Filmmaking has gone from a mysterious process requiring thousands of dollars in highly specialized equipment to something high school kids can do on their laptops. There are still those who turn the craft into a fine art, but the technology is now much more accessible and affordable.
According to Sundance Film Festival Managing Director Jill Miller, the new technology has had a big impact on the number of films submitted each year.
“We have seen a huge increase in the number of submissions and that is certainly based on new technology,” said Miller adding the growing affordability has increased the diversity of stories being told. “And that means a more diverse range of films that are being presented at the festival.”
In particular, Miller points out, “People in remote parts of the world can afford to share their stories, stories we never knew existed before.” In response, she said, festival programmers have turned their radar toward festivals and film commissions around the globe.
Technology is not only leveling the cost of making a film, it is redefining the entire movie experience. As Miller explains it, “Technology, the moving image and the art form are all coming together to form new ways of storytelling.”
To help foster some of those innovations, Miller said the New Frontier portion of the festival has been expanded. “This is a category we’ve really been focusing on and investing in. It is going to become even more important to us as we move forward.”
Miller describes one of the New Frontier installations as a sort of window-shopping excursion into the world of “Second Life.”
“It is a place on the Internet where you can go and create your own person,” she said, suggesting there is a complex virtual world on the Web that visitors to Sundance’s New Frontier showcase can peer into. According to Miller, visitors will be able to “buy” clothing at a Second Life boutique that will be printed out life size.
The Second Life experience is one of about 15 interactive installations located on the lower level of the Main Street Mall, 333 Main Street.
Snippets of other installations posted on the Sundance Web site include a landscape of holographic trees and presentations by the Graffiti Research Lab, which is promising to deploy a 60 milliwatt laser to literally paint the town with light.
The New Frontier showcase is open Friday, Jan. 18 Friday, Jan. 25, from noon to 8 p.m.and Saturday, Jan.26, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. All Festival credential holders and the general public are welcome as space permits.