Failing has costs though, mentally and financially, so there needs to be a cushion that allows filmmakers to fall softly from failure and rise back up again with more vigour.. also to recognise that marginalised filmmakers when/if they get a shot at the limelight, then have a multiplicity of loads on their backs from expectations that makes a fall even harder. communities of filmmakers to support development, production and exhibition with benefactors who support the ART of film as well as access to government federal and state incentives etc and how to use them, all needed all over the world and to be based around local cinemas, not necessarily big releases, could be community filmmaker screenings on a saturday mornings to claim the theatrical spaces - new ideas are needed - also to look at South Korea and how their industry history, quotas and taxes and govt intervention allowed S Korean filmmakers to fail again and again until auteurs emerged like Park Chan Wook and Bong Joon Ho that big local investors such as CE Entertainment (a division of a huge food company ) came along to invest in these artistic genius filmmakers, masters of their craft by this time, true artists of film - who had years to learn from their mistakes and to gauge audience reaction to their films and develop their skills, and to become so commercially viable at home in Korea and so make sense for their film companies to build and own cinemas! imagine 15 million people going to see a movie in South Korea - 1/4 of the population in cinemas! This is also the way in Nigeria now! Govt giving sub-prime loans to the producers, some of whom were DVD pirateers to run cinemas doubling the number of theatrical screens in just the last few years there.. more local first films and more cinemas with a global pathway and independent cinema will boom in Nigeria , so whether the independent filmmakers are bouncing up in the USA surely they will do, but watch out in the rest of the world !
I like to approach (some aspects of) indie film like an engineer. And the first step to engineering is asking "What are we trying to solve?" What are the actual problems in indie film?
For me and most of the people with whom I converse, most of it's about access:
1. To gear;
2. To talent (the time it takes to learn the craft(s), and/or famous people);
3. To funding (paying everyone involved a living/thriving wage).
There's an idea that hoovers over a solution to your appendix delineations. An idea we were going to discuss "after your trip to Sundance." At that years' festival, Amazon lunched and lured you and your amazing work building their venture is historic. Maybe one day we will have the chance to discuss as it is as relevant today as it was then. With the progression and cost effectiveness of AI, even more so.
I so very love this 'ecosystem' concept! Also it occurs to me that some of the best independent films I've seen over the past five or ten years have been foreign. I'm wondering whether and to what extent the failing referred to in this article is an American phenomenon, and/or whether it's an occurrence in other countries or regions as well?
Failing has costs though, mentally and financially, so there needs to be a cushion that allows filmmakers to fall softly from failure and rise back up again with more vigour.. also to recognise that marginalised filmmakers when/if they get a shot at the limelight, then have a multiplicity of loads on their backs from expectations that makes a fall even harder. communities of filmmakers to support development, production and exhibition with benefactors who support the ART of film as well as access to government federal and state incentives etc and how to use them, all needed all over the world and to be based around local cinemas, not necessarily big releases, could be community filmmaker screenings on a saturday mornings to claim the theatrical spaces - new ideas are needed - also to look at South Korea and how their industry history, quotas and taxes and govt intervention allowed S Korean filmmakers to fail again and again until auteurs emerged like Park Chan Wook and Bong Joon Ho that big local investors such as CE Entertainment (a division of a huge food company ) came along to invest in these artistic genius filmmakers, masters of their craft by this time, true artists of film - who had years to learn from their mistakes and to gauge audience reaction to their films and develop their skills, and to become so commercially viable at home in Korea and so make sense for their film companies to build and own cinemas! imagine 15 million people going to see a movie in South Korea - 1/4 of the population in cinemas! This is also the way in Nigeria now! Govt giving sub-prime loans to the producers, some of whom were DVD pirateers to run cinemas doubling the number of theatrical screens in just the last few years there.. more local first films and more cinemas with a global pathway and independent cinema will boom in Nigeria , so whether the independent filmmakers are bouncing up in the USA surely they will do, but watch out in the rest of the world !
I like to approach (some aspects of) indie film like an engineer. And the first step to engineering is asking "What are we trying to solve?" What are the actual problems in indie film?
For me and most of the people with whom I converse, most of it's about access:
1. To gear;
2. To talent (the time it takes to learn the craft(s), and/or famous people);
3. To funding (paying everyone involved a living/thriving wage).
How do we solve those problems?
What are other problems that aren't listed above?
There's an idea that hoovers over a solution to your appendix delineations. An idea we were going to discuss "after your trip to Sundance." At that years' festival, Amazon lunched and lured you and your amazing work building their venture is historic. Maybe one day we will have the chance to discuss as it is as relevant today as it was then. With the progression and cost effectiveness of AI, even more so.
Great post Ted. Worth reading at least once a month for an entire year.
When I think of failing better - the concept of a decentralize film eco-system is where my mind goes.
I so very love this 'ecosystem' concept! Also it occurs to me that some of the best independent films I've seen over the past five or ten years have been foreign. I'm wondering whether and to what extent the failing referred to in this article is an American phenomenon, and/or whether it's an occurrence in other countries or regions as well?