37 Ways that Independent Film is succeeding today

From Film Snobbery - May 16th - Click this link and scroll down for the subsequent pages of the article.... it's well worth reading! http://filmsnobbery.com/feature/37-ways-independent-film-is-succeeding-today/



On May 11th, 2010 film producer Ted Hope posted on this blog 38 More Ways The Film Industry Is Failing. This should be considered, amongst other things, to be a direct response to that article. I will not deny that there are many obstacles facing the indie community. But film history has shown time and again that indie film has hurdled those obstacles every time they’ve been faced with them.

1. Government incentives at the state level are allowing more productions to get financed and opening up the job market in the filmmaking industry. This also trickles down to the independent film community. Filmmakers are able to and do use these tax credits, and other incentives like free shooting permits, etc. to fund and sustain their productions.

2. Technology has given independent filmmakers unparalleled opportunities to break into the film industry. Many movies that are starting off as shorts posted on YouTube are being optioned as Hollywood films (for example last year’s “District 9″). For filmmakers who are going a different route, technology has enabled them to make their art cheaper, more efficiently, and their productions are scalable to almost any size budget. The new independent filmmaker is not a technophobe or luddite, they are embracing technology as an indispensable weapon in their arsenal of art.

3. Organized filmmaker events are everywhere. Contrary to some schools of thought, the independent filmmaking community does exist and is incredibly vibrant. From film festivals all over the world to more local fare like The Conversation and DIY Days, filmmakers are gathering everywhere to network, learn, and share their projects with the general public and their contemporaries. The filmmaker community is open and welcoming. It is expanding and growing every year. Festival submission data corroborates that. Artists seek out other artists. That is the nature of creativity. It yearns to be nurtured and is inherently social.

4. Just the act of being a filmmaker does not necessitate that the artist is, or has to be a businessperson. Some people create just to create. Even getting your film in front of an audience does not necessarily require you to have an MBA from Harvard. It can be as simple as setting up a screen or popping in a DVD at your local bar, church, or school. The art of SELLING a film is where the business part comes in. Yes films have budgets, and the big buzz word right now is sustainability. Filmmakers don’t really need money to create art. They are not sustaining their creativity, they are sustaining their lifestyle. Things cost money, art doesn’t. Yes the accouterments of filmmaking can cost a pretty penny, but I run into filmmakers ever week that have made films for under $1000. They might not be the most professional looking films ever made, but they ARE being made. The business aspect of filmmaking is the same as any day job anyone has ever had. Trading time for money to pay for the necessities in life. Food, shelter, and clothing (and in most filmmaker’s cases, coffee). Filmmakers can in fact sustain themselves, without compromise to their art, but perhaps compromise to their lifestyles. Indie filmmakers recognize this and make these sacrifices constantly to tell the story they want to tell. They re-mortgage their homes and beg, borrow, and steal to realize their visions.

5. Crowdfunding has given filmmakers a unique way to fund their projects. The best part about crowdfunding is that it solves the investor issue, and acts as a natural audience filter for projects that might not yet be ready to be made (either due to poor creative vision, lack of a compelling story, etc.). Once a project has been successfully crowdfunded, and provided that the filmmaker stays within that budget, that project has a net loss of $0.00. Anything made from day one is pure profit. This is something that the Hollywood part of the industry just cannot do. Their business model does not support this.

6. Independent filmmakers have always had to think outside the box for things like funding, production, and distribution. This has led to a myriad of new business opportunities for those that are bold enough to see this demand and supply the proper channels for indies to take advantage of. Businesses like IndieGoGo, Biracy, and Kickstarter have answered the call for crowdsourcing. OpenIndie, Distribber, and IndieFlix are options to consider when looking towards distribution. The bulk of these sites were started by other filmmakers that saw a need in their community for a particular service. No one else was taking care of their needs, so they decided to do it themselves.

7. Filmmakers are always looking to share the tips and tricks they’ve learned while battling it out in the trenches. People like Jon Reiss, Chris Jones, and Lloyd Kaufman all have books out (Chris and Lloyd have a series of books each!) that are aimed at helping filmmakers make, produce, and sell their own damn movies. Others like Lance Weiler have even found other means of monetizing their careers as public speakers, giving seminars, and addressing other filmmakers. This to me shows entrepreneurial spirit and shows that there are many filmmakers that think about the future of not only the film community, but also their own.

8. Organizations such as SAG have gone out of their way to create contracts that are specific to low budget independent film. They have recognized that either one of two things will happen. Either filmmakers will play ball and create SAG approved films, or they’re going to do it anyway whether SAG approves or not. Agencies have seen the power of the independent filmmaker over the years and have changed or added to their policies to accommodate them. This shows that filmmakers do in fact have the ability to affect change within the industry. Look what happened when it was outed that Sundance hadn’t shown a true low budget indie in a number of years. The filmmaking community made a huge deal of it and that very same year we were introduced to Sundance Next.

9. Independent film has changed the way we watch content. Way back in 1993 the film “Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees” became the first feature film to be streamed on the internet. This paved the way for future generations of filmmakers to put their content on the net and get it seen by a completely different audience than the traditional theatrical. While there were a lot of technical limitations of the time that prevented this movie to be fully appreciated online, other filmmakers embraced this new medium and has made it a home for the promotion of themselves and their content.

10. Independent film has led to film curators. People like Zak Forsman and Pericles Lewnes who created CineFist and the Annapolis Pretentious Film Society respectively as both a distribution platform for their films but also as a screening venue for others’ films. Other filmmakers and people in the indie film community have done this as well. David Branin and Karen Worden are the curators of Film Courage Interactive, and marketing expert and publicist Sheri Candler created her own as well. These combined with the film festival circuit provide filmmakers the opportunity to not only make an event out of their movies, but also a chance to have a limited theatrical distribution.