Let’s celebrate! The prospects look good for a lot of smart money to be available again for appropriately budgeted indie films. The key now being the “appropriately” part of the equation.
The days of Machiavellian moves to maximize an limited audience art film’s budget seem thankfully over — and as sad as I will be to seem some friends’ films become obsolete, I smell another golden age brewing. Filmmakers and investors seem to have both embraced the “less is more’ ethos. Expect may more films to be made in the lower than $5M bracket, and far fewer indie works in Mark Gill’s former sweet spot. The large indie finance companies of 5 years ago, had to make films at higher budget levels in order to justify their overheads and salaries. Those companies have crashed and so did the silly models of $20M art films.
The Film Biz is coming off two consecutive extremely robust film markets. Toronto 2010 saw almost 30 deals close during the festival. Sundance 2011 exceeded that mark. Surely there were quite a few deals done post market too (I have not seen any reports to track this; let me know if you know any). Coming off of two years where the prudent would not expect anything for US rights, this an exceeding positive change. With a well produced and well positioned films, investors can reasonably hope to recoup — and then some. Now the challenge for producers will be to be disciplined enough not to allow the budget creep to return.
There are other factors, beyond the sales market itself, that heighten my optimism. The [...]
Earlier this year I proposed what I saw as the five most critical questions for someone to answer in order to have a fulfilling and sustainable career producing films. I went on to list out eighteen more. I think the answers to these questions don’t have a right or wrong answer; they should be profoundly personal. Yet I also think it is very hard to answer these questions on your own. Frankly, I think the answering of these questions should be part of any film school curriculum — but I am also not sure that film school is a necessary component for all producing careers. Anyway, I thought it might be helpful for those considering this path to have someone try to answer these questions. Today that someone is me.
Producing benefits from having addressed certain moral and ethical challenges before they actually confront you. Hell, what field or way of life doesn’t? I have encouraged the consideration of some of these “challenges” before in virtual party game manner, but I do think it is always worth considering. I think it comes down to the questions of “what do you value?” People? Money? Principles? Property? And how much do these matter to you?
If you’ve set your values — or at least have a firm handle on them–, if you then seek to make the product of your labor (i.e for a film producer, your movies) reflect your values, you will be on your way to still feeling good about what you are doing twenty years from now. Essentially this is the “Know-what-you-care-about-and-reflect-that-in-your-work” approach. But it alone is not enough to carry you through the twenty years. It is the content driven approach and you will have to also consider the process and the environment you inhabit to stay satisfied.
To feel as good twenty years from now as you do today (and that is assuming you feel good today of course), it is not just [...]
Two weeks ago , I offered up five of the most important questions I thought producers needed to answer to get a movie made and to have a pleasing life in this crazy pursuit. But how do you stop there at five? I promised 18 more, and well, how’s this for a list?
6. How do you earn a living and sustain a career doing what you love?
7. How do I determine if someone is truly worth collaborating with?
8. Why will someone choose to collaborate on a project?
9. Why will someone choose to collaborate with me?
10. What do I want from a partner? [...]
What do we need to know before we make movies? What do we need to know to make movies well? Are there questions that we can answer so that we have a sustainable and rewarding career? Answers are hard to find, but so are the questions.When we identify the questions, whose responsibility is it to declare the answers?
I have a list. I am sure it will continue to evolve. Let’s start it off with the top five, and move on to more in the days ahead. I look forward to your contributions.
1. How do I make sure that in twenty years I will feel good about the choices I make today?
2. What are the qualities of better films?
3. How do you establish trust & confidence?
4. How do you make a project seem inevitable?
5. How do I make sure all the collaborators all want the same thing, all have the same agenda, and are trying to make the same movie?
On Feb 2nd, I promise to have another 18 questions (at least)for you, but I thought these were the most important. I would be happy to publish the answers here.
The NYTimes Sunday Magazine has a must-read article on my former Good Machine partner James Schamus. The author, Carlo Rotello, does a thorough job on the difficult task of capturing most of the complexity that makes James someone that is fun to collaborate with: he is not easily defined, has many interests (sometimes conflicting), and enjoys deeply both the process and the product. People so often look for people they get along with to collaborate with; I think that is is mistake. Harmony may work in other types of relationships, but in a creative one, it is a formula for mediocrity. If you truly care about the end result of your work, you should look for someone you enjoy arguing with to partner with.
Rotello sums up our Good Machine partnership by defining David Linde as the business mind, Schamus the intellectual, and me “Hope, an advocate of radically decentralized media democracy, was the revolutionary;”. I like how that sounds, but what really worked at Good Machine, and in other creative relationships, is when people can argue clearly and without ego for what they feel will make a story work best. Trust is the next most required ingredient in a successful partnership, quickly followed by a willingness to accept that you may not be right (that non-ego thing again). [...]
I get asked this question a lot: “What is the hardest thing about being an indie film producer today?” It is worth doing a much longer post on, listing all of the problems we all face. But as I said, I get asked this a lot, and I don’t think they are looking for 75 or more answers (I have those up here and here). Usually folks are looking for the short answer. This is that answer, or rather at least, how I answered it today.
The pay has dropped significantly while the job description has increased ten fold, and the demand for both services and advice have increased even more. We producers are expected to (and must) source and develop new material, package it with talent, put together a production plan, and then find a way to finance it. Of course we have to execute those plans at the highest level possible, all the while dealing with the unique personalities that flock to indie film production, but we are also expected to then put together a marketing plan, distribution strategy, social media outreach organization, and festival plan – and probably raise the funds for all of that (or figure out how to do it without funding). We need our own community built from the start and we have to provide them with meaningful contact, satisfying information and content, and the opportunity to collaborate together. On top of all of that, most of this is not a science and the workable business model for indie film in this day and age has not yet evolved and certainly has not been shared. To just discover the tools for this requires more hours than there are in a day. Oh yeah, and we don’t get paid for any of these endeavors until the full film is financed – and then we are asked to reduce our fees regularly. The only way to survive is too work on some many projects simultaneously, you are unable to give each project the attention you want. And I did mention that most of the folks that you collaborate with along the way adopt an approach that they must be your top priority at all times?
Not that I am complaining. It is a good life (just not a good job). I am not building widgets (well, okay I am building widgets to help, but I am not JUST building widgets).
That’s the short answer. For today. And check out the replies to this question on my Twitter feed & FaceBook page(s). A lot of good conversation out there. We can build it better together.
Okay, so the traffic is sometimes louder than the dialogue, but hey, this is Indie! I had wanted to partake in this interview that David Poland did at TIFF this year. There was only one hour when Christine and I were both in Toronto though, and it took a bit longer to close the SUPER deal than I had anticipated. Christine and David paint a pretty good picture of what things are like for indie producers these days.
9/21 Update: Seems like the link I found for this kind of jumped the gun. It came down as I was watching it. I assume David Poland will post soon on the MCN website. And hopefully the video will work again. Hope hoping here…
Update 9/21 #2: It’s up on MCN, but I can’t embed it for some reason
This site could not have been built without the help and insight of Michael Morgenstern. My thanks go out to him.
Help save indie film and give this guy a job in web design or film!
