TRIBUTE TO THE HOMEBREW SPIRIT

I have and will continue to be critical of many individual elements connected to the Homebrew Videomaking scene, but that should never be confused as disdain. I support this movement and what it represents. Beyond the obvious idea of the underdog and burgeoning filmmaker, my reason is simple: nearly every important movement in film history has it's roots in a rebellion against the status quo by someone embracing the same spirit I see in the Homebrew Videomaker.

THE BROTHERS LUMIERE AND EDISON
It's hard to say who got to it first, but these were the people we owe for the medium of film. And while the Lumiere Brothers created far and away the most interesting shots, it was Edison who embraced the medium as a way to tell stories. Also Edison was the first to make home movies.

So here I solute the innovators, the craftsmen, the insane entrepreneurs who got out there with their crazy inventions and laid the groundwork for an entire medium.

EISENSTEIN
At the birth of Communist Russia, and at the time when Communism was still full of idealsim, this guy had the crazy idea that editing was as important in filmmaking as the writing or the shot composition. This guy's theories, and the films he employed them in, are still used in film classes.

A toast to the revolutionaries.

THE FRENCH NEW WAVE
Rebelling against the vapid glamour of Hollywood productions, the leaders of this movement set out with micro crews and smaller budgets and broke every rule in the book. Hand-held camera? These guys did it first. Jump-cuts? Right here. Not everything they did worked, but the homebrew scene owes much to these guys.

Respect to the rebels.

MTV AND THE MUSIC VIDEO
The early days of MTV, music videos weren't exactly reknown for their artistic prowess. Prominent working directors weren't exactly knocking down the doors of musicians to make a music promotion vehicle. That role went instead to the guys who did. People like Spike Jones and Michelle Gendry weren't especially skilled in the technical department, but they had ideas and broke many-a-rule to make them happen on shoe-string budgets.

In one famous case, Spike Jones wrapped the camera lens in a sandwich bag so he could do an under-water shot. Ballsy.

Props to the ballsy gentlemen of the MTV age.

HOMEBREW IN THE INTERNET AGE
There is a quote that someone made; an artform can't be considered an artform until it's available to everyone. This, they proposed, was as true with paint as with music. If that's the case, then it's only been in the last 10 some odd years that we've seen the artistic legitimization of both animation and movie-making.

It's an exciting time.

It's a time when more videos are uploaded online than produced for television (at the 2008 rate of upload, it'd take 60 days to upload to youtube what American television stations took 60 years to make).

It's a time where ideas matter more than production values.

And yes, it's even a time where a reviewer can be a bigger draw than the media they review.

So here I celebrate the spirit of the Homebrew.

Author's Note
Why hey there! As stated in the previous post (part 2 of which is coming at some point), this article is dedicated to Pugsly6338 for being the only person to actually post a reply to my last article. Good for you, Pugsly6338!