Let’s play that game where we compare quotes from two seemingly unrelated stories that happened to come out on the same day and thus seem to say something about the zeitgeist.

First, from an interview with District 9 producer Peter Jackson (via Scott Kirsner):

Peter Jackson: You know, in the old days it was very difficult to make movies ’cause you had to have 35 millimeter cameras, which were phenomenally expensive. Or you had to have rich parents that could send you to film school. Nowadays, anybody, any kid or young person with a desire to make films … (has) access to this equipment. You have great video cameras and the quality’s fantastic. You can make soundtracks and do visual effects. You can do very competent computer effects quite easily.”

Q: What impact do you see this having on Hollywood?

Jackson: “There are no excuses anymore. If people really want to make movies, they can go out and do it. And I think we’re going see in the next 20 or 30 years a real influx of creativity to the world of entertainment because I believe a lot in the young generation coming along … the pop culture generation who now can grab these cameras and go make films with them.

Then, from a story in the NYT by Michael Cieply, titled Independent Filmmakers Distribute on Their Own:

Here is how it used to work: aspiring filmmakers playing the cool auteur in hopes of attracting the eye of a Hollywood power broker.

Here is the new way: filmmakers doing it themselves — paying for their own distribution, marketing films through social networking sites and Twitter blasts, putting their work up free on the Web to build a reputation, cozying up to concierges at luxury hotels in film festival cities to get them to whisper into the right ears.

Cieply’s key example of successful self-distribution is Anvil!:

“I paid for everything, I took a second mortgage on my house,” said Sacha Gervasi, the film’s director.

Mr. Gervasi, whose studio writing credits include “The Terminal,” directed by Steven Spielberg, nearly three years ago, began filming “Anvil!” with his own money in hopes of attracting a conventional distributor. The movie played well at Sundance in 2008, but offers were low.

So Mr. Gervasi put up more money — his total cost was in “the upper hundred thousands,” he said — to distribute the film…

So! You can make a movie! All by yourself! As long as you’re okay with not ever shooting on film! And then you can release it yourself! Because no one’s going to do it for you! And if they do, they won’t pay for TV advertising, so no one who doesn’t follow you on Facebook will ever hear about it! And so after you’ve put up your own small fortune and invested years of your life making the movie on your own, you can then devote at least another year to Twittering about it! And you can spend even more money flying yourself to film festivals so you can hang out in luxury hotels talking to anyone who will listen to you ramble on about it! And in short, it’s a good thing you made money writing a screenplay for Steven Spielberg, so that you have ample cash and time to devote to this endeavor, because without that, your self-distribution gambit might not have been feasible! It’s so great that we live in this time of opportunities for all humans!!!!!!! Are you inspired yet?!?!