Man that Mark Gill certainly got everyone in a tizzy. My earlier take has been confirmed by none other than John August, successful screenwriter and indie director of The Nines, a film that went to Sundance and starred Ryan Reynolds.
From his blog:
My advice? You should make an indie film to make a film. Period. Artistic and commercial success don’t correlate well, and at the moment, only the former is remotely within your control.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have made the same movie but completely rethought how it went out into the world. I would have challenged a lot of the standard operating procedures, which seem to be part of an indie world that no longer exists. The Nines would have likely made just as little at the box office, but could have made a bigger impact on a bigger audience. Ultimately, I think that’s how you need to measure the success of an indie film’s release: how many people saw it.
He’s got a lot to say, including that Theatrical releasing is overrated and Sundance buzz is meaningless.
But to get back to his point — you as a filmmaker will always have a different agenda than whomever is producing or distributing (even if that person is you).
The filmmaker just wants to share their work with the largest possible audience. To communicate and to move people. The producer and distributor wants to make money from showing it to those people.
Sometimes those goals are in conflict, or at least they appear to be.
Especially nowadays when it takes a massive amount of cash to build awareness and get anyone remotely excited enough to shell out $10 or more to see your film in a theater and $20 to buy it on DVD. If it’s an unknown quantity, they are not going to want to buy it.
That’s why you as a filmmaker want to give it away. You want to build that audience because that’s the only thing you can directly influence. That influence has value to you moving forward in your career because there will always be someone who is better at producing than you that will want to try and use your influence with the audience to make them lots of money.
When I say that independent film is dead, I’m mostly talking about the pipe dream of theatrical distribution. That’s a money losing affair, even big studios look at major releases like Pirates of the Caribbean as a loss leader for merch, DVD, TV licensing, etc.
And look who the messenger is on this, not some sort of Hollywood outsider or new media miscreant, this is the dude that wrote the Charlie’s Angels movies. He has more access to the system than you or me (even taking into account how much writer’s are shat upon in Hollywood).
If he’s having these problems and learning these lessons, you will too.
(found via NewTeeVee)
3 Comments
July 3, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Well, no, Sundance buzz isn’t meaningless. It’s pretty damned meaningful, in the scheme of things. You won’t be able to retire off it, but you can probably get dinner, and Sundance buzz will also put you on the radar, get you a meeting, and do nothing but help move any of your other projects forward. It’ll help separate you from the thousands of other filmmakers trying to get noticed, trying to get their films seen, trying to build a profile.
Not that there aren’t some valid points made here (and elsewhere), but Sundance buzz is pretty good. If somebody offers you a choice between Sundance buzz and no Sundance buzz, take the buzz.
July 3, 2008 at 10:40 pm
been lurking too long….I really appreciate the perspectives you share, Kent. Thank you.
July 5, 2008 at 10:02 am
KT – buzz is generally meaningful for the filmmaker in setting up their next project, but in the grand scheme of film sales means diddly for the film.
How many times have you heard a couple walk into the video store and say, “Honey, let’s rent an award-winning indie film tonight.” ?
Exactly. When people walk into a store or logon to Netflix – they are looking to be entertained. Their tastes may differ in that regard, but the need to be entertained is there.
The biggest, best tool a film has to reach and influence its audience – whether in the videostore or on Netflix or wherever – is in the key art. Great key art allows really small, indie titles to compete against huge Hollywood blockbusters on the shelf (or web page). The stores don’t order as many of them, but the copies tend to hang in the ‘new release’ section for much longer eliciting comparable TPC (turns per copy).
But unfortunately, most indie films create dull key art that doesn’t speak to anything the film is about, and instead concentrates on how “important” the film is — bah!
If filmmakers want to get their film sold and have a reputation of delivering movies that make money, they would do a hell of a lot better to concentrate on what it takes to actually “sell” the film (Great key art, a great trailer, plenty of good stills and a demonstration of salesmanship that says, “This is an entertaining film”) instead of worrying about film festivals that don’t curry favor with distributors or retailers and are largely ignored by the public.
Buzz is meaningless.