Tideswimmer, I understand what you’re saying, but I actually have the opposite view of the state of independent genre (horror, SF, slasher…grindhouse) filmmaking. I think it’s better than it’s ever been, and it’s only going to get better.

The only sadness right now is when “independent genre filmmaking” specifically means “the result product plays in a place called a cinema at a scheduled time and people buy tickets to watch as a group, and the delivery medium is a speaker system with a projector displaying celluloid film”.

Right now, I don’t have to track down any dentists for a couple hundred thousand bucks. I can come up with my own couple of thousand bucks, shoot, edit, and add CGI effects to my own “film” right here on the computer. I’m not inclined to, but I actually have all the capability right now on software and hardware already, except the camera itself.

If I wanted to go all CGI, I don’t even need a camera. I use the same 3D software that a lot of studios actually use. And this isn’t even a big hobby of mine.

Yet the capability is right here. Greater than DVD resolution, and as high a sound quality as amuses me. No quality degradation on a copy. You like seeing your movies at 24 frames a second with a grainy look? Hang on, let me apply some filters.

I can then get a version (admittedly low-res and low-quality at this stage of the internet) hosted somewhere to a potential audience of a bazillion. I could even host it myself, yet another capability that I actually have but don’t use for the purpose.

No studio or cinema bullshit: just me, my vision, and the audience. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?

I oversimplify, of course. But I think you know where I’m coming from.

And by the way, just on the actual physical result product itself, although right now we’re used to the low YouTube quality stuff coming over the internet, there’s no reason that the original footage couldn’t be even higher quality than what you currently accept as high quality when you see it on DVD.

And if you think that the full resolution version itself won’t be able to be commonly delivered to you on demand in the next decade, that’s a bet I’d be willing to make with you.

The death of cinema and the studios have been announced many times. I roll my eyes too when I hear it. But lemme tell ya, it’s not too hard to connect the dots on where the possibilities of technology can take us. And not even future technology. Right now consumer level technology.

Example, recently I went to see ‘300’ at a friend’s urging because, as she said, although it’s not such a great movie you should see it in the theater for the eye candy experience. At home, I had downloaded and watched the trailer on my home theater system in high-def—and by the way at a lesser resolution than the HDTV is capable of showing.

At the megaplex, in a packed house, to my own surprise when I compared the two, I had to admit to myself that the actual physical quality I was getting at home was better now than the cinema. In fact even to the percentage that the screen filled my visual field, home was equivalent if not greater.

Kinda new to this HDTV stuff, but dang. I was surprised. I now refer to my living room as Cinema Matty D.

The only thing the cinema has now is the social experience, I started to think. If elbow wrestling with strangers in a dark room over a sticky floor qualifies, that is.

Here in Portland, Oregon, I know of at least three independent low-budget horror/thriller movies in the works. It goes on all the time, actually. I don’t even have to go looking for it for the information to come to me. I could be an extra or get further involved in any of them if I wanted.

Here we’re fortunate enough to have a solid independently owned theater culture, and these movies will play in actual theaters here in town at a festival, more than likely. Maybe nowhere else, true. But they could. And going back to my original point, those guys are out there doing this stuff thanks to this technology.

So smile, tideswimmer. It ain’t so bad. It’s just different now. I’m sure our dentists will find other tax writeoffs. :)

To LeCastor, we agree. Just illuminating where you seemed to be uncertain.

To phio, yes. But it's logistically impossible to enforce specific standards at specific MOS's. There are different physical standards for stuff like being a pilot, for which the physical qualification is much more specific.

In general, and I mean way general, as I only served in one branch in one component 10 years ago, it's policy on gender serving in a specific branch (by branch I mean subspecialty of an armed service, such as "medical" or "infantry"). Beyond that it's a flat physical standard across the force. And yes, you can be shit out of luck just on the body gawd gave you. It's like that.

The difference is often found in the frequency in which the standards are applied--like a heavily physical branch would test regularly, for a support branch, only a couple of times a year.