As the century comes to a close, the digital filmmaking revolution is well underway. With the arrival of powerful new digital tools, filmmakers on the cutting edge are shooting fiction and non-fiction features with digital cameras, posting them digitally, and transferring them to 35mm for theatrical distribution. This along with breakthroughs in video-to-film transfers and digital projection, and the powerful new distribution and marketing possibilities via the Internet will radically transform the ways in which independent films are produced and exhibited.

Recent digital documentary features such as The Cruise (Bennett Miller) and The Saltmen of Tibet (Ulrike Koch) confirmed for filmmakers and distributors that documentary features can be shot with digital video cameras and released theatrically on 35mm. However, the success of Thomas Vinterberg's highly acclaimed narrative feature Festen was a touchstone in the coming revolution as it demonstrated the medium's commercial viability. Festen was shot on a single-chip video camera the size of a paperback and won the Special Jury prize at Cannes. The Saltmen of Tibet, going against conventional DV wisdom, employed Himalayan vistas and panoramic colour exteriors. Paul Wagner's Windhorse, portraying the tragic consequences caused by the Chinese occupation of Tibet on a Tibetan family, was shot on the sly with "tourist video camcorders" not to arouse suspicions of the Tibetan authorities. The above films demonstrated not only that digital features can find world-wide theatrical distribution, but also that there is a rapidly growing diversity of stories and styles of filmmaking being shot in DV.

There are two distinct groups of filmmakers exploring these new digital routes. In the first category are the first-time filmmakers who are financially restricted from shooting on film and are turning to DV as a new option for low-budget production. On the other hand a group of more established filmmakers such as Harmony Korine, Todd Verow, Wim Wenders and Lars Von Trier who have chosen this format for a variety of reasons. Economics are important along with the endless aesthetic and production possibilities that the medium allows.

Harmony Korine's, Julien, which recently premiered at Venice International Film Festival, was shot using a variety of surveillance cameras, black and white infrared camera and two Sony VX1000. His move to DV enabled him to shoot around 80 hours of footage with multiple cameras embodying a range of perspectives.

DV allows filmmakers to spend more time practising their art. It has enabled the prolific Todd Verow, whose third feature, Shucking the Curve, a notable DV success, to make features more frequently than possible on film. He announced his intention of completing ten digital features by the end of the millennium - though now having finished his sixth he may not reach ten but has managed to expand his audience and body of work through the international festival and an underground exhibition network including his own website.

Nicola Bruce (I Could Read the Sky) and Grant Gee (Meeting People is Easy) chose to fuse film and digital video to create stunning layered visuals which could only be achieved on their prospective budgets by posting digitally and then transferring back to 35mm...

How Next Wave Films can help...