Pixillion

I love film. And I love it even more now that the evolution of digital cameras, editing software and digital distribution really has opened up the world of film-making to anyone with a great idea and a handheld camera. Pixillion has been the sponsor of the Online Audience Award at this year's Encounters International Film Festival, and that's given me a great excuse to go nosing about online for interesting stories about how the Internet has changed the film industry over the past ten years.

I get really excited about the unpredictable offshoots that grow from new ideas or advances in technology, those things that happen reactively which no-one can visualise beforehand but seem to completely change the world as we know it. Sure, it must have been exciting for independent film-makers when bandwidth capabilities exploded a few years ago and the likes of YouTube, Babelgum and Vimeo popped up, allowing them to access a whole new audience of millions overnight. But the unforeseen, revolutionary effect of this explosion of online film is that the 'rules' of film-making don't have to exist anymore. The 'middle men' who would invest, distribute and promote, are no longer a necessity. Everything can be done through the Internet, as with Australian horror film, The Tunnel, which was has gained over AUD$20,500 of funding via a social media campaign to sell film frames online for AUD$1 each. The film is currently in post-production and has now been acknowledged on IMDB after initially being excluded due to its intended release on download service BitTorrent, a significant step for those who want to distribute their films for free online.

The way IMDB initially tried to ignore The Tunnel because of its association with BitTorrent is similar to the way the music industry first tried to stamp out music downloads. Undoubtedly it goes against the norm to release a film for free on a site that many see as damaging to film sales, but not everyone sees this change as a negative. The 'Low Budget Film Festival' in Cuba already acknowledges - and celebrates - this change in the film industry. Now in its 7th year, the festival is dedicated to showcasing projects that achieve high standards of film making on vastly reduced budgets, and digital film clearly encompasses their values, as the website states:

"As the digital cinema revolution picks up pace, and as the global movie industry tries to figure out how to cope with the worsening economic outlook, no-budget cinema threatens to become the rule rather than the exception."

This 'digital cinema revolution' is taking 'no-budget' film makers straight to the top of the industry because they're now able to simply realise their brilliant ideas themselves. Independent filmmaker Fede Alvarez experienced this when he uploaded his short film "Ataque de Panico!" (Panic Attack!), a five minute sci-fi disaster movie made on a budget of £186, onto YouTube last November. Within days he was contacted by Hollywood studios and offered $30m (£18.6m) to make a feature length version, produced by Sam Raimi. An even more potent example is Alive in Joburg, the 2005 short film directed by Neill Blomkamp which was later adapted into the 2009 feature film, District 9, by Sony Pictures.

Once you start looking into digital film making its pretty hard to look away, there are so many fantastic examples right there in front of you online, and it's constantly evolving. What we find innovative online now will be old news in just a few years when the mobile revolution explodes even further, expanding the global video community. The ability to film and distribute using mobile will develop, opening up possibilities even further to low-budget film makers in Third World countries. And what will drive this progression, as always, will be the online audience, hungry for new content and brilliantly responsive to what they enjoy. Which is why we're so proud to be sponsoring the  Online Audience Award at Encounters this week, recognising the major role that online distribution plays in changing  the way the film business works.