Francis Ford Coppolla told me never to drop names.

He also said, "For me the great hope is that now that 8mm video recorders are coming out, that people who normally wouldn't make movies are going to be making them. And that one day a little fat girl in Ohio is going be the new Mozart and make a beautiful film with her father's camcorder. For once the so-called professionalism about movies will be destroyed and it will really become an art form." He didn't actually tell this to me, personally, but he said it nonetheless, probably in an interview or over wine.

Problem is, since video is dirt cheap (or, notably less expensive than film), it's easy to shoot a whole lot of it with little regard for quality. Rather than striving to make a jewel of a short movie, the amateur videographer takes the easy road and settles on a three-hour epic with very low production values (that will never be edited).