DV-it-yourself New tech unleashes indie filmmakers BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Digital video (DV) is to independent films these days what the automobile was to travel back in the Iron Horse Age. Some entry-level filmmakers would say it’s more like the lamp was to Aladdin. While shooting 35mm film costs $15 to $20 per minute, DV just costs space on a hard drive.

That was certainly evident at the Newport International Film Festival this month. Going DV was so uneventful — and so accomplished, in terms of on-screen quality — that you had to ask or look for a Kodak logo in the credits to be sure what you were watching was or wasn’t a film film.

Newbie writer/director Alexandra "Alix" Flood exemplifies the revolution that in recent years has brought to festivals feature films that earlier would not have seen the light of imagination. These days, you don’t need seven-figure budgets to get your screenplay flickering in a movie hall. Even a young Newport mom with two young kids, as Flood is, can join the megaphone and jodhpurs set.

For $30,500, Flood made A Totally Minor Motion Picture, a 76-minute mockumentary about — how apt — a documentary being filmed about a no-budget indie feature. The paltry sum was even enough to pay the crew and actors, all but one of whom were or had been professionals.

Years ago "the idea of becoming a filmmaker was completely unimaginable," Flood says. "It’s only because of DV that I dared to dream of making a film here. I recall thinking: ‘Oh my God! The costs!’ — how would I ever get that money? How would it ever happen? Digital video made it possible."

She is sitting across from the two Washington Square movie houses where the NIFF films are running, sipping a Chardonnay, and picking at her salad.

"I read an article by Robert Rodriguez, who is one of the seminal digital filmmakers from the early ’90s, when he made El Mariachi for $7000," she recalls. "He said film is dead, although a lot of people disagreed with him." The Austin filmmaker has since done the Spy Kids movies, with a $38-million budget for the first one and much more thrown at him for the sequels.

Flood’s movie is an amiable little satire. Nothing polished, but something a first-time filmmaker can feel good about. As a matter of fact, in writing the screenplay she was clever enough to anticipate and finesse problems that might come up during its shooting. Supposedly we are seeing a documentary about the making of a pretentious angst-ridden first feature by an H&R Block accountant turned director (Chet Harding). If the camera jerked or the mike boom shadow dropped into a frame, that could be chalked up to verisimilitude.

A Totally Minor Motion Picture was drafted in five days and shot in eight in a rented house on Catherine Street in Newport. Local actors include Mathew Bottone, as a self-impressed Hollywood actor who hits on anything with breasts; Lindy Nettleton as the homeowner, who would love a part and grows ever more orange from a chemical tan; Kraig Jordan as the voice of the cameraman/director; and John Henry Wichelns. The pixelated butt of an uncensored Richard Hatch appears for a cameo.

"Drama is expensive," Flood says. "For drama to be moving and for the audience to be engaged, you need to create a reality that looks beautiful, that has realism — and I don’t think you can do that for $40,000. But comedy — which I also love — you can. My whole credo was, you know, if people are laughing, they’re a lot more forgiving if the boom is in the shot."

Flood’s official moviemaker credentials extend no farther than having taken a three-day workshop at the Rhode Island International Film Festival the summer of 2002. No film school, not even college. Instead, she went for life experience as a go-getter. Born in Philadelphia in 1968, she moved to Newport at 14. Right after high school she marched into Manhattan with a professional modeling contract. She spent four years with Elite Model Management, based in NY and Europe, and appeared in publications from Seventeen to Rolling Stone. Then a year at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC taught her that acting "wasn’t for me." She worked two years for a film and video production service company, then in production at Nickelodeon while freelance writing. Flood married Newport stone carver Nick Benson in 1995. Two years later she became a staff writer for MTV and began writing screenplays — four of them finished so far.

What’s her advice to anyone else with a passion for films and three grand for a used Canon X-1, the classy three-chip DV camera she used?

"If anybody wants to do this, I would say the best thing is to study screenwriting and watch a lot of movies and read lots of books about screenwriting. I would recommend reading screenplays."

And learn to take rejection. She passes along advice given to another writer: "Don’t quit before the miracle."

Flood is working on two screenplays at the moment, one set in France, the other in Newport. She cites Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil, which used the Spanish moss setting of Savannah and its quirky denizens as a backdrop.

"I think Newport could give Savannah a run for its money," she observes. "There are so many colorful people here. I love it."