The Digital Age: Film is the New Photograph

Our instructor in my music video course has said that everyone should have a fundemental knowledge of digital movie making in some form. Whether it is with Movie Maker, iMovie, or something closer to professional grade like FCP, everyone should learn the basics and be capable of creating and sharing digital movies.

I for one agree with this notion due to how heavily movie making has become integrated into our society. Advertising, relation campaigns, even simple family get-togethers are becoming more multimedia oriented. The simple family slide-show is being replaced by the compiled vacation video movie. Standard presentations are either being replaced or are using digital film in some way. When the home camera was invented it allowed anyone to become a photographer, to be able to take and make pictures of whatever they wanted. This expanded their horizons both in the professional workplace and in the home. Now if a company owned a camera they didn't have to hire a professional photographer, or they could have a professional as part of their normal staff as opposed to hiring a freelancer. Family portraits could be done at the home, without spending all the money on a studio or having someone else take the pictures.

Video cameras have been around for a while, but it is only fairly recently that they have become primarily digital, allowing anyone to transfer the footage to their computer for editing. Where film-based cameras essentially gave you what you got out of them without the ability to do much about it, digital film allows people to share and edit their work with ease and cost-effectiveness. The same goes for companies, who would either have to rely entirely on a third party or simply do without. Now they can pay for pro-grade software and train some PR employees and suddenly they can make their own commercials or on a smaller scale create professional presentation videos.

The usefulness of understanding movie making and editing now is similar to understanding how cameras worked when home photography was a new idea. While not technically a necessity to a successful or happy life it can easily enrich those who want to be able to archive memories in the family or those who want to take the next step in professionalism and effeciency.