But what is beyond every filmmakers control is whether the audience will embrace the film with their box-office or retail dollars. Audiences are fickle. Today's fart and frolic flick is tomorrows 3D existentialist walk in the woods (note to self: check distib. rights for 3D re-master of Tarkovsky's "Stalker"). For all the studying of memetic culture and burning pieces of string in sacrifice to the gods of synchronicity, it basically comes down to dumb luck as to why some things click and others don't.

What has changed is that more low-level and wannabe filmmakers have now greater access to the tools of production, and with the internet, a potentially vast audience.

While it is seldom that any HDV camcorder baring auteur (24p or otherwise) will match the production values of a major studio is beside the point. Such issues are for those with retention of the anal passages. The best artists have the skill and imagination to tell their stories with the tools available. If they don't have this prerequisite their projects will fail regardless of how cool their Apple Cinema Display is.

When I was first learning my trade back in the dark ages of 16mm film, a Bolex and a flatbed we thought we were Fellini just for getting a film finished. If you could survive hairs in the gate, camera leaks and remain solvent through the entire lab process you were already ahead of the game. Some even survived cutting their own negative without a nervous breakdown.

Our aims for the films were to get them into credible film festivals or failing that throw a bunfest at the local museum or library. If you were lucky the critics or influential industry people might notice your work and the potential for a professional career would begin.

The aim was to make the best film you could with the resources available. I don't think anyone thought they would actually make money out of these projects. Funding came from grants, from family and friends and the occasional act of larceny.

What has changes now is the distribution. And the internet has made it a double-edged sword. These days anyone can encode and stream their movie online. Granted, some applications do it better than others but with a bit of patience and a few desperate posts on the Apple users forum one gets there in the end.

We can then read a book or take a class on viral marketing and a couple of clicks on MySpace and YouTube and you are an international legend (at least to your mom).

This is all very groovy but you ain't getting rich. And to this I reply, well why should you be? Has anyone asked you to bare your soul to the world? Did the government send you a nasty letter saying owed Inland Revenue an ironic comedy shot in the style of Quentin Tarantino? Methinks not.

What the internet allows is for our work to get shown to a huge audience. If we have done our work well, if we tell good, well-made stories our work will be noticed. And if you get noticed by the right people then momentum will gather and you will have the potential to make your next film with more support and better methods of distribution.

Well, yeah, in the ideal world.

In the meantime I cling to the mantra that "good work always floats to the top eventually." Of course you might be dead... but hey, it's for art, right?

See you at the barricades, comrades.