An artist cannot produce a masterpiece without the tools that he needs to apply his craft. Likewise, a movie maker (professional or hobbyist) cannot produce film to be viewed without a camera. Fortunately technology has come a long way in terms of making digital cameras available to professional and budding filmmakers alike.

It wasn’t that long ago that movie makers had little choice but to work with physical film. The arrival of digital technology in the film making space has enabled practically everyone to produce their own movie. Now whether this is good or bad (just visit YouTube and make up your own mind) is subject to debate, which we will not get into that in this article. The point is that anyone, regardless of ability or budget, now has the capability to execute on cinematic ideas cheaper and faster than ever before. The tools available to today’s digital moviemaker is not only impressive but also increasingly easy to learn.

So what is it about digital technology that makes the process of filmmaking so much easier for today’s creatively impulsive citizen? Perhaps two of the most important features of digital technology vis-à-vis film are cost and ease of use.  when you shoot footage on a digital camera you are able to download the entire footage onto your computer where you can then view it, edit it, add in some effects and then decide upon the method of delivery. You can create a video file to be uploaded to your personal website or to YouTube or even e-mailed to friends and family. You can also burn the video file into a CD which can then be viewed by friends and family using the appropriate viewer. Another option is to burn it to DVD or in the case of high definition, BluRay, and your eager viewers can just pop it into their media player to view it.

Today’s personal computers are supplied with software that makes this entire process pain free and in fact absolute fun. For example on any Apple Computer, you can go from digital camera to digital video in a matter of minutes, complete with all postproduction work.  Other than the cost of the camera this whole process pretty much costs nothing. Well, there is this thing called opportunity cost but this is not an economics blog so we’re not going to talk about that here. Point is, it was easy, you had fun, and you didn’t spend any money in doing so, assuming you already have a digital video camera.

If you have to create your footage on film, the first thing you’re going to run into is the lack of ability to immediately preview your work. You going to have to go on faith that the scene you just shot is perfect.  You’re not going to be able to validate a scene until after the film has been processed in a lab.  Only then will you be able to make the determination.  As you can imagine, processing film is not going to be a free affair.  And every time you make a mistake with film, it is going to cost you not only in time, but also in real money as film, once developed, cannot be reused.  Digital film, on the other hand (or other digital storage medium used by your digital video camera) may be reused many times over.

In short, the cost associated with film is a barrier to all but serious movie creators, so an alternative must be used, and that alternative is digital video.  In addition to the significantly lower cost, there is also the matter of speed with which movies can be shot, edited and delivered using digital technology.

When we mention film here, we are not referring to the technology employed in the 80s, 90s and early turn of the century.  Remember those?  They were collectively called camcorders and are neither film nor digital film in the sense that we use those terms here.  Their format is analog and the captured footage cannot be readily edited unless first converted to digital.

Today, you just never know where the next interesting movie or film clip is going to come from.  The ability to record footage has been made near-ubiquitous by hand held devices such as the phone.  Anyone with an iPhone can even perform a rudimentary cut and paste of video right on their phone.  Once done, they can share it with the world.  It’s not an exaggeration when people claim that the world can view an event they experienced in a matter of minutes.

Alright, you’re a budding filmmaker and you want to get started in this new age of digital video production, whether for personal or professional purposes.  What do you do, in terms of equipment?  Well, you are going to need the right tool for the right job.  In a subsequent article, we will discuss the process of selecting the right digital video camera for you.  Depending on your needs, you may have to invest a bit of money, so you want to ensure that you’re getting what your need.  We’ll cover that next time…

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