What do Spike Jonze, Martin Scorsese, Darren Aronofsky, and David Fincher have in common? None of them have official websites. Basil Al-Rawi looks at the different ways in which established filmmakers are using the web, and notes whether they provide content or just discontent.

'Traktor is a group of filmmakers.
We make films, not websites.
Some of these films can be viewed below.'
www.traktor.com

For those of you with broadband connections, the idea of streaming a film or video clip and watching it is not as ludicrous an activity as it was only a few years ago. Since the internet evolved into a two-way street with the long awaited arrival of high speed connections, the opportunity arose for filmmakers to utilise this medium as a promotional tool for their work without the restrictions of painfully slow downloads. And many have done so and continue to herald their creations in this fashion, albeit with varying degrees of involvement.

Higher bandwidth and the improved user-friendliness of consumer compression and editing packages has led to a dramatic rise in the popularity of video hosting sites such as YouTube [1], GoogleVideo, iFilm, Veoh, YouAreTV, etc., culminating in the recent sale of YouTube to Google for a cool $1.65bn. The democracy of the internet, and the fact that most mobile phones these days are armed with cameras, has led to a generation hooked on the immediacy and availability of on-demand visual chewing gum. What is interesting here and, more importantly, relevant is that these sites demonstrate that internet connections have evolved from a point where content was restricted to text and low resolution images to a stage where it is possible to stream high resolution video as well as sizeable Flash animations without waiting an eternity.

These advances have led to entirely new ways of utilising the potential of the net, none more apparent than the Second Life phenomenon. This vast online 3D virtual world, which is entirely built and owned by its residents, is attracting designers, filmmakers, currency speculators, and real estate agents who are all turning their sights towards the opportunities within it. It has also become a vast movie stage for various machinima [2] productions, as any set, prop or location can be constructed for little or no cost. Two notable examples of such web based filmmaking are Eric Linden's Silver Bells and Golden Spurs and Brad Henderson and Glenn Thomas's Ideal World: A Virtual Life Documentary.The former is machinima entirely produced within the realm of Second Life, whilst the latter mixes virtual world footage of characters with real world footage of their creators as they build their lives in Second Life. The quality may be low, but the concept demonstrates how film and the web can complement each other.

1. According to a July 16, 2006 announcement, 100 million clips are viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded per 24 hours. The site has almost 20 million visitors each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12 to 17-year-old age group is dominant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube

2. Machinima (a portmanteau word for machine cinema or machine animation) is both a collection of associated production techniques and a film genre (film created by such production techniques).

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 113.