace quality. Does this mean that everyone who owns a laptop, or some sort of word processor is considered a writer? Should we take all mediums used for creativity and deem it power to make the person an artist - I think not. Those Star Wars parodies are nothing but productions of boredom.

I wonder is Jenkins is getting some sort of kick back from all the digital film companies?