"America’s next Wal-Mart: The indie film industry" -"We need fewer indie films..."

[David G. Smith]

"America’s next Wal-Mart: The indie film industry" -"We need fewer indie films..."

From Salon: "America’s next Wal-Mart: The indie film industry
Cheap labor and subsidies have created an unsustainable bubble. We need fewer indie films, not more"

An interesting article, well linked, that argues that the glut of "Indie" films that we find ourselves experiencing is a bad thing for the culture and the industry. Its discussion of the collapse of labor cost in the film industry is pretty sobering. Like I said the article is well linked but one of the main links is also pretty sobering.

From the New York Times:
"As Indies Explode, an Appeal for Sanity
Flooding Theaters Isn’t Good for Filmmakers or Filmgoers"

I am working my way through the other links in the original article.

What are your thoughts?

 

[TheDingo]

that argues that the glut of "Indie" films that we find ourselves experiencing is a bad thing for the culture and the industry

I feel the same way about mainstream films. Right now there are probably 30 mainstream films in theaters here in Toronto, and I am interested in seeing maybe 2 or 3 of them, while I wait for the next lot of mainstream films to cycle through.

What's important to me is an original story that is well told, and I honestly don't give a flying f*ck if it's an Indie production or a mainstream production.

The Hollywood of today doesn't take risks like they used to in the 70's and 80's, so we get tons of comic-book/graphic-novel sequel crap clogging up the theaters. This is the main reason why I like Indie film, it's not controlled by the bean-counters, so it's willing to go to places that mainstream films are terrified of ever approaching.

Long live the Indie film!

 

[Finn Yarbrough]

Where this kind of argument falls short is in its classification of "indy films" and "indy filmmakers" as if they are discreet categories.

Within the indy group we have a huge range of budget, ability, genre, and bread-winning tactics. This can range from rich film students who are only in it until they sell out to young media darlings like the crew from "Beasts of the Southern Wild," aspiring documentary filmmakers who do corporate or online work for pay to reality TV production powerhouses. Freelance photojournalists. Cinema Artists. Hollywood veterans experimenting with low budgets and "indy" styles.

Complaining that there are too many sub-par indy films that crowd out the rest is a little like complaining that so many restaurants distract from the few good ones. I would argue that, if we really feel threatened by the fact that there are so many indy films that fail to capture a significant audience, perhaps our own films have room for improvement. I say this not pejoratively, but from my own personal inkling.

And, finally, it's all a question of expectations. As an experimental short documentary filmmaker with a crew of 3 people max, I try to cultivate a realistic outlook on my potential fame and riches. My production costs are very, very low, I work far away from any industry hub, and I have no need to unduly exploit young talent. I will never be famous the way that Ken Burns (or even David Sutherland) are, and that's OK. But I stand a chance to develop my own artistic voice and make some films that are very meaningful to the people who see them, films that pay a good rate to their crew of 3 and various contributing contractors. They say "don't quit your day-job," and mine is applying the technical skills I develop in pursuit of art to more practical uses for other companies and individuals. And believe it or not, even at my level, it pays an honest wage.

Then again, I never use the work "indy" to describe myself or my productions, so it obviously has acquired some sort of negative connotation for me!

 

[David G. Smith]

Where this kind of argument falls short is in its classification of "indy films" and "indy filmmakers" as if they are discreet categories.

Within the indy group we have a huge range of budget, ability, genre, and bread-winning tactics. This can range from rich film students who are only in it until they sell out to young media darlings like the crew from "Beasts of the Southern Wild," aspiring documentary filmmakers who do corporate or online work for pay to reality TV production powerhouses. Freelance photojournalists. Cinema Artists. Hollywood veterans experimenting with low budgets and "indy" styles.

Complaining that there are too many sub-par indy films that crowd out the rest is a little like complaining that so many restaurants distract from the few good ones. I would argue that, if we really feel threatened by the fact that there are so many indy films that fail to capture a significant audience, perhaps our own films have room for improvement. I say this not pejoratively, but from my own personal inkling.

And, finally, it's all a question of expectations. As an experimental short documentary filmmaker with a crew of 3 people max, I try to cultivate a realistic outlook on my potential fame and riches. My production costs are very, very low, I work far away from any industry hub, and I have no need to unduly exploit young talent. I will never be famous the way that Ken Burns (or even David Sutherland) are, and that's OK. But I stand a chance to develop my own artistic voice and make some films that are very meaningful to the people who see them, films that pay a good rate to their crew of 3 and various contributing contractors. They say "don't quit your day-job," and mine is applying the technical skills I develop in pursuit of art to more practical uses for other companies and individuals. And believe it or not, even at my level, it pays an honest wage.

Then again, I never use the work "indy" to describe myself or my productions, so it obviously has acquired some sort of negative connotation for me!

Finn, I do not think that my post relates to your approach to filmmaking and you business model at all. The issue is about fictional narrative feature length films. There are a lot of folks here who are embracing the high quality and low cost filmmaking equipment that is available today to try and make very low budget fictional narrative feature films. I count myself in that. As these articles show, that is becoming more and more a pipe dream. You should post more about your approach to filmmaking as that seems to be a much more practical path.

 

[hscully]

I agree with the author of the Salon article. The market for feature films, the number of eyes that can see them is saturated. I have a feature script that I have been sitting on. It is slated for a very low budget production in the $60K range, 15 days of shooting. I stopped it. I don't think I can get enough people to see it to make it worthwhile. That to me is the key: eyes.

I acted in an indy that was shot in the hundreds of thousand dollars range and those guys marketed the living crap out of that thing. I was impressed. I think they made back their investment and are on to the next thing but they worked hard to get an audience. Really hard, and the movie is really good.

The author is right. The systems in place that encourage film making (getting it done) make no effort at improving the market for consumption of these films. Film festivals make it a lottery. Only a couple of percent of them get picked up for any distribution. Most festivals aren't even well attended themselves.

I think the artists and producers themselves need to develop new online and streaming models that match the current technology and forget about theatrical release. $125k for everyone on VOD ain't gonna do it either! Every film student wants their film in a theater, we all do. There are not enough of them. We need to do something else.

I am inspired by musicians who develop their own audiences. Sony or some label isn't going to pick them up but they are out there playing and people are listening and they are selling their merch and CDs and getting by.

We need to take ownership of the distribution of our work, who sees it, and how we sustain. We need new models. We need to figure out what musicians and theater groups of all sizes know. Don't wait for the lottery, or even participate. Do your best with the budget you can raise and get eyes on your stuff and whatever revenue you can generate. I'm shooting shorts and web series because that's what we can afford. I like the web series because people see them!

Nobody is seeing those shorts because except for the 10s of sets of eyes they get at a festival we abandon them. We have not developed any market at all for these shorts. We only think of them as "calling cards," just another lottery ticket. It's a waste and we don't bother to figure out a way of making our own shorts accessible to an audience! We quit on them.

I'm inspired by small production companies that develop all sorts of content and get it out on the smaller cable networks as TV movies, docu dramas, series, all that stuff. There are other things besides features like long form TV shows! That's where the narrative work is.

I love that NY times article that said that Cassavettes "four walled" his movies until they caught on. That's what we need to do. Set up a damn screen and charge admission. That's the test that counts - that you produce something entertaining and or beautiful that people will see - however they can.

I think that the answer is from the ground up. There are not enough movie theaters and movie goers for all of us. We have to do something else to connect to our audience.

 

[MichaelP]

I am inspired by musicians who develop their own audiences. Sony or some label isn't going to pick them up but they are out there playing and people are listening and they are selling their merch and CDs and getting by.

Many musicians are in the same platform distribution challenges as filmmakers, but a fundamental difference with musicians is that they have a live aspect to their art - every gig can be different on how the music is performed and interpreted by the audience. That direct face to face engagement is a huge help in creating an audience and a following. Not to mention that I will listen to a song many more times than I will watch a movie as it can be experienced while doing other things. Kevin Smith did a tour with his film "Red State" a few years back but that worked because he's Kevin Smith that already has a following. Creating that following takes many many years. Louis C.K. can now do it by releasing his own material on his own website, but his popularity (now) is so high and it works great. Kevin Smith's tour was also sponsored by different companies, so the "marketing" costs were already covered as part of a multi-city tour. And that's what it comes down to in a world of content overload - why would I pay and watch your film versus someone else's. There's only so many hours in a day. Mobile has added viewing time during commutes and such, but there is a finite limit compared to the amount of content being created. Marketing, marketing, marketing....

Michael

 

[hscully]

Good points there. That's why the small theater company can survive. It's live, it's regional, and there's a following so you can readily market directly to them. They aren't Broadway but serve a community just like the musicians, who have smaller venues. It's not Madison Square Garden or nothing.

I think you ask the right question: why would I watch your film v someone else's. If your product is a feature film for theatrical distribution then the market is saturated. No doubt. I would rather see Llewyn Davis or Blue Jassmine than a small indy film of uncertain quality, along with everyone else. So what to do if you're interested in expressing yourself through "cinema" and are part of the overload? My indy won't do well in the same pool as Clooney's "indy" or Damon's "indy" or even Levitt's or Louis C.Ks.

Can you develop a following? Develop a market? What are the smaller, regional (virtual on the internet) market pools for narrative content overflow?

What about web series? They can get a lot of eyes. They're not great for lots of reasons (pay model stinks, too short) but marketing them to your "following" is readily done, indeed being done. You can get eyes on them. Bigger budget successful ones have subscriptions often based on a demographic that is willing to pay and so they are sustainable even though the culture for paying for them is apparently anathema. Why?

Netflix and Amazon can't help. They pay a pittance for the privilege of carrying your indy film. They are to the small movie what Spotify is to music. You can market but you won't make any money. Likewise YouTube for the web series. That's the genius of Louis C.K's model and the small off broadway theater company. Direct marketing!

Ok, so say programming a Roku rendezvous authentication isn't in your wheel house or you just don't want to direct market, you want to just make movies. What about lesser Cable Networks? TV Movies! Someone is producing them for Oxygen, Lifetime, etc, and someone is watching them.

The analogy to musicians may hold if you're a producer and your goal is NOT to win the Sundance lottery, and get a theatrical release and get distribution but rather develop a following and market directly to them. I just don't think we've plumbed the possibilities here at all. Everyone wants to win the "distribution" lottery instead and from what I read in that article the infrastructure encourages a "make it at any cost" attitude regardless of what the heck you're ever going to do with the darn thing.

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

Ah, this article is as American as it gets - it talks nothing but numbers as if we were all accountants. The author claims to be socio-political commentator and yet he appears to be a bean counter rather than provide any relevant commentary.

What does it mean if we are surrounded with content? How does one pick that content and how does content needs to change to fulfill the desires of the changing audience? Define the audience, but be very specific - do you want the "numbers" or "quality numbers"? If you are looking for shear popularity then your content needs to be of certain caliber. If you care about engaging quality minds - then your content needs to operate on yet another caliber. The shear number of permutations is so wast that there is only one given: you can't compute it all. If you try then you will be making one of the 10,000 films that don't see a light of day specifically because they are made by bean counters and bean counting in the realms of infinite number of permutations only goes so far.

Yeah, yeah - i'll hear that the model is unsustainable but it's only coming from the bean counters. The past 10 years i was filming professionally and my rates keep on growing and growing. Because of the growing rates i can leisurely spend half of my income on films i care to make. Read it again, films "I" care to make and not some stuff that was bean counted to work on audiences. The stuff "I" care to make hopefully aligns with what "I" care to consume and if "I" care to consume it then there will be others.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Many musicians are in the same platform distribution challenges as filmmakers, but a fundamental difference with musicians is that they have a live aspect to their art - every gig can be different on how the music is performed and interpreted by the audience. That direct face to face engagement is a huge help in creating an audience and a following.

One of the more significant differences between 'music' and 'film', is also, there are many more venues for 'music' than currently for film. A 'bar' will host a band, perhaps once a week, perhaps nighly, perhaps take a 'chance' on a new band, perhaps not...

There is no equivalent to this now in 'theaters'. (As an aside... since many bands play at bars, 21+, there is absolutely no equivalent to the MPAA rating madness...). Time was there were 'seedy', but not playing porn (at least all the time...) theaters which took up a large portion of the 'way way out of downtown Hollywood' fare...

While there are internet venues... Youtube or Vimeo... there is not the same feeling of going to a theater, watching a film, as there once was in the olden days. When "Rocky Horror Picture Show"(1975) first came out, it did not play in mainstream theaters, but in 'midnight movies', where most of the audience, was 'stoned' on one sort of substance or another. It caught on, but it was just one among many others, like John Water's "Pink Flamingos"(1972).

Direct to DVD/BD or streamed from some obscure server site... just does not give the same effect on getting a 'following'...

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

This is the main reason why I like Indie film, it's not controlled by the bean-counters, so it's willing to go to places that mainstream films are terrified of ever approaching.

Long live the Indie film!

I live not more than 100 miles from 'downtown Hollywood', yet the theaters in my area do not show 'indie' films, other than 'indie' that are so connected to Hollywood, that other than the studio 'fronting' the production money, it is a 'Hollywood production'.

Most of the theaters in my area, that is with in 20 miles, would not show a non MPAA rated film (for example Regal indicated they would have shown the 'unrated' "Bully"(2011) as equivalent to R restrictions), and I don't know if they would rent out a theater to a non rated film even for 'private screenings' that did not have the weight of the Weinstein company behind it...

In reading about the MPAA vs "Wolf of Wall Street", there was some discussion about NC-17 vs R, and eventually with some 'small cuts', the R was given.

I've run across several blogs that indicate this was probably due to the workings of a 'consigaliere' to use a term frequently found in discussions of the Mafia... that the production could afford... other films don't have that kind of budget...

The lowest fee on the MPAA rating seems to be for productions under $500K, and that is $3K for the initial rating, and $2.5K for any 're-rating', that is after any cuts that are required to move the rating 'down' from a higher level...