Content Sharing Sites as a Creative Tool for Filmmakers

When it comes to creating film and the desire to share your creation with the rest of the world, there are many ways to do that this day and age. Youtube.com is a fantastic site to upload and share your creations with other people publicly or privately. However, it has some flaws which keep it from being the best option all of the time.

Google owns youtube but can be pretty strict when it comes to enforcing rules regarding usage of copyrighted material. That's fine, but just like with the remixes and the read and write culture as discussed by Lawrence Lessig in his TedTalk "Laws the Choke Creativity" there comes a price with this enforcement. It restricts creativity and demotivates people to try and create something new that borrows from other people. Many great artists have borrowed from other people historically speaking, especially with music and film. I understand that we need the laws to be enforced in order to keep people from making money off of other people's work, but from my perspective it seems like most people who use well known works are just young people trying to be creative and aren't looking to make money.

There are other alternatives to Youtube out there where you can watch videos. Vimeo is another good site that offers someone the ability to upload their videos to the site and share it with others across the globe.

I think that one of the most useful tools in regards to using content sharing sites is that you can upload user reviews, fan films, and even music videos. People who enjoy a particular type of music, review personality, and cinematic universe can find channels that upload content for other fans to watch. I have found plenty of users who upload work to youtube. Another option is that it makes it easy to commercialize a particular skill you have. If you are great at cooking, doing makeup tutorials, playing an instrument, then sites like Youtube allow you to take advantage of that skill if you get enough subscribers and viewers.

It's a great resource for aspiring filmmakers as well, you can see works done by other filmmakers and even watch older films that have been uploaded to Youtube. Youtube is one of my favorite tools and I will most likely always use it as a resource when it comes to learning how to do something.