Sobering look at indy film future.

[WriteKnight]

This is a must read article. It's a sobering look at the future of the indy film market.

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

The pie is getting smaller, much smaller.

The good news is, more than ever - everything is riding on the quality of the story.

Read the article. Bookmark it. Read it again.

[mario_c]

Meanwhile, I live just outside of NYC and movies playing in the city go right to DVD (like Romero's last one, or any number of indie hits). And two octoplexes in town closed in a row (and one opened, then scaled back on showings). OTOH new DVD stores and even an arthouse or two have popped up and flourished in the area.
The record industry is indeed dead, as they pointed out in the article (Do they make CDs anymore? Or do they just spend their time suing everyone in sight?) but musicians still clamor out of their garages for attention. This will never change. Moviemakers are the same breed - if you want it for real you won't be stopped. Unfortunately, we picked a very expensive and time consuming way to express our art. Even worse, spec writers are lured in by the hundreds with promises of million dollar paydays and the excesses of Hollywood, and that is just not a realistic view of the business. Or of making a living in general.
I would like to see indie film be just that again - free of marketing trends and big-studio power plays, and once again about storytelling and talent. This trend may push that along, if there's any hope.
My 2 cents as I fail to network my way to an option....

[icerose]

Seems like the mediocre to outright bad films are going to suffer the most. Looks like the challenge is on.

[Lillyth]

"And if we do it for less, we can afford to make something that's not a moronic, homogenized piece of lowest-common-denominator drivel."

That was my favorite part.

Perhaps this will be the beginning of moviemaking turning away from McMovies, and finally getting down to something WORTH making, as we have been talking about in the other thread.

Somehow, I still want to make movies, even after all he said, so I guess I'm in the right business, then, huh?

[WriteKnight]

I think one of the most interesting statistics, is the number of indy films submitted to sundance.

As a filmmaker as well as a screenwriter, I'm always hearing "We'll shoot it ourselves and sell it!" With a 99.9 percent chance of NO sale, it's a much more labor intensive and EXPENSIVE roll of the dice than trying to sell the script alone.

[Lillyth]

I think one of the most interesting statistics, is the number of indy films submitted to sundance.

As a filmmaker as well as a screenwriter, I'm always hearing "We'll shoot it ourselves and sell it!" With a 99.9 percent chance of NO sale, it's a much more labor intensive and EXPENSIVE roll of the dice than trying to sell the script alone.

Luckily, I am an actress/screenwriter, so I don't have any desire to shoot it myself, but damn, if I ever did, I don't anymore. But I DID pass that along to the filmmakers I work with because, from 500 to 5,000 is a BIG jump - especially in a market where Disney slashed its output by 75%...

[regdog]

The depressing part of this is that as movie goers we will get less original and thought provoking films. Instead we will have more of the same old homoganized, lukewarm, retreads Hollywood has been making.

I don't know about anyone else But I for one am REAL tired of sequels, movies made from 60's and70's TV series. Remakes of already medicore movies and terible remakes of good old movies.

Perhaps the best movie goers can do is not go until something a better crop of movies is made or start going to more indy flicks even as their number dwindle.
:Soapbox:

[Lillyth]

The depressing part of this is that as movie goers we will get less original and thought provoking films. Instead we will have more of the same old homoganized, lukewarm, retreads Hollywood has been making.

I don't know about anyone else But I for one am REAL tired of sequels, movies made from 60's and70's TV series. Remakes of already medicore movies and terible remakes of good old movies.

Perhaps the best movie goers can do is not go until something a better crop of movies is made or start going to more indy flicks even as their number dwindle.
:Soapbox:
Well, at least Iron Man didn't suck... ;-)

[icerose]

The depressing part of this is that as movie goers we will get less original and thought provoking films. Instead we will have more of the same old homoganized, lukewarm, retreads Hollywood has been making.

I don't know about anyone else But I for one am REAL tired of sequels, movies made from 60's and70's TV series. Remakes of already medicore movies and terible remakes of good old movies.

Perhaps the best movie goers can do is not go until something a better crop of movies is made or start going to more indy flicks even as their number dwindle.
:Soapbox:

That's actually not true. Even the big studios are getting slammed. See their reduced output. They spend so much on movies that they can't afford for a movie not to make money, and with Tivo and such people are refusing to watch mediocre movies. Mediocre movies are failing. The great indies are not suffering at all, but rather are getting more exposure. It's the indies that aren't making good to great movies that are getting their fingers slammed, so if anything, we'll see better movies.

That's what the article is all about. Good enough just doesn't cut it anymore. It has to go beyond that.

[mario_c]

The depressing part of this is that as movie goers we will get less original and thought provoking films. Instead we will have more of the same old homoganized, lukewarm, retreads Hollywood has been making.

I don't know about anyone else But I for one am REAL tired of sequels, movies made from 60's and70's TV series. Remakes of already medicore movies and terible remakes of good old movies.

Perhaps the best movie goers can do is not go until something a better crop of movies is made or start going to more indy flicks even as their number dwindle.
:Soapbox:HeaGrg, don't hold your breath. Studios will stop making these horrible retreads when audiences stop going, and they aren't stopping anytime soon. OK, maybe for Speed Racer.
Not every remake is evil - I'm tempted to see The Incredible Hulk, and Dark Knight too, aren't you? But the big studios can learn from the indies, and make original movies that don't cost billions but bring in billions. (Read Pulp Fiction, Brokeback Mountain, Juno etc)
Yeah, I won't hold my breath either.

[Aragon]

I have read several scripts that were a delight and the studios didn't even give them a chance. I believe that there need to be fewer movies made, as the old days. There will still be some bad ones made, but I have a feeling that originality will start flowing again in Hollywood.Indie films could slow down a bit as well. There really is some need to slow down the output and increase the originality.

[WriteKnight]

Well as the article points out the OUTPUT has slowed down. Fewer and fewer movies are getting 'made' - in the sense of released to theatres. Even as thousands of 'indy movies' are getting 'made' in the sense of getting recorded to a tape/disc.

More movies were released each year in the forties and fifties than today.

The article is a real eye opener, no doubt.

[nmstevens]

Well as the article points out the OUTPUT has slowed down. Fewer and fewer movies are getting 'made' - in the sense of released to theatres. Even as thousands of 'indy movies' are getting 'made' in the sense of getting recorded to a tape/disc.

More movies were released each year in the forties and fifties than today.

The article is a real eye opener, no doubt.

Well, you just have to think for a moment to realize the kind of competion for "entertainment" hours that exist today that people making movies in the forties and fifties couldn't even have dreamed of.

They did have radio, which was a niche now filled by TV, but the volume of television programming today is overwhelming compared to what existed even a few years ago.

Home video, as a competitive market to theatrical motion pictures, likewise has only really been around for around twenty-five to thirty years.

The whole computer/video gaming industry barely even existed twenty-five years ago.

The internet and the entire realm of web-based media -- not even really fifteen years -- and look at the extent to which it now dominates people's free time.

And while "going out to the movies" isn't going away, it's never going to come back and be what it was.

The way people watch movies, the way media, in various forms, comes into people's homes and into people lives, is going to change.

In many ways, it already has changed.

NMS

[WriteKnight]

Yup, I agree one hundred percent. The only thing that remains constant is the 24 hour day. Still have to fit 'life' into that. Leisure time is a competitive industry, for sure.

Couple of recent articles online do bear out the notion that the 'entertainment industry' still does well in hard times though. But movies are definitely a smaller slice of that pie.

As I said, its a sobering article.

[Lillyth]

Yup, I agree one hundred percent. The only thing that remains constant is the 24 hour day. Still have to fit 'life' into that. Leisure time is a competitive industry, for sure.

Couple of recent articles online do bear out the notion that the 'entertainment industry' still does well in hard times though. But movies are definitely a smaller slice of that pie.

As I said, its a sobering article.
I was talking to a lady from Walnut Creek the other day at the park, and we were talking about movies, and she was saying "Well, you know, we went out for a movie the other day, and just for the tickets we spent 23 dollars, that's not even including concessions, PLUS, we're paying the sitter $10/hour, and well, no wonder we hardly go out..."

[GigiZ]

What I found a bit annoying upon reading this recently was that I felt that this producer's idea of "independent" is confused. If studios' independent film departments are closing doesn't mean that independent cinema is taking a hit, does it?
It's the studios' attempt to capitalize on the success of independent films a few years ago by establishing "independent" departments that hasn't worked out for them financially. That doesn't mean that the sky is falling.
It's like the internet in a way. CBS and NBC and all these TV channels started all these news websites a few years ago thinking they'd make tons of money somehow from them and now that they see that won't happen -not in the near future at least- they start closing them down and firing people. Instead of seeing these sites as potential training ground for future talent or a venture worth exploring more they judge it solely on the basis of profit. The question to them is always: is this making me money now? If the answer is no, then flush it down the toilet.
Why not cut down on big budget movie costs instead of closing down their independent branches and firing people?
The industry will probably take new shape and if nobody tries to control things it will probably be better than before. This idea that films like Lust, Caution didn't get seen because there weren't many theatres showing it and people couldn't find it...isn't that simplistic? What about reviewers panning that film like Manola Darghis from the Times? She killed it. There are many factors that play into a film's failure at the box office.
I feel like he is making some good points but I don't see how his observations lead to this conclusion. I don't know, i'm still processing this in my mind.:poke:

[zeprosnepsid]

What I found a bit annoying upon reading this recently was that I felt that this producer's idea of "independent" is confused. If studios' independent film departments are closing doesn't mean that independent cinema is taking a hit, does it?

I don't see how it isn't a hit to independent film. These are the people who distributed the films. Without anyone to distribute them, no one will see them. Not all the companies closing are studio's indie arms. Independent companies like Thinkfilm are also closing. So few independent films are bought and seen at this point as it is, with less people buying, there'll be less people seeing.

What's funny is that not every company that's closing was unsuccessful. Picturehouse, for instance, was very successful. They hardly ever lost money on a movie. But they shut them down nonetheless.

[WriteKnight]

My take on the article, once again, is that the pie slices are smaller. The flow is constricted. The bottleneck is jammed. (Damn, where'd I leave the metaphor maker)Distribution is shrinking as competition for 'eyeballs' increases.

Look, there's only 24 hours in a day. Period. Nobody is making more sunlight - global warming notwithstanding.

As the article, and NMS and myself and others have pointed out - leisure time is what people spend on movies.

And leisure time is not ACTUALLY expanding - but lets just assume its been consistent, although some would say americans are working harder - for our sake, lets assume it remains consistent.

Other articles point out that 'entertainment' does not suffer in lean times. (The Depression Era movie market being a prime example) - an we are IN lean times.

As a filmmaker myself, I am constantly steeped in the megaphone of the 'digital revolution' and the democratic nature of same. ANYONE can make a feature film. EVERYONE is doing it.

NEW MODELS of distribution are opening up!!!! THE INTERNET will save us all! Everyone will make a fortune!!!!!


uh... no.

For one thing, movies have to compete with all maners of other sorts of 'leisure time' activities, INCLUDING surfing the internet. The internet has cut into many versions of the infotainment pie. Television News, Television Movies, Radio, Gaming - its all there.

(ADVERTISING dollars is where these companies make their money. That remains the same.)

No one is making a fortune releasing first run movies on the internet. (Lets not even open the piracy can of worms) As a business model, independent filmmakers are not exactly living high off the hog on streaming bits and pieces of their feature films.

And SHORTS - God love 'em, I do - I make 'em - Don't make money. They're calling cards, they're award/attention getters, they're fun factories and fan factories... but they don' make money.

For the filmmakers.


YouTube is a Phenom. It's worth a fortune. To the developers/owners. But not to the 'content providers'.

SO - The people who DISTRIBUTE movies - the people who put them in theatres, who put them on T.V. - these 'gatekeepers' - stand to make/lose a ton-o-money. But they have to invest HEAVILY to get it done. (See article.) It takes a ton of money, a huge investment to get your message heard above the roar of media mashup. They are NOT prone to risk taking.They LOVE the 'big tent' movies the big comic/action stuff. And whatever else is 'hot' right now. The genre-specific film that is easily marketed to a ready made audience is also a good 'buy'.

The digital revolution has produced a FLOOD, no - a TIDAL WAVE of "Films" that are 120 minutes of God-awful dreck, pouring into Sundance, Moondance,Bashdance, Hashdance, Etc. ( A great cash-cow for the fest owners) - BUT THE NUMBER CHOSEN FOR ACTUAL DISTRIBUTION IS GOING DOWN.

The 'quirky' indy-film is a risk. The article points out that TRULY EXCEPTIONAL STORIES can make a difference however.

There - that's the glimmer of hope. As writers- our best hope is to be truly exceptional in order to get that shot.

It takes an exceptional story, exceptional determination, and exceptional luck (with some good networking tossed in) to make it happen.

Really, this is what NMS and other's have been saying. I thought posting the link was good because it gave hard NUMBERS to chances.

Does that mean I'm going to quit?

Nope.

I write because I have these stories inside that need to get out. Screenwriting is my chosen venue. I'll keep writing and submitting and shopping... and leave the rest up to fate.


EDIT: Appropos the thread "How old is too old to be a screenwriter?" I LOVED Giles closing remark,

But that's all the more reason to try. Why? Because you're a writer, so you know that the best stories are always the ones when your hero triumphs over insurmountable odds.

[GigiZ]

What do you think about his suggestions on what kind of scripts to write/shoot?
For example he says that we shouldn't make films that are
"too dark" and blames the stress in the western industrialized world, where wages aren't keeping up with productivity demands for people not being willing to go out to see a dark film.
Further up though he says that The Conversation topped Netflix viewers' preferences recently. Talk about one dark, dark, daaaaaaaark film. And so were most of the great films of the 70s which he also points out as the last best era in American film.
Also look at the more recent success of some TV shows like "Six feet under."
I just don't know how to internalize his advice.
"Make fewer better." Fine but who are you telling that to? That's just not possible to ask of the general population who wants and now CAN shoot a digital film. There are kids out there who will shoot an indie film because they can, period. Some of them are untalented but a few are very talented and they will hopefully persevere if you don't tell them you hated having to sit through their film in Sundance and that they should shut up, quit and go get a job in Hollywood to work with the pros.
When you look at any kind of art form and people who succeeded in it, it's a trial and error process.
Bergman made about sixteen films before he made The Seventh Seal. I know we're talking about a business that originates in Hoillywood not in Sweden but still...will it really hurt the business in teh long-run if there are young filmmakers out there who are learning by doing instead of spending years getting somboedy coffee in LA before moving back home to get a job.

Again, I have to think more about what he's saying. And yes, I do see the value of his argument.:)

[GigiZ]

What's funny is that not every company that's closing was unsuccessful. Picturehouse, for instance, was very successful. They hardly ever lost money on a movie. But they shut them down nonetheless.

Why do you think that is?

[zeprosnepsid]

Why do you think that is?

Heck if I know, I'm not a businessman. I'm sure there's some post mordem articles somewhere... Supposedly WB is still going to do the same thing as New Line, WIP and Picturehouse (yeah, right) but do them all under the umbrella of WB. Particularly they wanted all the marketing to go through their main marketing department instead of the marketing arms of these mini majors. But yeah, I dunno...

What do you think about his suggestions on what kind of scripts to write/shoot?

It's impossible to say. By the time a film gets written, made and distributed a few years have gone by and who knows what the appetite will be then. Just write something good.

For example he says that we shouldn't make films that are
"too dark" and blames the stress in the western industrialized world, where wages aren't keeping up with productivity demands for people not being willing to go out to see a dark film.
Further up though he says that The Conversation topped Netflix viewers' preferences recently. Talk about one dark, dark, daaaaaaaark film. And so were most of the great films of the 70s which he also points out as the last best era in American film.
Also look at the more recent success of some TV shows like "Six feet under."
I just don't know how to internalize his advice.

Lol. Do you watch independent films? The Conversation and Six Feet Under have dark elements, but it's often thematic and very PG. We're talking these indie movies with rape and heartwrenching child killing. Depressingly self destructive characters. Events that destroy lives. Like at 21 Grams. It just gets worse and worse and worse for these people. The Conversation is entertaining. It's a thriller, it's gripping. Six Feet Under I never watched but I believe it has comedic elements? Soap opera elements even? It's entertaining. These indie films are not entertaining. They are heart wrenching, painful experiences.

The point here is that people want My Big Fat Greek Wedding not Irreversible right now. But that's just right now. Who knows about tomorrow.

"Make fewer better." Fine but who are you telling that to? That's just not possible to ask of the general population who wants and now CAN shoot a digital film. There are kids out there who will shoot an indie film because they can, period. Some of them are untalented but a few are very talented and they will hopefully persevere if you don't tell them you hated having to sit through their film in Sundance and that they should shut up, quit and go get a job in Hollywood to work with the pros.

Have you seen the films at Sundance? They're not usually kids with indie films. Usually they're industry people with real actors in their movies and million plus dollar budgets. There are a few more traditional independent films, but mostly those are in Slamdance, not Sundance. We're talking about distribution here, not whether someone can make a film in their backyard if they want to.

Bergman made about sixteen films before he made The Seventh Seal. I know we're talking about a business that originates in Hoillywood not in Sweden but still...will it really hurt the business in teh long-run if there are young filmmakers out there who are learning by doing instead of spending years getting somboedy coffee in LA before moving back home to get a job.

They can learn all they want, but their films won't get distributed. That's what we're talking about. They can learn by doing all they want, but no one is going to see their movie.

[GigiZ]

Have you seen the films at Sundance? They're not usually kids with indie films. Usually they're industry people with real actors in their movies and million plus dollar budgets. There are a few more traditional independent films, but mostly those are in Slamdance, not Sundance. We're talking about distribution here, not whether someone can make a film in their backyard if they want to.

They can learn all they want, but their films won't get distributed. That's what we're talking about. They can learn by doing all they want, but no one is going to see their movie.

I was commenting on his point that there are thousands of submissions at Sundance. Are those all made by industry people with well-known actors and million plus budgets?
You can tell people that their films won't get distributed but his point was also that there should be fewer of them. Who is he talking to? Big studios with independent arms, mid-sized independent companies or independent filmmakers in general?
Also, I want to reiterate that I udnerstand his general, more obvious point but that I question the message he is sending out.
And as far as his reference to "too dark" ... I see your point but it wasn't clarified in his speech. In my mind, a gut-wrenching Vitenam-war film like Apocalypse Now which was released just after -or was it during- that war would rank pretty high on any dark list. And the Conversation was a flop when it came out, no? So what does that tell us?:Shrug:

[zeprosnepsid]

I was commenting on his point that there are thousands of submissions at Sundance. Are those all made by industry people with well-known actors and million plus budgets?
You can tell people that their films won't get distributed but his point was also that there should be fewer of them. Who is he talking to? Big studios with independent arms, mid-sized independent companies or independent filmmakers in general?

But the films that show at Sundance are those films.

I think we are suffering a little bit of a miscommunication =) The dangers of the internet.

But even those there could certainly be less of, not many of them are very good. I guess he's advocating quality over quantity, but that's probably not going to happen.


*

I think Apoc Now is one of the top 5 films ever made, and sure it's dark, but it's simply just not as hard to watch as a lot of indie films. Seriously, it's not in the same realm of Irreversible. Or even something like the House of Mirth which just starts of not even happy and gets more and more and more depressing. Apocalypse Now is at least entertaining. There's action and there's even light scenes. These types of indie films have no light scenes. They don't let up. One again, 21 Grams. Or Dancer in the Dark. You keep reference Coppola studio movies from the 70s and it's just not the same kind of thing at all as depressing indie movies. In Apocalypse Now you have a bunch of people who chose to be in that situation, they are soldiers. In Dancer in the Dark you have a poor blind woman who is victimized and victimized and it's terrible and horrible and awful. She's not a soldier who signed up for this. She's a woman who has had every dream completely smashed and destroyed.

*

I think a good companion piece for this article is John August's recent Sundance article. I'm too lazy to link right now but it's pretty new at johnaugust.com.

[Mr. Fix]

Frank Capra once made a film that was low budget even in his day. The critics panned the film as "too dark."

But as it turns out, Its A Wonderful Life.

And I'd rather have that kind of fame than any fortune.

http://www.answers.com/topic/it-s-a-wonderful-life?cat=entertainment:Trophy:

Isn't the idea of being an Independent film maker suppose to mean that these are films not made by the BIG studios? And that these are films made by a bunch of people who got together to create something for their own entertainment as opposed to simply making money? ('Attack of the Killer Tomatoes' comes to mind.)

Just a thought...:e2tomato: