Thursday, February 27, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Independent Cinema Expo offers tools--if you have the talent

By Gregory Crosby

Filmmaking, like hope, springs eternal, and there's no sweeter spring than being "independent." Every few years, another low-budget film storms the studio's barricades to become a monster success, from the nausea-inducing camerawork of The Blair Witch Project to the fuzzy-warm ethnic comedy of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Thus, another generation of cinematic dreamers is inspired to thumb their noses at the majors, scrape together financing, equipment and actors (and on rare occasions a decent script) and make their bid for cinematic greatness. But where to begin for the novice? And how do you sell this thing once it's finished?

Those are some of the questions the Independent Cinema Expo, set for March 8-9 at the Alexis Park Hotel, hopes to help budding and already-blooming filmmakers with. The brainchild of local filmmaker Barry Green, head of Fiercely Independent Films, the ICExpo brings together several successful indie and studio professionals to address a range of topics, from shooting on shoestrings to fundraising and distribution.

"Most of the film seminars I've been to were one-person deals, with one person teaching," Green says. "With this, I wanted to present the widest spectrum of talent I could."

Green's "Dream Team" of filmmakers includes Dov Simens of the Hollywood 2-Day Film School, which taught both Spike Lee and Quentin Tarrantino a thing or two; Gerald R. Molen, producer of studio heavyweights such as Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, Minority Report and Rain Man among others, now an independent; and writer, director, producer and actor Bo Svenson, best known as the justice-dealing star of the Walking Tall series in the 1970s (whether Svenson employs an ax handle as a teaching aid in his lecture is unknown).

"Those three right there represent a huge amount of knowledge," says Green. "And these are all people I've worked with, so I know they know their stuff." ICExpo also features Rick Schmidt, whose book Feature Filmmaking at Used Car Prices has inspired people as diverse as Kevin Smith and Vin Diesel.

Green has lined up an impressive array of sponsors for the seminar as well. "We've been fortunate to have national sponsors, like ProMAX, Film Threat magazine and especially Panasonic," says Green. Panasonic's new film-like video cameras, the AG-DVX100 and the high-definition AJ-HDC27, will be the subject of a couple of panels, pointing out the most significant trend in indie film: a burgeoning digital video technology that allows nearly anyone to become a filmmaker for a fraction of what it used cost.

"Of course, it still depends on the level of filmmaking you're doing," says Green. "With a budget of $7 million, the technology of the camera doesn't matter so much, but if your budget is only $10,000 to $20,000, the cost of film stock and processing can be an enormous obstacle." It's clear that video and digital projection is the new, New Wave as the quality of recent features like Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 2 ("There's no way to tell that was shot entirely on video and not film," says Green) will attest.

But the ease with which aspirants can now make a movie doesn't mean everyone necessarily should make one; for every success story, a thousand truly terrible films glut film festivals and video stores. "Just doing it is 95 percent of the equation," says Green. "You have to make a film that people care about, that they want to see and that makes somebody a profit somehow, because that's what allows you to make more films."

Green hopes ICExpo will give those with talent the tools they need to become the next big indie thing. For more information, call 312-3456.