Most people who witness filmmakers invading their town to shoot a movie will remember it years later. Some communities even bear it as a mark of distinction.
People in Newport might remember when Paul Newman came to town and adapted Ken Kesey’s novel “Sometimes a Great Notion” back in the early 1970s. Eugene and Cottage Grove still celebrate the filming of “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” which remains one of the University’s claims to fame.
Maybe someday people will remember that “Sisters,” starring Chris O’Donnell and Rip Torn, was partly filmed on this campus.
But, while people tend to remember productions that brought large crews and famous actors into town, or the films that played in theaters across the nation, something else lies beneath this — independent homegrown filmmaking. Emboldened by others who made it big through the freedom of expense and expression that has become associated with cheaper digital technology, these directors, producers, actors and crew members make movies right here in Eugene with little or no money.
These filmmakers come from different educational and economic backgrounds. Henry Weintraub has a high school degree and works at a local Circle K convenience store; he’s directed six short films, including an hour-long documentary on local punk bands. Sophomore journalism major Daniel Epstein helps run House of Film, the University’s film club, and along with other club members has created a feature-length thriller entitled “Proctor.” The rest have equally diverse pasts, but one thing that unites them is a love for film and filmmaking.
“I’ve loved movies my whole life,” Weintraub said. “I’ve been collecting films since I was 10 and now have about 350 DVDs. I swear I watch three movies a day.”
Many of these local filmmakers have shared influences. Weintraub, Epstein and Lane Community College student Tyler Benjamin, who has directed a number of short films, all cited Sam Raimi (most famous for his “Evil Dead” and “Spider-man” series of films) as an influence on their work. Other “do it yourself” style filmmakers, such as Robert Rodriguez, George Romero and Peter Jackson, were also listed as artists whose work was influential to these small-time directors.
“Directors like Raimi and Romero have an original style of storytelling,” Benjamin said. “They have created movies which went on to set the standard for their genre.”
Storytelling is something else these filmmakers value.
“I love entertaining people,” Epstein said. “I like to tell stories, but when I’m just talking I don’t always have the enthusiasm to keep people interested. When I make a movie, I can tell a story while entertaining people. Movies just have that kind of
connection with the audience.”
With the rise in new digital
technology, filmmakers now have the tools to tell the kinds of stories they are interested in. Using celluloid film stock — the most common way to shoot a Hollywood movie — most major productions can cost many thousands of dollars to develop and edit. Digital equipment, on the other hand, is cheap and easy to use.
“I originally wanted to shoot in 16mm film, but a one or two hour movie done that way would cost about $6,000 just to edit,” Weintraub said. “With digital I can just get a program on my computer for about $100 and do it all at home.”
Many smaller filmmakers are coming to similar conclusions. Still, despite the fact that it is now simpler and cheaper to create movies, there are still problems associated with independent filmmaking.
“Digital production is incredibly helpful when it comes to making a movie, but it doesn’t do anything for distribution,” Assistant Professor Michael Aronson said. “That’s were the bottleneck is.”
Aronson, who currently teaches the Department of English’s History of the Motion Picture class, said there would be a better chance for digital filmmakers to have their films distributed widely if theaters began to move toward digital and satellite technology. Then it would no longer become necessary for the theater to possess a physical copy of the film to show it. Aronson said this is a big maybe.
“There is no guarantee that distribution will become any better,” he said. “As the technology advances, people might be able to make their films easily accessible on the Internet. But that doesn’t change the fact that if people don’t know about it, it might as well not exist.”