While the music scene in Denver has, in many respects, given way to the big conglomerated world of the music industry, other areas of independent creative expression have opened up. Denver is currently seeing a renaissance of independent film and video production. Fueled by support from an underground art-house crowd, there are several public venues that regularly make independent local film and video available to the public.
And now this scene has a broadcast outlet. To more fully publicize local art, Heather Dalton, Sherry Hern, and Alison Hill have created Dropframe, an hourlong monthly showcase of independent video productions for KBDI, Denver's channel 12. Featuring newsgathering, film, and music videos, Executive Producer Heather Dalton is looking to pick up the cutting edge programming with Dropframe where she left off with Teletunes in the late '90s.
"We really want to encapsulate that video is an art-form," Dalton says. "[At many local showings] documentarians have been left out, producers of independent music videos, people who are doing film for art pieces have no platform in a broadcast arena to showcase their work, and we think that's just as valid as film."
This pilot episode - scheduled to premiere at 9 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21 - features a blend of satirical film commentary, music videos, a human rights documentary, and narrative shorts. The blend is a deliberate direction to air information from many different sources.
"There is a definite political aspect behind the show as well," says Dalton. "We want to highlight humanitarian aims, and we're really focused on a lot of documentary stuff that we want to be of quality.
"It's kind of in the spirit of Teletunes. We're trying to reclaim the underground through that, and we're hoping to have kind of the same atmosphere. And (Teletunes) was volunteer for over 20 years."
After seeing defeat of the long-running independent music show, Dalton worked in a variety of artistic formats before turning to digital video.
"It's kind of weird; a lot of former musicians ... are turning to video creative outlets. It's kind of strange, I'm running into a lot of musicians who are making that career switch.
The lure of at-home video production has become more attractive as editing software becomes more available and easier to use, Dalton says.
"What made this show possible is the fact that there is broadcast quality consumer models out there that are cheaper. It used to take so much to produce something, and now anybody can be a filmmaker with enough capital and enough contacts.
"It is pretty much like if a revolution and I think the thing we like about it and a lot of the inspiration for us came out of indymedia.org that showed electronic newsgathering and put visuals in the power of the people. I think that politically, in the climate that we're in, we need something that can be expressed, and with the FCC debacle, we don't know how far we're going to push the envelope with this show, but we really would like to."
Being an independent production, the budget Dropframe operates on is below shoestring. Cerebral K-neeval is producing the show for tape cost, and the three women are donating their time to the project out of love for the medium. While they may not be looking to get rich, Dalton admits that funding would be nice.
"As far as sponsorship and funding is concerned, when you accept money from someone you run the risk of offending their marketing accessibility.
"We're challenging mainstream media to accept the creative underground. And when you get into the murky waters of pay for play, you kind of compromise your vision. If we were soliciting funds we would definitely be very cognizant of where that money was coming from."
Dropframe is accepting submissions through July. Got a project? Send a Mini DV or Data-file DVD to Dropframe, 4651 AlcottSt., Denver, CO 80211.
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