The low-budget bubble has well and truly burst

You can see that trend even on this board. Ten years ago it seemed like there were more people here shooting indie films. I'm not exactly sure what happened. Either the game got harder or people finally realized how hard the game always was and moved on. I'm sure other factors played into it as well.
 
In the 90s it was perceived ( do in part to media) as a way to get wealthy quickly. As young people started to realize if they were smart enough to make a marketable film and probably be ripped off by distribution that they could start other business' and have a much higher degree of success. Which is cooler being the next hot filmaker with limited financial success or having a small success with a startup ?
 
In any gold rush it's not the diggers who make the money, it's the people who sell the shovels. There's always a few old codgers left scratching a living long after the field is worked out.
 
Rainer said:
In any gold rush it's not the diggers who make the money, it's the people who sell the shovels. There's always a few old codgers left scratching a living long after the field is worked out.
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thankfully, i continue to scratch ;-)

be well.

rob
smalltalk.productions/nyc
 
roxics said:
You can see that trend even on this board. Ten years ago it seemed like there were more people here shooting indie films. I'm not exactly sure what happened. Either the game got harder or people finally realized how hard the game always was and moved on. I'm sure other factors played into it as well.
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Yup.
A million dollar Indie film that gets 'moderate' exposure will usually only break even at best.
Not many peoople want to put in all that work for what is essentially zero pocketable earnings.
 
Economy speeds in two ways:

-consumer
-provider


Its cool that instead of buying 10 CDs (1992) and pay close to 200$, you can just go online and download these same albums (and many more) for FREE (2002).

It's not so cool if you are a graphic designer who specializes in CD covers and in 1992 is able to charge for idea, design, preprint, logo royalties, licenses something like 1000$ and onwards per one CD cover and in 2002 you are happy if major label artist is willing to give you 500$ for everything (ALL EXCLUSIVE).

When was the last time you paid 15$ for seeing a indie movie anywhere?


Depressing it is...

Yet, there is price to be paid to be able to think you are a Rockstar!
 
We a need a subforum called “Threads that make you want to jump off a building”. There are at least 4 or 5 already.
 
Josh Bass said:
We a need a subforum called “Threads that make you want to jump off a building”. There are at least 4 or 5 already.
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To help cheer you up, go back and read that link I shared, the first point is cheerful:

Overall, the production sector is booming
In just under twenty years, the amount spent on feature films in the UK has ballooned from £389 million in 1998 to £1.9 billion in 2017. Once we take inflation into account, this is an almost threefold increase.
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So is the last point:

High-end television production is booming
This section shouldn’t really be on the list as it doesn’t directly relate to feature film production, but I thought it was both interesting and relevant to the discussion of fewer low budget films. In April 2013, the UK government introduced a tax relief scheme for television projects, modelled on the successful Film Tax Relief scheme. The aim was to encourage high-budget British television productions to shoot in the UK.

Prior to the scheme, a number of high profile productions had opted to shoot abroad, including BBC’s Merlin (partially shot in France), ITV’s Titanic (Hungary) and the BBC/HBO’s Parade’s End (Belgium). The scheme provides a rebate of around 20% of the UK production spend, but only applies to productions with a budget of at least £1 million per broadcast hour.

The result is that spend more than doubled between 2013 and 2015, although it remains half that of UK feature film production.
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