Indie Film: Back from the Dead Already!

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:30:00 GMT

As you know if you've been following this blog for a while, independent film is dead. All hail independent film! Yes, as is always the case when someone walks the streets in a doomsaying sandwich board, there is someone immediately following in his footsteps with brightly colored pamplets about how you, yes, YOU can cash in big on doomsday-related futures! Oh, sure, a few people might say that this sort of the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king stuff might just be an indicator of how the king's prognosis probably wasn't as dire as it was made out to be, but they're just the sort of Johnny Level-Heads who won't be making any money as the Jason Voorhees-like corpse of independent film is resurrected for the fifteenth time.

As part of their ongoing coverage of New York's Independent Film Week, IndieWire has brought in producer, distributor, and all-around insider Peter Broderick to assure us that independent film isn't dead after all – it's just a Brave New World. Part One of the series focuses on Broderick's dissent at Mark Gill's notably grim keynote address, where Gill described independent film financing as standing on the verge of a massive collapse which he compared to a medieval plague. Broderick argues that this is an old-world perspective, ignoring such new distribution angles as the internet, direct DVD sales, split rights, video on demand, and target-marketed fundraising. He provides useful charts and graphs, and even gives us ten basic principles of modern film distribution that makes it superior to the 'Old World' system, which he agrees is collapsing like a dying star.

In Part Two, Broderick discusses the changes in how film festivals help snag distribution deals, how theatrical distribution can be had without the aid of a major financier (and why he thinks, if you can't get theatrical release, that might not be such a bad thing), and other aspects of 'New World' distribution, including direct-to-video release, digital distribution, and educational and institutional funding. It's all very encouraging, and maybe even prophetic; but those of us old enough to remember the direct-market zealots who were going to 'revolutionize' how comics were bought and sold might want to have a large grain of salt handy while we read.

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Leonard Pierce — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Every couple of months, someone in the press gets wind of the notion that independent film -- which, to our knowledge, has never been a field people have entered with an eye towards getting rich -- is on its last legs. Lamentations ensue, and then someone pulls out the box office receipts for The Dark Knight, and everybody has a good laugh. This time around, it's National Public Radio's turn to sound the doom bell for our favorite art form.

"Chicken Little was right", screams the headline to Kim Masters' article on the last days of indie film, placing into evidence the testimony of one Mark Johnson, a big-time studio producer (Chronicles of Narnia) who also dabbles in the independents. Unable to find a distributor for his small-budget southern gothic Ballast, he and director Lance Hammer are now taking it from city to city, screening it in front of whatever audiences will pay attention. "I thought that, at the end of the day, quality would win. We would like to think that if something is made well, it ought to be able to pay for itself," says the producer, who apparently has never ever paid any attention to any aspect of our culture. Art-house executive Mark Gill points out that independent films now have a 99% chance of failure (which, we're guessing, is up from the 98% of a few years ago, or the 100% of most of Hollywood history), and warns that "You have to be very good, or great, or you will die," which should come as exciting news to all the people who made great movies and failed anyway as well as reassuring every failure in the industry that they just aren't good enough.

Don't get us wrong -- no one is more sympathetic to the Sisyphean struggle of the independent filmmaker than we are, and no one would love to see a true meritocracy in film, where Charles Burnett gets to make any movie he wants while Michael Bay has to work double shifts at the car wash to afford a new fisheye lens. But all this weeping and gnashing and grinding of teeth every few years about how this time, indie film is really and truly doomed, and if you don't make Citizen Kane the first time you step behind a camera you might as well go back behind the counter at Taco Bell not only ignores the reality that determined artists have always found new and innovative ways to get their movies made, but does a disservice to aspiring filmmakers by making things seem even more dire than they actually are.

The Screengrab : mark gill

Indie Film: Back from the Dead Already!

Sun Rises In East, Independent Film Industry Doomed