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Mike Curtis, an HD evangelist over at ProVideoCoalition.com and HDforIndies.com, is majorly depressed and angry over the current state of the indie filmmaking world.

A sample:

Story – a guy trying to make little cheapo guns ‘n boobies sci-fi movies on the ultra cheap – make 3 a year. He got no bites on international distribution at some film market, and sold all domestic rights for $16K. That’s half of what he needed just to break even.

Another story – similar tale of someone who, after all the other fees and cuts and whatnot were done, got $2 per DVD as producer. OK – sold about 5000 units. That’s $10K compensation for making a feature film.

…

Anecdote – it used to be that the hot new movie directing talent came up through commercials and music videos – think David Fincher. McG is, I think, the last name I can think of that came up that route that has achieved commercial success. Anybody else? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? There was a list of top 50 hot talent something or other. Nobody under 30. Where’s the new talent coming from? Not from music videos anymore – there’s barely a market, and certainly no real money, in that anymore

…

As long as I’m ranting, film school education has GOT to be one of the worst investments. Spend $100K or more to learn a craft where you have no hope of making that kind of income as a median for 10+ years. An ex-girlfriend talked about going back to grad school, and if your loans totalled what you made your first year out (about $45K in her case), it was a good balance, a good deal. So, $100K in loans and $25-$50K at best first year out? Bwahahahhaaaaa…..of, man, that hurts.

The whole thing is a little long and rambling, but his frustration with the death of the Indie Film model of the 90s comes across loud and clear.

I think his frustration is mostly because that model (make a film, sell it on the festival circuit, become a famous filmmaker) hasn’t really been replaced with anything better.

But to be honest, I don’t think that model ever really existed.  For every Soderbergh, Tarantino, and Smith, there were dozens, if not hundreds, of less successful filmmakers trying to do the exact same thing.  Now that high quality tools are available to the masses, motion picture production is more available now than ever before.  Couple that with easy distribution, we’ve got the current situation, so today there are thousands of filmmakers for every Ask A Ninja, Midwest Teen Sex Show, and LonelyGirl15.

To address his specific concerns in the excerpts above, yes deals are crappy right now, that’s why we’re seeing things like a Sundance darling turning down a conventional distribution deal.  (But my filmmaking books all talk about crappy deals for first timers even during the heyday).

Where’s the new talent coming from?  YouTube, but we’re still very early in that process.  Most features take years to gestate and 2008 was the first year to see Feature deals for Internet filmmakers.  Those films will start coming out in the next few years.

And yes, Film School is a bit of a waste in terms of providing a guaranteed return on investment and a financially viable career.   Though I do sometimes wish I was part of the USC film school mafia. 

But overall, Mike’s Rant comes off as a tirade of an artist that believes merely because he creates something, that he should be entitled to earn a living from it.  Which is not that case.  Actors, directors and writers get fat fees because they have a track record of making other people money.  A lot of money.  The first and biggest hurdle today is actually finding an audience and building a relationship with them so that they will a) tell people to watch your stuff, b) buy something from you, and c) support your next project.

But I think this sense of entitlement by filmmakers for an audience and ultimately for financial success is fairly common.  It’s the hubris of having a vision and not checking into if you’re actually communicating that vision with anyone else.  Which is always a problem for filmmakers at all levels because we perform in silence (quiet on the set!) and then edit in a closed feedback system.  The audience always comes at the end of the process.

This new model will reward those that can stand out, which you can only do with the work itself.  My analysis of the Indie film world was to be successful your film just had to not suck and then have something special about it.  The not sucking is tremendously difficult (take it from me I’ve made a ton of crappy films) and the something special could be anything from clever dialog to inventive camerawork or clever editing.  Just something.   And that something doesn’t need to be amazing, it just needs to show that you’re a little different.  But the not sucking is key.  And the same thing applys now.  Just don’t suck.  And then have something…

It used to be that getting people to see your work was hard, and getting paid for your work was even harder.  Audiences either had to go somewhere and pay to see it or get a physical piece of media that they either paid for or got for free (either you gave them a copy or they begged borrowed or stole it from someone else) to put into a player attached to their TV.  Now people get a link and click.  Done.

Getting them to watch it is relatively easy.  But getting them to share it?  That requires you to make something compelling enough for people to want to put their cred on the line and have the internal dialog, “I like this, this is cool, and I think you’ll like this too” when they send a link to their friends.  That’s really hard.  Because you’re not only competing with cat videos and whatnot, you’re competing with all of culture ever produced.  Instead of your movie or video, they could send a link to the Torrent of Vertigo or footage of Welles’s Julius Ceasar.  But you have the advantage of being new and hopefully capturing the zeitgeist.

So now it’s easy for people to watch and share your stuff, but getting paid is much harder.  But you know what?  Getting paid is always the hardest part.  It’s the same deal as before, either you give it away for free to get people to see your work and consume it as they will, or you get paid to produce it and that producer is responsible for figuring out how to make money from it.  The free model works with selling advertising in the content and relationship building through t-shirt sales and DVD sales.

If your stuff is watchable, people will watch it, if it isn’t, they won’t.  And even the “unsuccessful” videos that only get 10,000 or 50,000 or 100 views, think about in the old days how difficult and expensive it would be to even make 100 VHS copies, let alone 50,000.

Is the indie content business model difficult?  Yes.  But it always has been and will just continue to be, because when you’re an indie, you’re an artist and a business person.  And it’s difficult to balance those two different worlds.  Which means sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.

But it’s something that you’re going to need to keep learning and adjusting to because this is the reality.  People want to share good works, and if you don’t make it easy for them to do officially (and give you some profit back), then they will do it unofficially and you’ll have no real way to build a relationship with your audience.

As Clay Shirky said in a recent interview:

I’m just so impatient with the argument that the world should be slowed down to help people who aren’t smart enough to understand what’s going on.