profit potential of an indie feature?

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

Veteran
Okay I know this is much like asking what are the odds of selling a spec screenplay (damn good if the script is damn good, which 99%+ are not). But I am looking for some sort of opinion or stats on the potential for making money on an indie feature, assuming it were made with the following criteria:
-- genre = horror/supernatural (which everything I hear says this is the genre with the best odds of success).
-- a good to great story and screenplay, as judged by unbiased coverage from several coverage sources and readers (Scott the Reader, scriptshark, etc)
-- budget $100,000
-- high quality cinemetography, good acting (SAG actors with experience), good music soundtrack and sound editing in general; a product comparable to something like boogeyman 3, or the recent flick Asylum, something like that.
-- includes a UPM, DP, Director, AD, all with experience on multiple shorts or at least one indie.

Any guesstimates or opinions on whether one could hope to get back the film production cost, and even make some profit on it?
 
Are you a member of www.filmspecific.com? Stacey Parks lists all revenue ranges for budgets. Of course there is the 1 shot in a million of Paranormal Activity... You certainly are doing all the right things to reduce your risk and increase your chances of a sale/profit. The horror genre is getting a bit overloaded with a lot of people following your same thinking. So it will need to be different and rise above the others to get the attention.

Michael
 
Thanks for the link resource, I am going to check that out today.
EDIT: Hmm. Looks like I would have to pony up $160-$250 to join the site and access the info. Any chance someone who is a member there could share some info, some data from the site?

What about non-horror genres? I am thinking of a script yet to be written that would be indie in the sense of mostly one location, but action-drama with huge moral dilemma, blood and guns, a bit in the vein of Resevoir Dogs but with greater moral dilemma-- how do such indies fare?
 
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Dunno, but it seems to me nowadays that everybody and his cat are making horror movies. The "conventional wisdom" here, salability-wise, as perpetrated endlessly by every internet discussion group (like this one) seems to be flooding the micro-indie market with truckloads of horror flicks. Boatloads. Armada-loads. I don't see how that can make it anything but harder.

Festival directors must be going out of their minds...
 
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LOL. Likely some wisdom to that. And actually might be good news for me if I go forth on my indie action-drama idea. I struggle with the decision to make an indie over just spec writing. The problem with spec writing is even if a sale is made the likelihood of seeing that realized on film is slim. Artistic vision and passion aside (obviously important), I would like to at least break even on an indie if I shell out $100k, maybe even profit some for all the time and effort.

Ted Spencer said:
.. Armada-loads...
Click to expand...
 
You should at least sign up for the free newsletters on that site - even those have tons of useful information. I have been a member for 3 years and have found the information to stay updated and relevant to the indie filmmaker need. Stacey Parks was instrumental in focusing my efforts to key sales agents for my horror picture and it did get picked up and has now sold into four countries so far.

Film Specific is also on facebook with good updates and links. Stacey had a few newsletters from AFM and there was some information there about action/drama being the new horror as far as getting interest from sales. But in all cases, is knowing how to differentiate based on story, production value and all that good stuff to break out of the crowd.

One of the things we decided to do with our horror was to make it PG-13 to not be in the same bucket as all the slasher blood fests and rewrote the script to focus more on the psychological side of things. And lucky for us, it paid off.

Michael
 
i'm a member over there, i think stacey recently said romantic comedies and thrillers are doing better than horror right now.
 
Something to keep in mind is that the advance you get (if any) when you "sell" it is probably all you will ever see.

Something else it how you're going to answer the question, "Who's in it?" which is the first question you'll be asked.
 
I'd have to see the film before I could answer if you'll get your money back. TO many what if's, I know lots of films with decent names that can't get deals right now, or atleast deals that would pay for production costs.
 
Hmm

Hmm

What do you guys think about doing an ultra ultra low budget horror film for like $25,000 with no-name actors and good equipment? I mean it's low risk anyway, $25K is not much to me, if I lost it I would shrug it off basically as annoying but no biggie. Let's say you have the equipment like lighting equipment, camera package, editing you're going to do yourself and maybe hire a finishing editor to do this or that, and you got the location for free, small crew for cheap... what would you guys say?

My dad's house is 20,000 sq. feet, he just added this amazing pond, the fog rolls in during the winter and it's flat-out creepy. It's old style architecture and every time I think about this house I can't help but think it'd be great for some horror film. But reality is I can't find a really great story idea (and I have two scrips I wrote that i love, but my outline for this film was... eh... ok). Everything I think of is mildly cliche, and so what I'd rather do is make some really fun zombie film or haunted house movie, and not try to be overly original just stylish with good acting and good direction. The script is not going to be amazing, I doubt, but it should be functional and fun.

The point is how much risk am I assuming with a $25,000 horror film that I do more or less for fun? Obviously I'm talking about shooting this thing with something like the S35 (5K) Scarlet a few years down the road, maybe 15 months at least from now, and I know what I'm doing so I doubt it would be a bad film but it also wouldn't be overly complicated. What are my odds of making $15K or so of that money back? I would think it'd be pretty solid since the budget would just be so low that even selling it at half of what I spent would be basically like "Eh oh well that was fun."
 
I'm doing a low budget Horror film. I've watched 1000s of them over the years, and have kinda built up a huge database of things to avoid. Usually with these films, the acting is terrible, the music is terrible, and the story is just plain bad.

I know thats with any film, but with low budget horror it seems to be the worst. I mean I enjoy watching those terrible movies sometimes. But, I will be the first to tell you that netflix is as far as I will go when it comes to owning them, and I'm actually a fan. Your average Joe will pass right over it looking for the BIG Hollywood movies that are often times even worse (the production values are there.. but everything else isn't).

My approach with my film has been to involve my community. So far it has worked wonders. I haven't even shot the first scene of footage yet and its already more popular here than alot of the movies currently playing at the theater here. This wouldn't work for you guys in places where low budget movies are common, but here.. its a rarity. There is a church near here who has been making a load of successful christian based films. They started off with a really really low budget movie, with nothing but unexperienced actors and donations from people in the church. The story however, was something people in this area and abroad could relate to and actually wanted to watch. It did so well, they won many awards and profitted enough off the first film to do a second film with MUCH higher production value and the acting quality got a bit better (FACING THE GIANTS). Now they are in production on their 4th, and have had the last two films picked up by major film studios and released nationally. The reason they have done so well I feel is because of involving the community, and the genre they are in.

I've decided to take a different approach to horror, by trying to broaden "who" can watch it. I don't want to sell my film on just violence and nudity/language like alot of horror filmmakers try to do. I tried to base my story off of something that people could actually come to our town and see for real. Something to put my city on the map. I have a TV spot tomorrow on the local news to talk about it. Its been on the front page of the Sunday paper TWICE, and we've already secured showings at the local theater and it hasn't even been shot yet.

If this film does well. I want to do a martial arts film since its somewhat of a dying genre these days. The good thing about horror where I am, is that everyone likes it and appreciates it.. and that on top of the community being involved works wonders. The story I wrote for the film is not as typical as most horror movies, because it feels like a thriller at times, a campy teen scream at times, and a george romero zombie movie at times.
 
JonathanLB said:
What do you guys think about doing an ultra ultra low budget horror film for like $25,000 with no-name actors and good equipment? I mean it's low risk anyway, $25K is not much to me, if I lost it I would shrug it off basically as annoying but no biggie. Let's say you have the equipment like lighting equipment, camera package, editing you're going to do yourself and maybe hire a finishing editor to do this or that, and you got the location for free, small crew for cheap... what would you guys say?

My dad's house is 20,000 sq. feet, he just added this amazing pond, the fog rolls in during the winter and it's flat-out creepy. It's old style architecture and every time I think about this house I can't help but think it'd be great for some horror film. But reality is I can't find a really great story idea (and I have two scrips I wrote that i love, but my outline for this film was... eh... ok). Everything I think of is mildly cliche, and so what I'd rather do is make some really fun zombie film or haunted house movie, and not try to be overly original just stylish with good acting and good direction. The script is not going to be amazing, I doubt, but it should be functional and fun.

The point is how much risk am I assuming with a $25,000 horror film that I do more or less for fun? Obviously I'm talking about shooting this thing with something like the S35 (5K) Scarlet a few years down the road, maybe 15 months at least from now, and I know what I'm doing so I doubt it would be a bad film but it also wouldn't be overly complicated. What are my odds of making $15K or so of that money back? I would think it'd be pretty solid since the budget would just be so low that even selling it at half of what I spent would be basically like "Eh oh well that was fun."
Click to expand...

I'd do it if you shoot it on a Scarlet, I'll bet it's a big time saver over the Red.

What state does your dad live in?
 
So back to the OP. Can this hypothetical film make at least $100k in the pocket? Or are these indie horror flicks getting less? More?

I don't know why, but I was under the impression that these kinds of movies (direct to dvd/ netflix/ no name talent) sell for about $25-50k.

No offense, but isn't that something you should find out BEFORE committing that kind of money? Maybe you are, but I was under the impression that you already made the movie.
 
IMHO, this:

Azmyth said:
The story however, was something people in this area and abroad could relate to and actually wanted to watch.
Click to expand...

...is the only really important fact behind this:

It did so well, they won many awards and profitted enough off the first film to do a second film
Click to expand...

...as opposed to this:

The reason they have done so well I feel is because of involving the community, and the genre they are in.
Click to expand...

...which would be largely irrelevant in the absence of quote #1.
 
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Mine has made more than $25K so far in the four countries in which it has sold, and there is 7% residuals in DVD sales into those countries in addition to the money up front. In the case of the stage play, we will get 60% of house tickets in addition to the trip to Rome for the premiere paid for!

Michael
 
ShowMaker said:
short answer... 0 percent.
Indies are made for exposure. Gain that and there is your profit.
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that's good advice for wannabe studio directors who only understand indie as a fallback position because they haven't got the chops yet. for the others, it's okay to aim higher.
 
ChipG said:
I'd do it if you shoot it on a Scarlet, I'll bet it's a big time saver over the Red.

What state does your dad live in?
Click to expand...

What? This post is even stupider than HIS post. Scarlet does not exist. Unless you are joking. Are you joking?
 
JonathanLB said:
What do you guys think about doing an ultra ultra low budget horror film for like $25,000 with no-name actors and good equipment? I mean it's low risk anyway, $25K is not much to me, if I lost it I would shrug it off basically as annoying but no biggie. Let's say you have the equipment like lighting equipment, camera package, editing you're going to do yourself and maybe hire a finishing editor to do this or that, and you got the location for free, small crew for cheap... what would you guys say?

My dad's house is 20,000 sq. feet, he just added this amazing pond, the fog rolls in during the winter and it's flat-out creepy. It's old style architecture and every time I think about this house I can't help but think it'd be great for some horror film. But reality is I can't find a really great story idea (and I have two scrips I wrote that i love, but my outline for this film was... eh... ok). Everything I think of is mildly cliche, and so what I'd rather do is make some really fun zombie film or haunted house movie, and not try to be overly original just stylish with good acting and good direction. The script is not going to be amazing, I doubt, but it should be functional and fun.

The point is how much risk am I assuming with a $25,000 horror film that I do more or less for fun? Obviously I'm talking about shooting this thing with something like the S35 (5K) Scarlet a few years down the road, maybe 15 months at least from now, and I know what I'm doing so I doubt it would be a bad film but it also wouldn't be overly complicated. What are my odds of making $15K or so of that money back? I would think it'd be pretty solid since the budget would just be so low that even selling it at half of what I spent would be basically like "Eh oh well that was fun."
Click to expand...

Well shi* dude, if $25k is just whatever to you, why are you blathering on da Internets? Why aren't you out MAKING that film?

I mean, $25K is nothing to you, right, so why would anyone's opinion matter anyway? You would be like "Eh oh well that was fun."

So shut the f*ck up and just go do it.
 
I speak at a lot of filmmaker's panels and always say - "don't confuse resolution with quality". I always get nervous when people say RED or Scarlet as that will make it an automatic sell into the market. It's become the panacea of the industry. And while it is a great tool, it is only but one. So many times I get invites that say, come see "such and such" feature shot on RED - but nothing else about the movie. Is the movie about a movie being shot on RED? Now there's an interesting premise. ;)

Also, a lot of independents don't know how to deal with depth of field as a storytelling technique - just because you have shallow depth of field, does not mean that particular shot needed. It becomes part of the language you need to control like everything else in the shot - story, lighting, art direction, casting, performance, costume, makeup, score, foley, mix, editing, etc.

Michael
 
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