Jonas Lembke: Has the democratisation of distribution revolutionised creativity?

By Jonas Lembke (left), executive creative director, Atomic 212

Once upon a time, to create a fantastic establishing shot of a spectacular location, you were looking at dropping thousands and thousands of dollars hiring a helicopter, a pilot, as well as a camera that was up to the task, and someone to with the skills to actually use that bulky, technical piece of kit.

Last week, we took our drone out over Sydney Harbour and shot some of the most breathtaking footage of the world’s best harbour that I’ve ever seen.

And that ‘most breathtaking’ accolade comes with no qualifier. Professional film crews haven’t done it better.

But that’s nought to do with the ‘photographer’ – the fact is, the equipment we had on hand is good enough to allow just about anyone to capture the kind of shots that would make James Cameron proud.

For less than $2000, just about anyone can get their hands on a quality quadcopter packing a camera that shoots at 4K resolution, which takes video as smooth as a top-of-the-line Steadicam thanks to its gimbal.

No, none of this is news, but it doesn’t hurt to occasionally reflect on just how far technology has come, and the amazing doors it has opened for creatives.

But while the idea of creativity having been ‘democratised’ is all the buzz, the reality is that this process has been going on for decades.

Film remains one of the most popular and therefore most powerful forms of creative expression, and continues to hold an allure for many of us. However, the idea of democratising creativity through making the creation of film the property of the masses is not a new one.

Take a filmmaker like Kevin Smith. His feature debut, Clerks, was made on a budget of just $27,575 – funded by driving himself into massive credit card debt. Of course, the film became a cult classic and launched Smith’s career.

All this occurred in 1994, more than 20 years ago, at a time when some of the film’s biggest expenses were $3400 renting a camera (plus $730 to insure the rental), $1600 for film, and $3295 spent processing said film.

That’s over $9000 – these days, he could have bought two top-of-the-line digital cameras and a Mac with some decent editing software for that kind of price. Boom, you’ve got your own film studio!

And Smith’s brand of DIY creativity was hardly film’s first. The Super 8 and VHS Camcorder were brought to market for that very purpose, and a revolution in filmmaking was expected. But what mostly resulted was shelf-warmers; rows of film-rolls or cassettes of footage that were more fun to make than to watch. Projectors were put in boxes in garages, along with dreams of Scorsesean fame and fortune.

So why are we talking about the democratisation of creativity again now with the serge in electronic filmmaking? Has anything changed? Are we better artists now? Was the problem all along that the audiences just didn’t get it?

Well yes and no. Because even if levels of average artistry might never change, one very important thing has – and changed dramatically: the democratisation of distribution.

Thanks to the likes of YouTube, Vimeo and SoundCloud, along with exponentially growing social platforms such as Periscope, Facebook Live and Snapchat, distribution of film, music and ideas is free. Access to the global market is gratis, not just the means of production, and that makes all the difference.

Along with this comes a massive shift in behaviour. George Orwell predicted a dystopian future where a camera on your wall recorded your every move, sending shivers down the spine of readers for generations. But now we rush to put cameras in our homes, complaining only when insufficient numbers of people are watching what we do.

We record our friends, our commute, our sustenance intake and our free time. We have become broadcasters.

In 1992, Bruce Springsteen famously sang “57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)” as a criticism of the oversaturation (and poor quality) of American television media.

(As an aside, in late 2014, The Boss described the filmclip for that particular tune as being “Shot back in the quaint days of only 57 channels and no flat screen TVs”. His medium of choice for explaining the motivation behind the song? Facebook, of course.)

So where are we now? At an estimated 3.5 billion people (and growing) broadcasting to the world on a daily basis, is there anything on?

The short answer is that there’s a lot more filler than quality content people want to tune into, but perhaps all this broadcasting is in aid of something else.

Perhaps the cameras we use are no longer aimed at a career in film, but used simply as tools to communicate. Watching and being watched has become a seamless aspect of modern life. Expected. Integrated invisibly and comfortably into late-night chats, intercontinental conferences and family reunions.

And if my generation still harbours some reservations about this on-air life, then they are totally lost on the generations that will follow us. In fact, YouTube claims that “… YouTube on mobile alone, reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S.”, while according to Hootsuite, “Snapchatters watch over 10 billion videos per day–an increase of more than 350% since 2015”.

This explosion of user-generated content saw Defy Media’s fourth annual Acumen Report find that for consumers aged 13-24, YouTube is the ‘must watch’ platform.

In fact, 67% of that particular demographic said they “can’t live without” YouTube, while 48% couldn’t be without the videos on social-media services — an aggregate of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Tumblr.

Sure, it was an American study, but those staggering findings can’t be ignored in our market. So what do those numbers tell us? In many ways, the total saturation of broadcasting has once again put the focus back on something else: ideas.

It’s ideas, not technology, that determines success. Not structures, strategies or models. Ideas.

Or maybe that too is an antiquated idea? Let’s see what happens.