=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2811/Paper18
|storemode=property
|title=DIY Filmmaking in Greece in the Digital Era
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2811/Paper18.pdf
|volume=Vol-2811
|authors=Yorgos Drosos
}}
==DIY Filmmaking in Greece in the Digital Era==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2811/Paper18.pdf
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
DIY FILM MAKING IN GREECE, IN THE DIGITAL ERA
Yorgos Drosos
PhD Candidate, Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University,
e-mail: yorgosdrosos@gmail.com
Abstract
The advent of new technologies in the last two decades has facilitated filmmakers to
an extraordinary degree. Digital technology offers artists the ability to shoot, edit,
distribute and advertise their films in an unprecedented manner. All this is done by the
filmmakers themselves, in the spirit of DIY – Do It Yourself. This paper aims to present
how these developments have helped filmmakers in Greece, especially in the genres of
horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. The methodology of the paper will be based on the relevant
literature concerning filmmaking, digital technologies and the film industry. Moreover,
it will draw on examples of films such as Evil (2005), Evil II (2009), Kamme Koumando
(2012) and others.
Keywords: Digital Filmmaking, DIY, Internet, Horror
Introduction
Between my submitting the proposal for the 1 st DCAC Conference and the writing of
this paper, a Greek film was released by the title of Too Much Info Clouding Over My
Head (Christofilakis, 2018). When I was preparing my proposal I was not aware of the
existence and imminent release of said film, but I believe that it falls into the subject(s)
that I want to speak of, even in a slightly indirect manner.
The protagonist is a man in his thirties who has made only one film thus far, entitled
Gay Nazi Cyborg Zombies In Love. He is currently struggling to find the financing and
the cast for his second film, a more conventional love story set at the start of the 20th
century. While he basically lives off his girlfriend and his big-time lawyer mother, the
financing for this upcoming film is supposed to come from some of his own occasional
acting, stage directing or even photographic jobs that he eventually fails miserably albeit
hilariously at.
It could be argued that Too Much Info Clouding Over My Head (Christofilakis,
2018) is the third film in an unofficial, unintentional line of Greek, black and white, low
budget –or even no budget- films that offer an equal number of variations on the story
of the struggling, underground director who goes to great pains to finish his first/ next
filmic project or just to find the financing for it. Too much info Clouding Over My Head
(Christofilakis, 2018) tells the tale from the perspective of a bourgeois Woody Allen-
esque character, whereas Dimitri Athanitis’ Goodbye Berlin (Athanitis, 1994) is an Aki
Kaurismaki-influenced tale of the absurd. No Budget Story (Haralambides, 1997), falls
Copyright © 2018 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative
Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) DCAC 2018.
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
somewhere between the two, both chronologically and in terms of content, presenting a
basically realistic story, set in a specific sociological context, but with nuances of, as
I mentioned earlier, the absurd. The absurd is defined by the Merriam- Webster Online
Dictionary as “the state or condition in which human beings exist in an irrational and
meaningless universe and in which human life has no ultimate meaning” (Merriam-
Webster Online Dictionary). To quote from Camus: “This world in itself is not
reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this
irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The
absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment it is all that links them
together. It binds them one to the other as only hatred can weld two creatures together”
(Camus 1965: 15). In business terms, Too Much Info Clouding Over My Head
(Christofilakis, 2018) was probably the most expensive to make out of all three, costing,
by the director’s own admission in a recent interview, roughly 16,000 Euros (Bakatselos
2018).
It is worth noting that the connection between the three films was actually
acknowledged by the director of Goodbye Berlin in a recent Facebook post. In all of
these three films, the actual, real-life film maker is burdened with a variety of
responsibilities, apart from just directing. Athanitis also served as producer and played
a small part. Haralambides also served as music supervisor, co-producer, writer and star.
Christofilakis also served as co-producer, writer and star. On the other hand, as is often
the case in indie cinema, the process of filming is also a matter of solidarity and a spirit
of selfless collaboration, meaning that the film makers have received a significant
amount of help from their friends and relatives, as relevant interviews by these three
filmmakers will reveal.
Homo Universalis / The Writer as Producer / The D.I.Y. Approach
It is of course common knowledge that a film maker is supposed to acquire a variety of
skills apart from directing, such as writing, editing, shooting, acting and even producing/
finding the financing for each project. If at older times, the actual combination of all
these skills in one project was to be admired but also to be avoided, nowadays it can be
viewed both as a necessity and as an easier process, thanks in part to the financial
recession and in part to the advent of new technologies. In fact a whole film can now be
shot and edited using just one device: one’s own smart phone. So much so that Nikos
Kolovos’ phrase “in an extreme scenario, filmmaking can be an absolutely individual,
solitary process” (Kolovos 1988: 115) becomes a palpable reality.
An indicative list of apps for editing video on one’s smart phone includes the
following: iSuper8, Vyclone, VidTrim Pro, Lapse It Pro, AndroMedia HD, CinemaFX,
iMovie, Viddy, Videolicious (Price 2012). Instances of films that have been entirely or
partially shot on a smart phone include Sally Potter’s Rage (Potter, 2009) shot in 2009
and made available for download in seven parts; Uneasy Lives The Mind (Fosheim,
2014), shot on an iPhone with a total budget of 10,000 dollars; Tangerine (Baker, 2015);
I Play With The Phrase Each Other (Jay Alvarez, 2013); Steven Soderbergh’s Unsane
(Soderbergh, 2018), also a horror film.
Having a wide number of skills pertaining to the same art form or discipline is not
such a rare thing: it’s not so unusual for a musician to be able to play more than one
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
instrument, to sing and also be able to record himself or herself, or even to be able to set
up the PA system during a gig and so on. It is having skills in a variety of disciplines or
art forms that is regarded with disbelief by some, as it is supposed to be reserved only
for genii, such as Andy Warhol, Jean Cocteau, David Bowie or, during the Renaissance,
Leonardo Da Vinci. Da Vinci was of course a man of his time, perhaps the absolute,
ideal personification of the Homo Universalis. The Homo Universalis is “the iconic man
of Renaissance humanism”, someone who is “able to span all the fields of knowledge
with his mind force” and thus “gains access to universality” (Sorin 2011: 63).
Centuries after the Renaissance, in his essay The Author as Producer Benjamin
urged writers of literature to become accustomed with other art forms and other crafts,
such as photography and typography (Benjamin, 1970). This urgency was not expressed
as a need to revive the Renaissance ideal of the Homo Universalis, but rather as a call for
artists to seize the means of production, in keeping with Benjamin’s Marxist worldview
(Benjamin, 1970). In this way, writers can finally gain true, essential control of their
own art (Benjamin, 1970). Benjamin’s opinions are also echoed in Ellen Lupton’s
similarly titled The Designer As Producer (Lupton 1997).
Somehow in accordance with the Renaissance ideal of universality and with
theories proponed by Benjamin and Lupton, Yannis N. Kolovos mentions in his Ph.D.
thesis, which is an account of the Athens Punk Scene, that many members of said scene,
former or current, new ones or “veterans”, acquired a number of skills in the Athenian
punk movement, skills that varied from actual musicianship to printing, to editing
images, to organizing gigs, to recording, releasing and distributing records (Kolovos
2015). These skills helped them within the punk context and beyond it, and also both
within an amateur and within a professional context (Kolovos 2015).
Of course, DIY is a notion that is closely associated with the punk movement. It is
both a practical concept, one that has to do with familiarizing oneself with certain
techniques, artistic or otherwise, but it is also one that has to do with economical/
financial/political aspects of the creation and distribution of art. In terms of music, indie
or independent can be viewed as a continuation of the DIY/punk spirit. Indie or
independent also pertains to economical/financial/political terms, but as years have gone
by, it has become a description of a certain technical and aesthetic style. This is
applicable in the film world too. Of course, there are exceptions in both cases.
Independent Filmmaking and the Horror Genre
Independent filmmaking contains the concepts of low budget, micro budget and no budget
films. These are terms that are very familiar and also pretty much self- explanatory. Of
course, from country to country, from economy to economy, from industry to industry,
there is a different scale regarding the estimation and definition of these terms. One
industry’s big production might be another one’s low budget film.
One of the most famous independent films of all time also happens to be one of the
most important ones in the horror genre: George A. Romero’s Night of The Living Dead
(Romero, 1968). The film had an initial budget of 6000 dollars, but was completed with
a budget of 114,000 dollars, which is still small change by the American film industry’s
standards. Of course, it grossed 18 million dollars worldwide during its initial theatrical
release, as well as launching Romero’s career and rejuvenating the zombie and the
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
horror genre in the process. The film was made as response to the film industry’s “thirst
for the bizarre”, according to a George A. Romero interview (Hardman and Eastman,
1997). Romero also performed the editing and co-wrote the screenplay.
Romero’s movie never mentions the word zombie, but it is one of the most important
ones in the whole relevant filmography, influencing a wide variety of directors worldwide
and across the decades. Three of these filmmakers were the brothers Nousias and their
collaborator, Claudio Bolivar. This team also chose to make a zombie film out of love
for genre (horror) cinema and because it would be cheaper for them to pull it through
(Papageorgiou and Ioannides 2009). Contrary to Romero’s team, though, Nousias and
his collaborators had no hope of actually satisfying the Greek film industry’s thirst for
the bizarre, or its thirst for genre cinema or its thirst for horror in particular.
Genre films and horror films in particular are still not respected in Greece: not only
are they considered contrary to the notion of “Greekness” but they are also not perceived
as “serious” or even “commercial” cinema (Kagios 2010). Noussias’ film, Evil (To
Kako) (Nousias, 2005) was the first Greek zombie film to get an actual theatrical release
and to be played in international festivals (Papageorgiou and Ioannides 2009). He even
got to shoot a sequel, Evil In The Time of Heroes (Nousias, 2009), his last feature film
to date. Other filmmakers have been less fortunate in that respect.
D.I.Y. Filmmaking In The Digital Age
What, then, could be the solution for someone who wants to make genre cinema in
Greece, for someone who wants to realize his or her artistic vision, no matter how
immature, silly, gorey, campy, or, simply, of limited interest and commercial potential it
might seem to mainstream producers, distributors and media? The digital age offers a
variety of tools for overcoming at least some of the practical, technical and financial
difficulties.
I spoke earlier of the technological advantages that smart phones and other devices
bring along with them. Social media, YouTube channels and official websites are also
important tools for advertizing or even distributing one’s film. Another benefit to be
derived from the advent of the Internet is Crowdfunding. The main forms of
crowdfunding (also known as participative financing) are donation crowdfunding,
investment crowdfunding and presales crowdfunding. The legal framework in Europe
and America has been well established. In Greece it is based on two recent acts of
legislation. The first, Law 4351/2015, acknowledges the right of credit Institutions,
banks and public sector institutions to run crowdfunding campaigns in order to
financially support actions, institutions or persons (Law 4351/2015, in Psalidas 2017).
In this case crowdfunding pertains to donations, not the financing of projects such as
films. The second one, Law 4416/2016, permits the foundation of crowdfunding
platforms/businesses, referred to as Investment Services Providers (Greek: ΑΕΠΕΥ) or
Alternative Investment Management Companies (Greek: ΑΕΔΟΕΕ) (Law 4416/2016,
in Psalidas 2017). These platforms are allowed to publish crowdfunding campaigns by
individuals or companies which must not exceed 500,000 Euros, with donations by
individual contributors not allowed to exceed 5,000 Euros (Law 4416/2016, in Psalidas
2017).
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
However, Greek visual artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers do in fact tend to
use crowdfunding platforms. A rough research of mine in Indiegogo, Patreon and
GoFundMe using keywords such as Greece, Greek, Greek Film, Athens, Salonica,
Thessaloniki, brought about an interesting set of results. My May 31 st research in
Indiegogo brought about 82 results for the keyword “Greek”, 35 results for “Greece”,
35 results for “Greece-related”, 59 results for “Athens”, 23 results for “Salonica”, 61
results for “Thessaloniki”. My research in Patreon, on that same date, brought about 71
creators for the keyword “Greece”, 40 creators for the keyword “Greek”, 31 creators for
the keyword “Athens” and 5 creators for “Thessaloniki”. My research in GoFundMe, on
the abovementioned date, prompted the following figures: 94 results for “Athens Film”,
151 results for “Greece Film”, 1003 results for “Greek Film”, 5 results for “Thessaloniki
Film” and zero results for “Salonica Film”.
Among the Greek projects to be found in such platforms are full-length
documentaries like O Yiorgos tou Kedrou, or Me and My Shadow, about the late, great
singer Nikos Papazoglou. Others are closer to the Noussias’ film, like Legend of The
Dragonphoenix V, a self-released Conan The Barbarian-like comic book that has
spawned a series of film adaptations shot by and starring the original creator of the
comic.
DIY or low budget films to have come out of Greece in recent years often pertain
to genre filmmaking such as horror, sci-fi, crime, fantasy and exploitation/parody.
Examples include: I epithesi tou gigantiaiou moussaka (Koutras, 1999) a science fiction
comedy in the vein of The Blob (Yeaworth, 1958) and Mars Attacks (Burton, 1996);
Super Dimitrios (Papaioannou, 2011), a humorous take on the superhero genre, set in
Thessaloniki and inspired by the peculiarities of the local community; Kame Koumando
(Damianakis, 2012), a sci-fi film, involving a warrior from the future deciding to travel
to a post-apocalyptic ‘present’; I Epistrofi ton Katharmaton (Bogris, 2003), Ta Remalia
(Bogris, 2003) and Catharsis (Bogris, 2009), takes on the crime/revenge genres, the
latter one being a film release, while the former two were released on video. Despite
their dubious aesthetic or even political elements, for the most part, these films prove not
only a true love of their makers for their respective genres but also an uncompromising
artistic vision and an unfettered will to make this vision into a reality.
Conclusion
If you will allow me, I will end this paper on a somewhat romantic note, speaking not
only as a Ph.D. Candidate but also as an artist, albeit of another kind (a published author
of fiction). As with many other aspects of Greek life, arts and the cinema in particular
fall victim of a hierarchical mentality, whereby a nomenclature (of publishers, producers,
gallery owners, older, better-known writers/artists/filmmakers, along with the
mainstream media) decides, in an absurd fashion, what constitutes art and what does not,
what constitutes talent and what does not, what constitutes commercial material and what
does not. The internet, the advent of new technologies, crowdfunding platforms and all
the other means I have described during this presentation, offer younger, less
acknowledged artists a platform to work against this mentality, not in the hope of
abolishing it but at least in the hope of getting their own artistic vision through.
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
Or, to return to Camus and the absurd, “To work and create ‘for nothing,’ to sculpture
in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day
while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for
centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions. Performing these
two tasks simultaneously, negating on the one hand and magnifying on the other, is the
way open to the absurd creator. He must give the void its colors” (Camus 1965: 72-73).
References
Alvarez, Jay (2013), I Play With The Phrase Each Other, USA: Studio Mist. Athanitis,
Dimitris (1994), Antio Verolino, Greece: DNA Films
Bakatselos, C. (2018). “O Vassilis Christofilakis exigei sto Flix ti simasia tou na kaneis
ti ‘diki’ sou tainia” (“Vassilis Christofilakis explains to Flix why it is important
to make ‘your own’ film”). Available on http://flix.gr/articles/vasilis-
christofilakis-interview-too-much-info-clouding-over-my-head.html, accessed
on 29 May 2018.
Baker, Rick (2015), Tangerine, USA: Duplass Brothers Productions, Through Films.
Benjamin, W. (1970). The author as producer. New Left Review, 1(62), 1-9.
Bogris, Fokion (2003), I epistrofi ton Katarmaton, Greece: Emerald Video. Bogris,
Fokion (2003), Ta Remalia, Greece: Bogris Video, Emerald Video. Bogris,
Fokion (2009), Catharsis, Greece: Ground Floor Films.
Burton, Tim (1996), Mars Attacks, USA: Tim Burton Productions, Warner Bros. Camus,
A. (1965). The Myth of Sisyphus: Translated from the French by Justin O’Brien.
H. Hamilton.
Christofilakis, Vassilis (2018), Too Much Information Clouding Over My Head, Greece:
Atmoshpere People.
Damianakis, Michalis (2012), Kame Koumando, Greece: Cinearth Motion Pictures.
Fosheim, Ricky (2014), Uneasy Lies The Mind, USA: Detention Films, All
Mod Cons.
Haralambides, Renos (1997), No Budget Story, Greece: Greek Film Center/Sunlight.
Hardman, K. and Eastman, M. (1997). “George A. Romero: Interview with
Karl Harman and Marilyn Easman” on https://www.homepageofthedead.com/
films/night/interviews_1.html, accessed on 26 May, 2018.
Ivan, S. (2011). “THE NEW PARADIGM OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE
KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY”. Journal Plus Education/Educatia Plus, 7(2).
Kagios, P. (2010). “Cinema: 50 chronia tromos a la Ellinika” (Cinema: 50 years of terror,
the Greek Way). Available on https://www.tanea.gr/2010/04/24/lifearts/
culture/sinema-50-xronia-tromos-a-la- ellinika/, accessed on 29 May 2018.
Kolovos, N. (1988). I Koinoniologia tou Kinimatografou (The Sociology of Cinema).
Athens: Aigokeros.
Kolovos, Y. (2015). Koinonika Apovlita? (Social Waste?). Athens: Aprovleptes
Ekdoseis.
Koutras, Panos H. (1999), I Epithesi tou Gigantiaiou Moussaka (The Attack of the Giant
Moussaka), Greece: 100% Synthetic Films.
Lupton, E. (1997). “The designer as producer”. AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, 15, 5-6.
Digital Culture & Audiovisual Challenges: Interdisciplinary Creativity In Arts And Technology
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (2018). “Absurd” on https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/absurd, accessed on 29 May 2018.
Noussias, Giorgos (2005), To Kako (Evil), Greece: Ekso Productions.
Noussias, Giorgos (2009), To Kako Stin Epoxi Ton Iroon (Evil in the Time of Heroes),
Greece: Audio-Visual Enterprises, Boo Productions, Ekso Productions, Graal,
Greek Film Center, Strada Films.
Papageorgiou, M. and Ioannides, G. (2009). “Synentefxi Giorgou Noussia” (“An
Interview with Giorgos Noussias”). Available on http://fantasia- portal.
blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-post_29.html, accessed on 26 May 2018.
Papaioannou, Georgios (2011), Super Dimitrios, Greece: OtiNaNai Productions. Potter,
Sally (2009), Rage, UK: Adventure Pictures, Vox3 Films.
Price, Emily (2012). “9 Apps For Editing Video on Your Smartphone”. Available on
https://mashable.com/2012/07/25/video-editing-apps/#RoDkuwTEzaqw,
accessed on 27 May 2018.
Psalidas, M. (2017). To Crowdfunding stin Ellada (“Crowdfunding in Greece”).
Available on https://medium.com/the-crowdpolicy-collection/crowdfunding-
in- greece-522752ed86ff, accessed on 28 May 2018.
Romero, George A. (1968), Night of the Living Dead, USA: Image Ten, Laurel Group,
Market Square Productions.
Soderbergh, Steven (2018), Unsane, USA: Extension 765, New Regency Pictures,
Regency Enterprises.
Yearworth, Irvin S. Jr. (1958), The Blob, USA: Tonylyn Productions, Valley Forge
Films, Fairview Productions.