Written and photographed by Katherine Rountree
On Friday, Oct. 30, students and guests of the Savannah Film Fest were asked the question “What is film and television?” A few years ago, that might have been an easy question, but as Michael Chenney — moderator of a four-guest panel and part of the crew at SCAD’s film department — acknowledged, it isn’t so simple anymore. Especially not in the panel, “Blurred Lines: the Changing Landscape of Digital Entertainment” at the Gutstein Gallery and the virtual reality glasses shown highlighted just how different the digital world is becoming.
Claudine Marrotte, Neal Weiss, Asante Bradford and Andrew Reyes spoke about the ever-changing rules of the industry.
“This is the Wild West in film. Everything is changing,” Neal Weiss, the head of production at Yahoo Branded Entertainment said. “The way we are looking at television and movies is fundamentally different.”
“’House of Cards’ is basically [either] a web series, or a twelve hour movie depending on how you see it” Andrew Reyes, executive in charge of production at Collective Digital Studios, joked. The panelists also discussed many of the new and emerging platforms such as 360 degree storytelling, 3-D printing and augmented reality. Embracing these changes and using them to your advantage, the panelists agreed, seems to be the next step for students wanting to learn more.
According to the panelists, those who market themselves are the ones who get seen. Youtube, vimeo and even vine are readily-available mediums to get work out there so that everyone who wants it, can reach it. Weiss’ advice to those wanting to break into the industry is, “the more you know, the more valuable you are.”
Asante Bradford who is the digital entertainment and media project manager for Georgia Department of Economic Development spoke on how these changes are affecting Georgia residents and, especially, students.
“Eight years ago we needed to change because of SCAD students,” who now wanted to be a part of the industry but were being forced to relocate out of Georgia. Since then, generous tax cuts have been put in place for filmmakers in the state, with additional cuts in both Atlanta and Savannah, and Georgia is currently the third largest production location in the country following Los Angeles and New York.
With so much shift and the opportunities already here it is no wonder that students are using it to their advantage. Claudine Marrotte, the line producer for “Z” mentioned that multiple SCAD students had just finished working with her on Amazon’s new show, “Transparent.” The opportunities are out there and as Chenney put it, “this is a great conversation, but we are just getting started.”
