I am fascinated by the democratization of the media. There's the whole phenomenon of blogs, which enables individuals to self-publish, to have their views out there in the public sphere, to sometimes report on something little known or not covered in mainstream media. Democratization is the term used by Jon Doran, a producer of the Beastie Boys film "Awesome! I Fuckin' Shot That!" He said about the movie, "It's the democratization of filmmaking."

According to this article in the Times, the movie was shot by 50 fans who were given hand held cameras at a Beastie Boys concert in October of 2004 and told to just let their creative juices flow. The result is "Awesome" (perhaps, literally!), which took over a year to edit -- given the number of angles and sheer hours of footage. The film was to be screened on the 21st of January at the Sundance Film Festival and will be released in late March.

But it seems the democratization of filmmaking is not as new as one might have thought. According to this blogger, Bon Jovi did a similar thing in the '80s when making the video for "Bad Medicine."

Either way, though, it's interesting to see (as the Times piece also points out) how in control today's consumers are thanks to technology breaking down old barriers. Everything can be tailored to specific tastes -- even, it would seem, the movie footage one watches!