Cinematographer Allen Daviau and writer-director Elyse Couvillion on the MiniDV set of Sweet.

As part of the digital revolution, many of the world's latest hit movies are now either created or edited digitally using disc drives. Seagate drives are in regular use in Avid editing systems, considered the industry de facto standard for all the biggest Hollywood productions.

For independent filmmakers, the high cost of producing a film can be overwhelming. This is one of the reasons that Filmmakers Alliance was created. Filmmakers Alliance is a collective of filmmakers -- film and video artists, technicians and craftspeople --dedicated to empowering, educating and support fellow filmmakers and aspirants who share a common desire to express themselves creatively through the artistry, language and grammar of the moving picture and who might otherwise experience exclusion from this culturally important medium of expression.

"Sweet" writer-director Elyse Couvillion.

Founded by Jacques and Diane Gaidry-Thelemaque, Filmmakers Alliance is a non-profit organization based in Southern California that has helped support the passions of independent filmmakers. Seagate supports Filmmakers Alliance by donating new highperformance disc drives that are used during the crucial editing process.

Elyse Couvillion has been part of Filmmakers Alliance since 1999 and also created the group's Digital Production Center that year. She has produced a number of award-winning film shorts, including "Sweet," which earned Couvillion an award at last year's Sundance Film Festival .

"The new tools available to us within the FA studio have enabled all of the members to produce and edit their films in much less time than it had taken with conventional media," Couvillion noted. "Seagate kindly donated several Cheetah drives for our use and they've performed flawlessly."

Couilan also added that working digitally with Seagate disc drives not only helps save time but saves money as well. "Even though the lab is open for use by all Filmmakers Alliance members so cost is not so much of an issue, the material and labor costs for traditional film editing would undoubtedly have to be absorbed by each filmmaker. Using Seagate drives and running the latest editing applications on computer really makes this a much easier process and so many of the filmmakers here feel comfortable doing the editing themselves. In this way, these new digital tools really help empower us and also allow us to more accurately share our visions through the filmmaking art medium."