Define Indie Film

aspiring director

aspiring director

Active member
I was looking around on the Internet and got to wondering: What really is an indie film? I looked in wikipedia, and they said--
An independent film, or indie film, is usually a low-budget film that is produced by a small movie studio.
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But I thought being indie meant not using a studio for money and getting it yourself. So like if I made a movie with help from a large studio's "indie" studio, like Lionsgate, would that still be considered independent? what if I still had a small budget? I thought indie meant making the fillm yourself, and then maybe having a big studio distribute it? b/c it's all about you making it and getting the money.

Well, I'm done for now. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts. =)
 
That's a loaded question and you will undoubtedly get varying answers from filmmakers at various levels in their career for obvious reasons. After the rush of Indie success in the 90's via Tarrantino, Rodriguez, Blair Witch guys, etc. the studios being the capatalist swine they are exploited the 'indie' market and began producing these so called 'indie' films left and right, and still do. Not that its wrong, in fact many of these so called indie studio productions are fabulous films, but the word indie is really subjective now and has lost its true essence/meaning.

I still consider a true 'indie' a film made on a low/no budget without studio influence in any way, privately financed without corporate or suits involved, you know?

Its a film that, when your making it and your broke, you know it's 'Indie'.

Again, its a subjective topic.
 
Indie means independent, not dependent on a studio for financing. And yes, I'd classify Star Wars Episode I-III as "independent" films -- George Lucas made them his way, on his own money, nobody could tell him what he could or couldn't do, he was truly independent.

Some people don't accept that definition, they think "indie" means "homemade dirt-cheap videocamera movies". I think that definition is more along the lines of "microcinema", tiny-budget or no-budget films made over the course of some weekends using friends/family as actors, etc. Doesn't imply anything bad about quality, just scope and size and budget.

Then there's the truly awful, which could be called "backyard cinema", a subset of microcinema.

So, in the hierarchy:
backyard cinema is microcinema, which is also independent. But independent (aka "indie") doesn't have to be backyard cinema!
 
so let's say we divide it up into subsets. where would we draw the line between high budget and low budget? 1 million? what about microcinema? it seems like we need more clearly defined parameters.
 
i think there's "truly indie" which is when the filmmaker comes up with the money and has no studio involvement while they're making the movie. (They can help distribute tho. And then theres "studio indie" which is when you go to a major studio and use their so-called indie studio for money. Question: Don't indie studios owned by major studios just distribute mainly indie films? They dont actually give financing do they?
 
aspiring director said:
i think there's "truly indie" which is when the filmmaker comes up with the money and has no studio involvement while they're making the movie. (They can help distribute tho. And then theres "studio indie" which is when you go to a major studio and use their so-called indie studio for money. Question: Don't indie studios owned by major studios just distribute mainly indie films? They dont actually give financing do they?
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they do both.
 
Indie film has turned into a buzzword. Studios have started specialty divisions like Focus Features and Sony Classics that churn out smaller "indie" films.
 
Many of those indie boutiques were not started so much as acquired., Focus used to be Good Machine and has several of the same people at its head. What's funny is Focus actually started a B-picture unit called Rogue, which churns out schlock so that they can stay afloat. Film financing at the studio level is a black art and I'm sure no one person understands how it works, but I supposed Universal sent word down to Focus to start pulling their weight, thus Rogue :)
 
It's all semantics. Would it make any difference if the definition of indie film was crystal clear? It's like the words "digital" and "HD", they're meaningless marketing buzzwords. I saw a spot the other day advertising High Definition laminate counter tops. Now it's gone too far. I can't wait for the HD toliet paper that should arrive on store shelves any day now.

Again who cares about the "true" definition of indie film.
Go out and make movies. And have fun doing it.
 
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