Why This IS The Best Time Ever To Invest In Indie Film

And The Secret Reason Why Indie Films Don't Work

sort of cute, sort of suicidal?

“Hey Ted, if you keep writing about what’s wrong about our business, no one is going to invest in our films ever again.”

Yeah, I have heard that; some folks like to raise it with me — let’s call them the Let-Them-Live-In-Ignorance crowd. The most accurate response I have to this misstatement is that “You are a f’n idiot” or maybe the more gentle “You — and people like you — are the problem and the reason why we are in this mess.”

I think we can all swallow the bitter pill of truth we find ourselves in when we know there’s an antidote in our future. And there is an antidote in our future.

Today I have 30+ reasons to help you and everyone else recognize why it is a great time time to invest in indie film. You may want to know them before you try to raise funds for your new movie or the platform you hope to build to save us all from total ruin. I have your back. I am here to support. And yeah, I am planning to make a few films and build a few things before I decide to head to the exit door.

Please pardon my interrupting this post with a special request:

Hey San Diego! and Emeryville, CA! On 11/11, we want to share our film INVISIBLE NATION (on Taiwan's incredible path into democracy -- and the precarious balancing act to maintain it. But to do so, we have to sell a 20 more tickets today to each screening. Help! Buy some for your friends!

Buy tickets here:

San Diego: https://gathr.com/events/41a9fe37/invisible-nation-at-amc-mission-valley-20

Emeryville, CA: https://gathr.com/events/582fd4c6/invisible-nation-at-amc-bay-street-16

And now back to our post:

Let me first explain what I have said before. The system is broken; we need an alternative system — not so much to replace it, but live alongside it. The industry makes dumbass decisions regularly; and we made some big ones fairly recently. We could have built something different. The current system stands for nothing, other than bad behavior and poor processes. We took the most robust system for private equity investment in independent film and killed it off.

And in case you don’t understand what all that means, let me spell it out for you.

Now. This. Is. An. Opportunity. AND A GOOD ONE AT THAT!

This is not a time for cowards or rule followers. Lemmings jump off the cliff. Good-bye and good riddance to the lemmings, cute little things that they are.

But it gets even better. The conditions are ripe, ripe, ripe. When things are ripe, they are sweet.

And yeah, just so you don’t go and do something boneheaded, when I say “Indie Film” I am not saying “indie filmssssssss”. Notice the latter is in the plural. Yeah, that is deliberate. It means something. I am sticking with the singular here. I am referring to the ecosystem-as-a-whole when I say it is a good time to invest in Indie Film. I am NOT saying it is a good time to invest in a one-off movie (at least not usually – opportunities do exist there too occasionally). We have that differential to worry about on the individual film front. The one where the experts tell you the perceived value of your film is far below the actual value. That’s what creates The Differential and that’s what makes it bad for individual films. It’s kind of ironic, right? What is bad for your individual film, is good for all of us together. That is if you can see through all the crap coming our way. We have tools for that.

Want to explore this a bit further? Please. Keep reading, friend. Keep reading. And put on those magic glasses I am handing you now. You have to see through the facade they are projecting; the one they promote to get you to keep conforming. Don’t obey.