The Making (and Distribution of) The Alien Invasion

A few technologies have empowered aspiring filmmakers to make movies. The miniDV ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>camera is one, inexpensive editing and ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>compositing tools are another, and the Internet could arguably be the equalizer of all these things. Singapore-based ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>filmmaker Rich Ho is one such ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>filmmaker who has taken advantage of these technologies to not only make his film, The Alien Invasion, but to distribute it as well.

His studio, distributed its films via VHS, VCD, and the via the Internet. Here is his story.
DMN: It is one thing to make a digital film, but another to get it distributed to the widest possible audience.

How did you come up with the idea of making The Alien Invasion available for virtually all the mediums ( ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>iPod, ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>DVD, ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>Director Rich Ho: Our studio has always wanted to experiment and employ the latest technology and methods when it comes to film making or distribution. We distributed our films on VCDs and SVCDs when we discovered VHS tapes were bringing costs up and restricting viewer experiences. However in 2001, as the demands for the studios distributed shorts in VCDs became higher, and VCD distribution started to have its limitations, while ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>DVDs were not viable then, we decided to turn to another technology that was starting to evolve, internet distribution.

Pioneers like Atom Films and iFilms were doing a great job with video ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>streaming. However, we hoped that we could offer higher quality videos over the internet, without having to subject viewers to stream buffer problems. The solution came when we were offered a 1GB ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>server and "unlimited" bandwidth (was a large amount at that time) on the University's servers to host our movies.

Thus, at the end of 2001, the first Richmanclub Studios' website was born, with a short film section available allowing audiences to not only view, but download high quality versions of the studios' shorts for free. The challenge then was to offer the films in a format that was most widely available. ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>QuickTime and Windows Media Video were popular but produced large files.

DIVX AVI produced the best looking pictures at the smallest file sizes, but it wasn't a widely adopted codec then. We ended up having various sections on the website "educating" users on how to watch and download the short films. There were many interesting "problems" faced by these early adopters, like the most embarrassing one where the audience downloaded the film, only to not know which location he/she had saved it to.

Today, with YouTube, Yahoo video and MySpace, internet user habits have evolved much. The past five years had also seen an influx of new technology from wireless internet, 3G, iPods, RSS usage proliferation, BitTorrent, to various Internet and video enhanced mobile devices. We believed that the next challenge for the studio was to deliver entertainment directly to audiences wherever they are, with or without a basic computer.

The idea of launching The Alien Invasion, on all major digital platforms widely used by audiences nowadays was thus crystallized. However, we had wanted to achieve this without the big bucks major studios have, relying on open source software, programming, and even media file hosting to achieve this launch, such that at the end of the Digital Launch, we could perhaps share the knowledge with any film maker or studio in adopting this new distribution platform of the 21st century. After almost 2 months of file encoding tests, web programming, and even a trial run of the Digital Launch, we are very encouraged to see that The Alien Invasion, along with its Outtake video clips, have been downloaded/streamed in terms of thousands and growing in the 5 figures within a month of the launch.

This is not counting the peer-to-peer distribution of the film between device owners especially amongst phone users.

Our objective for this Digital Launch was to test the viability of distributing our films TV series over these emerging digital platforms. We hope to prove that in this new century, film distribution, marketing, and news is no longer exclusive to major studios, with all these and more made "personally" available to a single audience member through digital platforms.

DMN: The film was lensed primarily with the ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>Canon XL1s. What made you go with the XL1s versus another ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>camera? Did you consider some of the latest HD cameras as well?

The film had multiple locations and a huge cast all to be shot within 3 weeks. Although the film budget would allow, a conventional ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>35mm camera would however require too much setup time, and extra lighting equipment. The action sequences had to be comedic yet exciting in a documentary way for certain scenes.

In order to sneak the ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>camera into various nooks and corners to capture the raw action, we actually employed a couple of ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>Sony 3CCD miniDV ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>camcorders that were small enough to be tucked on dashboards, behind cars, and yet produce great looking shots. The challenge at the end was to match the footages from all the cameras though. Finally, the only major HD cameras available in 2004 Singapore then were ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>Sony's CineAlta, and ');" onMouseOut="setTimeout('hideLayer()',500);" class=hotlink2>Panasonic's Varicam.

Moreover there were only 2-3 of these cameras available. We couldn't afford the time in setting up an entire HD production and post workflow, in that short time frame. However, should there have been more time, the Varicam would have been our choice.

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