Guest Blog: Winds of Change

Today the Rouge Wave presents a guest blog by my dear friend and colleague, Andrew Zinnes, co-author of The Documentary Film Maker's Handbook and teacher of the Documentary Film maker's Course in September here in Los Angeles. Recently, Andrew had a curious experience:

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It is no secret that the film industry is in a huge state of change insofar as how movies are made. From shooting on HD instead of film to marketing executives figuring heavily in greenlight decisions instead of the sole studio magnate thumbs up or down, the industry is in a state of flux that hasn't been seen since Warner Brothers added sound to movies. But today, I saw what is perhaps the greatest single sign that the old is out and the new is in.

Recently, my manager sent over a script for my directing partner to review and it was bound with STAPLES. You read that right. No brass fasteners.

OMG!!! When I was an assistant I couldn't imagine how those little metal devices would take over my life. Brads (the d-word term for the fasteners) had to be thick enough so they wouldn't pop out when turning pages. They also had to be long enough, which was a challenge when compiling a 400 page manuscript. Some people liked two, some people liked three in their scripts. On Friday nights when copying the weekend read, I found myself on more than one occasion searching under desks and behind cabinets for that one more brad that would lock my work in place and then I could go home. And how many times did I cut my fingers on their sharp edges?

But now all of that could be a thing of the past. Assistants may just have to go CACHUNG, CACHUNG with one of those thick document staplers (or just let the copy machine do it) and finito! Could this be one more way that we are losing literal touch with filmmaking much like digital editing is all done on hard drives instead of actually cutting celluloid? Or is this just business finding a simpler, faster, more inexpensive way to do things? Probably a little of both, which I say as I dump out the old Tupperware dish on my desk that contains all the brads I've collected over the years. Had to, they were expensive!

The Wave-inatrx adds: Keep on using brads, Rouge Wavers. The use of giant staples may have been an anamoly; play it safe and go old school. For now.

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