Amateur Filmmaking: Bright or Banal?

I finished reading Henry Jenkins "Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence and Participatory Culture" (the reading for week 7) a couple of days ago, and allowed myself a little time to think upon the idea of amateur filmmaking. I went to the lecture ... it was good, but covered what the reading was about anyway.

The choice of reading for this week was really easy to follow, which is a good thing!! I agreed with everything Jenkins explored in his article, and even did a little hunt of my own for some amateur films online. I stumbled across Something Different, where you can download Tie-tanic (discussed in the reading), Park Wars (Star Wars meets South Park) and hilarious spoofs about numerous companies like AOL. I wanted to see for myself the issues that Jenkins raised in the reading, especially those parodies of big-name films that were made by amateur's on small budgets and with various household items.

The most important issue's Jenkins raised however was that the internet has provided an "exhibition outlet which moves amateur filmmaking from private into public space" (Jenkins, p.13). The rise of the internet has obvious benefits to the dissemination of cultural products, even allowing for film students to make a name for themselves.

But the fact that some film companies try to halt fan cultural production? For what its worth, film companies should allow any fan cultural production (providing its not overtly sexual) because it adds to the hype surrounding the release of their film. Their return on investment in the movie probably wouldn't be so high if they didn't have fans creating cultural products that help to advertise the film, or encourage people to see it.

Obviously, the film industry is really hard to cut through. So to make this reading a double-sided debate, shouldn't some of these amateurs be putting all their time and effort into creating a film that is original, rather than using a released movie (which is somebody elses' idea) as a base plate to create comedy? Because after flicking over a few websites, anyone can see that there are a LOT of Star Wars parodies out there ... I mean ... the market (if you could call it that) is saturated.

In saying that however, I do realise creating parody films is good practice for up and coming film students, and it also places more creative works online. I could sit on the fence, but I'm going to be bold and say that although amateur film making should certainly continue, moving beyond amateur filmmaking to become a professional will take a lot more originality, creativity and flair.
Amateur's ideas are original and often funny, but there are just too many Star Wars parodies to see them all! If I were a filmmaker, I would definitely come up with something of my own work that would stand out from the clutter of everybody elses'. But that's just me ...

Visit O'Rielly to see what I mean and read about moving beyond an 'amateur'.