We at the JSF spend a lot of time dwelling on the notion of location. In short, does your location matter to your film career? Perhaps you’ve noticed that the JSF is located in central Ohio—not the hub of the film universe. But it does help give us some extra reasons d’etre, e.g., we know how few options exist for watching quality, independent films outside of a few big cities. But what about filmmakers? We argued from the first that people are making films everywhere, now, and that distribution needed to decentralize to keep up with it. New technology has allowed this (though Business prevents it). But is it really true that you can make films anywhere?, that it doesn’t matter where you live?
The JSF continues to publish films from all over. Volume 4—coming soon!, we promise—has films from 5 different countries and towns as small as San Sebastián, Spain, and, um, . . . Chicago? Okay, so this volume doesn’t represent any many small towns, but we’ve had plenty in the past, including Yellow Springs, OH, Norman, OK, Salt Lake City, UT, Syracuse, NY, and more.
I recently asked this question of Joe Merrell (JSF, vol.1), who said that digital technology has allowed him to work on his own, when he chooses. While he has collaborated with others in the past, his recent projects are more or less solo. Because of this, his location may seem a bit ironic: “I live in Hollywood (the hill with the HOLLYWOOD sign on it is behind my apartment). . . . Though location is significant to the content of my work, the fact that I live in Hollywood The Movie Capital of the Universe is pretty much irrelevant to it.”
Perhaps social networking sites on the Internet may help, someday. But I don’t think it’s working, yet. Has anyone really made Yahoo Groups, MeetUp.com, or Myspace work on a practical level for production? Myspace certainly seems useless. It’s full of users, and we’re not entirely innocent of that ourselves, as the JSF’s lame ass myspace page would attest.
If you have any thoughts on the matter, send us an email. The field is changing, and we’ll revisit the issue later, I’m sure.
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