filmmaker's statement

With the advancement of digital technology we now have access to great and inexpensive tools that produce immediate results with fairly good quality. A filmmaker can think of an idea, go out and shoot it, edit it and put it on the web the next morning. The COLLECTION project rises out of the exciting of digital cinema and from the desire to collaborate with actors on an ongoing basis. It's like having a community theater group and doing small plays. The actors are friends with whom I've worked with, and for this project, we get together to shoot short stories on a regular basis. It functions as a lab where everyone can bring up ideas to explore in these films.

It's nice to take the time and work with actors on character development and the specific beats of a scene. Actors generally love this process because it allows them to create a develop their craft. The same for the filmmaker. It's as if an artist is doing sketches for a painting or a musician doing notation for later use. This is how I see this film. Since the web made it easy to access video, I decided to make this process "open for viewing" and i´ve designed the whole project around the internet. The films can be accessed here at arcofilms.com and will be shown on film later on. Anyone interested in our work may download these films anytime, anywhere. Break the system, connect...peace. Bruno de Almeida New York, August 2001