My last post, Clearing Rights for a Mad Hot Documentary, was the difficulties that independent documentary makers have in clearing rights for the visual and audio works that appear (even exceedingly briefly) in their films. Earlier this week, the LA Times wrote about the boon that DVDs are for independent filmmakers distributing their wares (The DVD: Democratizing Video Distribution). Small filmmakers can go direct to DVD, bypassing studio gatekeepers and the relatively high costs and limited returns for arthouse distribution. Though the article doesn't mention it, this makes a lot of sense given recent surveys showing that DVD and the home theatre is the preferred means to see films for an increasing number of people. Especially given the inconvenience for vast swaths of America to see a very limited run arthouse release, DVD more than makes sense. But getting back to the question of clearing rights:

In it [the film Tarnation], Jonathan Caouette creates a portrait of a dysfunctional American family through a psychedelic mélange of snapshots, Super 8 home movies, answering-machine messages, and snippets of pop culture. Bringing the audience inside his head, the director's goal, required only $218 — the cost of videotape and photocopies. (That sum, however, rose to $500,000 after the visual quality was upgraded and rights were cleared for "Tarnation's" theatrical release.)