Quality not Quantity A Great Read, but scary

K

Kess

Well-known member
This article ...an interview with Mark Gill on the State of the Film Business will scare the daylights out of you...if and only if you are not willing to put in the work to write great material...not good material but great material.

This is required reading for anyone seriously pursuting the film business.

http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2008/06/irst_person_fil.html

Keep writing!
 
Very interesting. Some good thoughts and info. The article isn't all doom and gloom, and has some good thoughts for how independent filmmakers will fare well in the future, though I have to say I don't agree with the article trying to tell people "not to make darker films because the world is now a dark place." That's just the age-old reaction to try and follow trends--the world has always been dark. People always got cancer. There are always wars. People go broke. And Hollywood didn't experience its phenomenal boom in the 90's because life was "easy." Ask anyone who died of HIV during that decade. Short answer: audiences have always preferred happy movies over dark movies. But as soon as everyone makes happy movies, it's the dark movie that will stand out and become the phenomenon.

Which brings me to the bigger question of audience. Because the audience for media/entertainment has grown and continues to grow exponentially. I for one don't really even think about a "theatrical release" as being some kind of barometer for the health of the industry or my career.

A theatrical release was the "old world" holy grail everyone strived for. Problem is, as I see it, we're currently caught between a tremendous transition (yes, much like the transitions experienced with the advent of DVDs and talkies and television). It will change how audiences consume, but it won't change the appetite. And where there is an appetite to consume, there is money to be made. China, for example, wants movies. That is a lot of untapped consumers. We just haven't figured it all out yet! And in the meantime, a lot of the old guard is gonna hurt, and many will die off in the process. Bye bye, New Line, the 90's will remember you fondly.

The fact that so many "digital movies" by wannabe filmmakers are awful has nothing to do with the financial woes of Hollywood. In fact it's a heralding of future riches. Just because more people can make more bad films, doesn't mean the industry is dying. It actually means there's more chance for interesting, niche films to be discovered. Who cares how many bad films are made. As long as good films are made, and frankly there's a better chance of that if many, many more creative people are able to participate. What we're missing is a way to FIND these films. I already mentioned The Signal in another thread. Okay, I loved it, while many might find it to be an imperfect film. But it's better than The Happening! And it was worth my rental fee. Problem is it's really hard to find it. And that has to change. Google is the future. Communities and blogs and forums that provide easily accessed content by referral will make films like The Signal very profitable, even while today they might struggle. This is where the article talks about Netflix allowing audiences to find what they want. And the article rightly says this is the future. Niche films can thrive this way.

Unfortunately, we have some time to wait before things work themselves out. A decade might be too long for the New Lines to survive this, and there will be a lot of pain. But I see a very, very positive future for filmmakers. I'm just not sure (and no one else is either) when it's gonna pan out.
 
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Great points Sean! And I agree with you that whatever kind of film we make...whether it be dark or not, that if we make a great product it can succeed. I actually found this article to my liking because I am interested in making small films..without the studios...and going for the cable, video-on-demand, Netflix, internet, etc. market. Theatrical release is not high on my list, but of course I would love to see it on a monster screen, but the kind of stories I'm writing are not blockbuster films. I know where I fit in.

The digital process makes it affordable for all of us and allows us to keep shooting until we get it right. My first film I shot on 16mm and they called me One-Take Charlie, because I couldn't afford multiple takes. Now they are afraid we'll be doing Kubric-style 90 takes on every shot.

Keep on cranking out the material.
 
Kess said:
Now they are afraid we'll be doing Kubric-style 90 takes on every shot.
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Well, digital IS cheaper to shoot BUT...you still have to consider cast & crew costs, location costs, equipment rental costs, etc.

The digital medium is only one aspect regarding costs. One the lowest end of the budget, film related costs would probably be disproportionally large. As the budget rises, that proportionality decreases.
 
Yeah....shooting has to be within reason, but we can afford to give it a go.

Now...that great script?
 
I'm not scared.

Basically what they're saying is, all the money is being put into one 300 million dollar films instead of 6 50 million dollar films. or 24 12 million dollar films. The second Hollywood has a bad blockbuster year and a good independent year, they'll switch back to the independent formula. If there's one thing we know about Hollywood, it's that they follow the trends.

The thing about only half a percent of films under 10 million dollars make money is a little misleading. The I've never made a movie before but I got a camcorder and 500 bucks to send it to Sundance youtube crowd accounts for maybe 3500 of those films. And they likely all suck because these people know nothing. That makes those odds much less daunting.

I could go on. But there is always financing to be found for film. There's too many rich people lured by the glamour of Hollywood.
 
Here's how bad the odds are: of the 5000 films submitted to Sundance each year-- generally with budgets under $10 million--maybe 100 of them got a US theatrical release three years ago. And it used to be that 20 of those would make money. Now maybe five do. That's one-tenth of one percent.


Put another way, if you decide to make a movie budgeted under $10 million on your own tomorrow, you have a 99.9% chance of failure.
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I don't understand why he thought that paragraph was depressing. My chances are much, much better than I thought.
 
We all know that if we put in the hard work our chances increase exponentially to rise above the masses sending their backyard films to Sundance, Cannes, etc.

I'm not scared either!
 
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