Technology democratized creativity

The music industry have for many years kept musicians at an arms length mainly because the hard- and software has been to expensive for the everyday musician to buy. On top of that the record companies has owned distribution and marketing. This way they’ve made sure that they make the big bucks while the actual artists get screwed over and over again. Now thanks to affordable laptops with software that doesn’t cost anything compared to a traditional studio production has been democratized and the internet makes marketing easy. Today a 18 year old kid walks into a record company with a final version of his song. The power has shifted over to his side and as a result the music labels are left with their pants down.
Now it’s time for the movie industry to follow.
Good friend Caroline mailed me a link to a new surf movie that is in production on Hawaii at the moment. Being a surfer myself I was of course first stunned by Jamie O’Brien handling Pipeline as if it was nothing. However, the quality of the footage amazed me even more. My first thought was that this was a big ass Hollywood production but as I was browsing through the shots I learned that this was the brain works of the next generation studio Laforet Visuals.
Laforet Visuals is run by tech geek Vincent Laforet, recognized as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Photography” by American Photo Magazine in 2005 and among other things awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.

By using a combination of the RED One, the Canon 5DMKII and radio controlled helicopters the studio shows Hollywood quality doesn’t have anything to do with big ass budgets anymore. Of course Laforet Visuals have spent more than most every day photographers, but still, the price tag in the end shows that if you have an idea you can actually pull it through. Only 2-3 years ago a production like this would cost 1000 times the money.

The Canon Mark 5 with a Redrock cinema lens – Hollywood democratized

The final results are yet to see as Vincent hasn’t published a final version of the movie. But one thing is for sure. When I see this I know that the next business that will have young creatives challenging the establishment will be the movie business.
(by the way, I can’t wait to get my hands on one of those RED One cameras)