it won't take a decade or two. This line is about to blur as bad as the one between 'mainstream" and "amateur" music.. It's cheaper to make a music cd/twenty tracks of mp3 than a hour and a half movie, but not that big a deal.

I know, i've made a CD of original songs and helped my wife make a few half hour TV shows for CAT-TV years ago..

You can expect the movie industry to rapidly become as irrelevant as the "recording industry"

As computing power puts CGI into the hands of the average dudess we will se a lot of crazy stuff. You can already see the beginnings in Flash Animation and the Mechinima movements.

and this just popped up while i was figuring out how to spell mechinima.

[www.mechanimationstudios.com]

I've been promoting the idea of "garage films" being the new equivalent of "garage bands" for a few years now.

And by "promoting," I mean, "talking about it over beers until I notice my friends' eyes glaze over."

This is defiantly blurs the line between "professional" and "amateur". Is a production professional because people get paid, or does the production have to be officially sanctioned by the copyright owners? Perhaps the quality of the story and production separate amateur from professional. I find my entertainment choices are increasingly centered on so called amateur sources.

I'd rather watch an "amateur" production like this one, than watch an allegedly "professional" ripoff from JJ Abrams. Face it, when fan productions are this good, who wants to see Abrams try and destroy the Trek franchise for real?

@codydog:
As someone who does CGI, while I agree with the statement that CGI is becoming cheaper and with fewer technical limitations, the idea that this somehow automatically allows everyone to make good movies is nuts.

Good CGI helps enable suspension of disbelief. That's it. If there is no story or characters to believe in the first place, you are screwed before you start. In many ways, it is the least important part of the process because if any other part of the production fails, all the CGI in the world won't save you.

And for a huge number of shows, CGI doesn't matter. It doesn't. If you ignore special effect shots, the cost of shooting a TV quality film hasn't changed a whole lot in the last 5 years. So, you can buy a decent miniDV camera for $500 instead of $1000. A functional digital editing setup might cost you $1500 now instead of $3000. Well, that difference was never really holding anyone back. And the cost of good tripods and lighting and sound equipment hasn't dropped in 20 years.

And there are a lot of genres that don't need anything digital other than the editing to do right. So, where are the small indendant Cop/Gangster/Heist shows? The (sorry) Sitcoms? The Friends/Gilmore Girls/OC knockoffs? The hard part in making shows and movies has never been the SFX/CGI. Getting god writers and actors and directors together and working well for little money has always been what holds these projects back. By and large, anyone good enough to do this kind of project well can find work doing some other project just as interesting and make a living off it.

@Ryan H: There aren't any independent/amateur cop shows or sitcoms because nobody would watch them. Not unless they did something to appeal to the sort of niche that doesn't mind downloading video off the Internet. Star Trek fans are fine with that. Friends fans aren't.

Yeah, two decades is a bit too generous. There's a lot of stuff happening right now, and the price/sophistication of commercially available DV cameras is putting everything in easy reach.

As for the awards... this reminds me of when the Nebula Awards committee nominated an issue of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman for an award, and everybody was so scandalized that a comic book got a nomination, that they immediately amended the rules so it couldn't happen again.

I'll try to give a Cory Doctorow-type answer: Paramount "owns" nothing but the paper their lawyers have concocted. Star Trek has saturated our culture to such an extent that it has become part of the Intellectual Commons. If I, or anyone esle wants to use the Star Trek Universe, we should be able to, free of charge. The originator of the Intellectual Property is now dead, and so are his rights to that IP. Screw Paramount or any other coperate entity that thinks they can control what is now rightfully OURS. This issue is even more ironic when one considers Rodenberry's dream of a Federation where money is not an issue. Creative Commons copyright law has evolved to allow artistic creations, not stifel them.

Some of the people who have generated some of the fuss over the nomination are coming at it from a different perspective, and not an unreasonable one. Why is it, they ask, that the idea of a professional and licensed media tie-in novel being up for a Nebula is all but unthinkable, but a fanfic that happens to be filmed instead of written gets the nod?

There's always kneejerk comments to the effect that tie-in novels are always shit and I know because I never read them. That sort of response, of course, would prove the point.

The real reason why people are so worked up about this issue? Because of the words "Star Trek" and "fan film." Either one of those phrases by themselves would be enough to get people tweaked. Together, they're like your serious writer person's worst nightmare.

Except the whole thing with serious writers having actually written all but one of the scripts for Star Trek: New Voyages/Phase II.

D. C. Fontana, Michael Reaves, Marc Scott Zicree and David Gerrold have all written a episode for them.

In fact David Gerrold's Blood and Fire was originally written for Star Trek TNG, and has been re-written by him to involve the TOS characters since the script was dumped by the powers that be 20 years ago.

@Ryan H: Well perhaps you are right.. I was thinking of CGI as more of a substitute for sets and even costumes than for world smashing..

It is my experinance in the arts that naive enthusiasm is one recipe for fresh outlooks, but too much money is a recipe for a more polished version of the same old stuff.

Music, my personal field is revivified every few years with a new crop of outlaws, punks, Atls, folkies, acid heads, what have you. If the price of hacking a movie together gets down to where any five college students can give it a shot, then all the rules melt..

I cite "Sky Captain" "Little Miss Sunshine' and lots more as signs the system is starting to open up.

@Jeff-Minor: Agreed, on all counts!

Fighting over the Nebulas is SFWA's favorite sport (followed closely by political infighting). If it wasn't Star Trek, it would be something else.

That said, since the Nebulas are awards for professional writing, I think that if the writer got paid more than a token amount (yippee, another rule to quibble over!), then it's professional work and should be eligible. But I'm only an Affiliate member and don't get a voice.

If the Nebula people are going to base things on production values, then there is a lot of fan productions out there that would be considered. The acting might be horrendous in some, but the CGI works is top notch. There was a fan made Ghostbusters sequel that surfaced last year, and the SFX were spectacular - it was just the horrible acting that made it a turd. Like people before me have said, it's mainly the Star Trek angle that's riled all the fanboys up - much in the same way that JJ Abram's addition to Trek cannon has: gut level rejection
that an outsider dare tamper with 'their' baby.

@codydog:
Ahahahaha HAHAHAHAHA HA! *Gasp*

I understand that using CGI as a replacement for sets and costumes sounds incredibly enticing but the reality is that it is still not feasible. On any kind of scale, that kind of thing is still the providence of HUGE budget movies run by massive crews.

You cite Sky Captain. That movie took multiple years of work by over 100 artists just for the sets.

I am not exaggerating when I say that it would be substantially easier, faster and cheaper to do a completely animated movie than one with real actors and false everything else.

I think the fundamental difference between a video and music production is one of scale. For a musical work, less than a half dozen people with raw talent and determination can do a professional quality work. So, bang enough hopeful musicians together and you are going to end up with a few groups where enough people with enough talent come together at the same time.

For a professional looking TV show you need dozens. And they all need to be at least passably good at their jobs. So, the bar for having that type of group come together is higher.

I agree that the decentralization of movies and TV is going to happen. But the change is not going to be due to any further technological changes. The technology to allow it has been available for at least 5 years now. When it happens, it will be due to social pressures. It could happen tomorrow or it could happen 10 years from now and I don't expect any further digital improvements will speed that up or show it down one bit.

So, where are the small indendant Cop/Gangster/Heist shows? The (sorry) Sitcoms? The Friends/Gilmore Girls/OC knockoffs?

It's always Sunny In Philadelphia was made on the cheep by a couple of guys with a DV camera and then picked up by FX because Danny De Vito saw it and threw his name behind it. So, those shows are coming. It'll be another year or two before some intrepid gang decides they don't need Danny De Vito or some crappy cable channel and can distribute themselves on the Net.

Also, since Cinema-quality CG is so expensive, maybe we'll see a renaissance in camera and practical effects. CG is purty and all but not a requirement.

I love reading a comment thread and finding well thought out points of view and actual information. Thanks for keeping it classy and interesting io9ers!

@Gyrus: Well, kind of. It's Always Sunny was made on the cheap, but DeVito had nothing to do with FX picking it up. He didn't get involved with the show until after the first season had already aired.

I have watched all the phase II productions from Cawley et al.

I'm not surprised it got a nomination. That one was a good story. It was better than half the crap that is put out annually on established sci-fi franchises.

If it a labor of love, go ahead and make what you want, then worry the logistics later. Once your baby in released into the world, it belongs to the world. There is little you can do to put the Genie back into the bottle once it's out. At worse, your contribution will be passed along as long as people want to see it. If it is good, it will out-live the in-fighting and legal threats it causes.

@Ryan H: But the idea, the promo for Sky Captain was one guy right?

and the border between animation and CGI and live action is blurring, no?

And less than twenty years ago the idea that a band could be two people with a digital recorder or even one person with a 1000.00 lap top would have been laughable.

Do you have any idea how many hours Les Paul put into his overdubs, or the Alvin and Chipmunks guy put into a 45 record?

I of course bow to your wisdom, but quote you the Arthur Clarke maxim. "If a panel of eminent scientists says that something is impossible, they will likely be proven wrong.

@codydog:
Fair enough, and I take your point with the Clarke quote (one of my personal favourites).

I guess my point comes down to the fact that new tech is making more things possible but, with a few exceptions, the work itself is no faster. Ten years ago, the idea of making a fully photorealistic human CG character or CG set was nuts. Now we can do that. However, doing something today that we could do 5 or 10 years ago still takes roughly as much work as it did 5 or ten years ago. Rendering it out after is faster but the grunt work is much the same. Modelling the same 3D car takes almost as long, it's just that it can now be pushed further with more work.

They will come up with a fast, simple and effective way to make realistic characters and scenes at about the same time that they come out with a program that lets you push a button to produce an instant, perfect, made-to-order, original, music score. It might happen one day, but no one familiar with what goes on behind the scenes is holding their breath.

I understand the need to keep controls on a property. I mean if you created something you would not want any Jack or Jill to come along and get recongnition for your stuff. But good writing or art is simply that and it deserves recognition. I mean how many so called professionals are there in the industry that put out (and get paid for) crap on a regular basis.

And I have heard countless tales of the big corps. not paying out to little guys when optioning their ideas by simply playing with numbers (both gross and net).

@Ryan H: I have no doubt.. I actually tried to mess with animation, and discovered i'm too old (60) to even think about learning this stuff..

But, i also see it getting a little closer.. It depends on the story property. You dont have to blow up planets, to be SF.. There is an old book "Rogue Moon," that might work. One character, getting killed over and over.. Or for Clarke, how about "The City and the Stars"? Two or three people, a robot, some sort of critter, three basic sets, and a spaceship.

Or the one i just read, "Hunter's Run" with one alien, two humans and a jungle.

Who knows, we might even get some of the intelligent/feminist/minimalist/visionary/fringe SF that has needed to be filmed for a half century now.
And i wonder

continued...I wonder if minimalist sets/animation might not tell the story better. People are now used to animation, i wonder how little detail they would accept as long as the story rocked.

Who knows.. Good luck to the young guys. Go for it.

@codydog: I think that much can be said for minimalism in todays big huge budget industry. I have always tried to teach my students that bigger does not equate out to better.

The best example of this I have seen recently was the little animation posted here by Lisa Katayama a few days ago. Limited animation and no diaologe but very solid. Another I would point to in terms of minimalist animation is 'Voices of a Distant Star' which was a short anime done primarily by a single artist (Makoto Shinkai) on his computer, but now available commercially.

@Gyrus: That's not quite the story behind It's Always..., at least as I understand it. I'm touchy over it because people bill it as the great independent hope, but misunderstand how it is what it is.

All of the participants were "industry." It wasn't fan-based like this. It was a bunch of character actors who had enough friends that they could make a pilot with other low-range professionals offering free work, such the pilot was made for the cost of film. DeVito was a later addition, when the then producers though the show needed more umph and name recognition.

That is, to no small extent, why when people say "the amatures will take over," I'm dubious.

@Jeff-Minor: Eh, Cory Doctorow is a shitty writer who spends too much time up Lessig's ass. Regurgitating his buzzwords doesn't make an argument, it makes sensible people sleepy. Boingboing is a corp blog (brought to you by whatever company they're bending over for today) that's given him and a bunch of other amateur hour crap-merchants a megaphone. Volume is not content.

But as for Star Trek, it's not a copyright issue. It's trademark. Totally different thing. It's settled law that protects the entire economy from collapsing in on itself, not just the RIAA and paramount lawyers. Please, read something other than Cory's latest rant against "the man" to inform yourself. The guy's a marxist, and we all saw how well that idealogy worked out, yes?

I think the fan films are great. There's alot of love there and those people seem to be having a ball of a time.

Mind you the acting I've seen is quite cringe-inducing. But is that any worse than "real" star trek.

@shudderstep:

There is a difference between Copyright and Trademark, but not philosophically, which is the basis of my comment. Obviously you have an issue with Cory Doctorow. Maybe you're just jealous of him. And why would that be? Maybe it's because he's a great writer, you're you aren't.