The point is, there ARE options enabling one to do it alone. It does require thinking outside to box utilizing tools only recently available to us.
Or have someone with whom to work and skip all that hoop jumping. Why go out of your way to make things more difficult just to say "I did it all myself?" Filmmaking, best case scenario, ALWAYS requires out of the box thinking, regardless if you are a crew of one or hundreds.
I've worked alone and I've worked collaboratively. Almost universally the work generated collaboratively is better. Of course that won't always be true (nor will everyone feel that way), but my name's not Wells, or Hitchcock, or Kubrick. As such I don't consider myself a singular talent worthy or capable of successfully authoring and controlling every single aspect of every single frame like those three could. I recognize my strengths and limitations and have chosen to play to my strengths.
Documentary? Absolutely. Wedding work? Certainly. Journalism? Naturally. All of that can totally be done solo. In some cases, should be.
Narrative film? No thanks. Give me a sound dept, an art dept, someone to handle scripty, a director, and a solid couple of folks to act as Prod/1AD/PAs at a bare minimum. Even if all of those functions are handled by 1 person per, or some doubling up on the production department. I'd rather have a crew, even a small one. I'll happy help out with art, logistics, food, whatever on crews where we're all wearing a ton of hats - but my primary purpose is camera/lighting.
But then again, perhaps I am biased because I *am* crew.
It's an alternate opinion. I encourage anyone to find their own method, but the acts of writing and directing are crafts unto themselves. Spending time playing catch-up on cameras seems counter productive if someone wants to make a career out of directing. People spend lifetimes perfecting their camera operating or lighting techniques. That transcends changes in technology, and no matter how good the technology gets it will never replace skill, talent, and most importantly experience. Working solo can be a great way to gain experience, but eventually if you want a career out of making narrative feature-length films, you'll either have to find a focus or be one of the lucky few who strikes the goldmine. The very lucky, very very very few. Of course once someone *is* lucky enough to hit that lotto number, they're going to suddenly be "saddled" with all these dirty crew types, and producers who are giving them money and demanding to have control of the finished product befitting of their financial investment.
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Also, there were always tools available for people to work solo. Just because super-8 didn't have the image of 35 doesn't mean people didn't do indie work with it. Hell, there's an artist who did almost all of her films with one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PXL-2000
I talked myself out of buying one a couple weeks ago at a local flea market. It's nonsense that "the tools are only now available." There were always tools, there are better tools now, but there were always tools.
Double Edit:
Or you can just grab 2 friends throw one on the boom and one to "press record" on the camera. Quite simplistic
I do this when I'm acting in my own film!
Huh, that right there sounds like a boom operator and a camera operator to me.
