HD For Indies

Join a Revolution. Make Movies. Go Broke. - New York Times

...is a brutally honest Telling of The Tale.

Most movies lose money.

Most movies don't even recoup their original investment to even break even.

A LOT of good, interesting, artistically interesting movies that do well on the festival circuit don't make a dime.

This is the story of Arin Crumley (24) and Susan Buice (27), who sank more than $75,000 of their own money, credit card debt, and their parents' money into making and showing "Four Eyed Monster" at a bunch of festivals.

I met these two people, the actors and stars one and the same, and talked to them at SXSW.

I saw this movie, I like this movie, I was blown away by the audacity of this movie, flaws and all.

But it isn't going to make them a dime it looks like.

Read this article, my friends, if are thinking you want to make a movie.

If you still do, God bless you and protect, because you'll need it.

I'll support you, I'll help you, I'll give a lot of free advice on the blog, but for a lot of folks if you call or email me asking for help I'll ask for money, because I too wish to keep a roof over my head. I've said it before and I'll say it again -

for projects that offer me a learning opportunity, or a chance to try something I've been meaning to get around to (aka use your project as a guinnea pig), or I think is Just Cool, I'll get involved and help out for free. But if I've already done one like that, or it doesn't float my boat, I'll ask to be compensated for my time. Because I'm in this for fun, but I'm in this first as a business to support myself. I had a producer dance the line with me the other week saying "We're in the film business. For the 20 year olds saying they should be getting paid more on a film, I say you're getting paid, and that's better than most at your age. You're in the film business, be happy about it." That attitude scares the hell out of me, because frankly, I'M NOT IN THAT BUSINESS. Or at least, I certainly don't want to be in any business that says I should be happy and lucky to get paid baloney sandwich wages to take part in. And the producer was perhaps (not sure) implying that I should be in that boat too, and I refuse.

I want to see more cool movies get made, most assuredly. I think digital is a great way to do that. If you are reading this, you've probably been here before and seen my earliest posts about WHY to go digital, and seen the reviews, tests, FAQs, etc. that I've given to the community because it was fun, interesting, and also a way to get my name out there. I want to help filmmakers achieve their dreams and visions with HD For Indies and the services we'll be rolling into the market - it looks like it is working, we appear to be booked well into January solid at this point, with more services to follow beyond just color correction of SD, HD, and film originated material.

I'm in this to make a living assisting others make movies, and hopefully make art.

I think about Four Eyed Monsters, and how they did something really honest, really brash, really interesting and amazing and Of Our Generation, not some watered down filtered version like You've Got Mail. They tackled real world issues of today's emotional landscape in a way that frankly, most commercial films wouldn't. I thought about this - if they'd removed the section on Topic Y, it would have been a more marketable film. But it would have been less honest, and decisions such as that would swing it away from something with a tentative claim to Art towards something more towards Commerce and Entertainment. And as a filmmaker, you need to be very clear about which you are doing. Do you want to tell your Story, or do you want to make a Good Movie. It is a Great Thing when you can do both, but very very difficult and rare to achieve. For the most part, I'd say pick one, and live with the consequences of that decision, may God (whom I don't believe in) have mercy on your soul, since either path has serious challenges for the soul at hand.

OK, that's harsh, but that's as real as I see it.

Other than that, come on in, we got a special this week on coloring documentaries...

OK, back to the article. Some good pull quotes:

Sydney Pollack, the director - who has served as a creative adviser at the Filmmakers Lab of the Sundance Institute -said a price must be paid for democratizing any art. "The minute everyone is allowed in, something changes in terms of standards of excellence," he said. "I don't know whether that is good or bad."

And Geoffrey Gilmore, director of the Sundance Film Festival, warned that tales of overnight success can have a negative effect. "One of the problems with the Cinderella stories is that they create enormous expectation that people come out of the box fully grown," he said. "Filmmakers are not allowed enough time to enjoy a sense of growth."

---
What makes the independent film landscape particularly treacherous, though, is that most independent pictures are either self-financed or backed by individuals who've staked their own cash - and are left holding the bag when, as in the vast majority of cases, the movie turns out to have no commercial future.

Even without a distributor, "Four Eyed Monsters" is hardly an epic failure, if a failure at all, but the situation is dire for its creators. "My parents are really supportive of the creative lifestyle," Ms. Buice said. "But they're not rich people. They are middle class. It's causing problems at home. They like the movie but they are really freaked out by the financial situation. They're constantly on my case. 'Are you eating?' 'Did you pay the rent?' 'Did you pay your taxes?' My mom is very concerned about the credit-card debt."

...and what I consider to be the most astute and realistic quotes in the entire article:

"Media is not completely democratized yet because distribution is not a democratic thing," Mr. Crumley said. "We're looking at other ways to make our movie available in these different formats so that word of mouth can take over where we left off."
....
Ms. Morse, who lives in San Francisco, feels some creative people today are too fixated on using film to tell their stories, particularly in a climate where finding a distributor is so tough. "You need a reality check that a lot of people aren't getting," she said. "There are lots of other ways to get your story out there. Right now the convergence of media is moving so quickly."


Ya gotta be realistic about the odds of distribution. I've been misquoting the Sundance stats, instead of 2000ish submitted and 100ish shown, it was actually 2600 submitted and 120 shown according to this NYTimes article. And of those, what, maybe 10 or 15 got any significant distribution? I hear tell that the hot movies are already known to be snagged going into Sundance etc., the screenings are just further media and verification of critical acceptance at that point.

So get realistic about what future your film has. This is NOT AT ALL to say don't swing for the stars if that's what you think it should be. But also consider the paths of cable, direct to DVD, web download, or even podcasts for some material.

And scale your efforts - personally, I'd rather do something small & simple and do it really well rather than something overblown that I KNOW going in I'm going to have to stretch thin on and do a crappy or even mediocre job. Nobody longs for mediocrity - we want to watch greatness. So do something great, but small, is my advice.

Is this entry an essay, a review, a scolding, a recommendation, a sales pitch, or what?

I dunno, man, it's just a blog, and that's the beauty and the curse. It's just what I'm thinking tonight.

But despair not - there's also this article in the Times as well talking about how entertainment spending is zooming up amongst consumers. There's always new opportunities, and more than one way to present your masterpiece to folks in a way that they pay for it. There's theatrical, sure, but also DVD, cable, sattelite, internet download, PPV, video iPod, PSP, Netflix, Amazon, etc. etc. etc.

-mike

(and Adam and Susan, I hope you find a way to find a market for Four Eyed Monster. I really do, I fervently wish you the best of luck on this that you really did so well on)