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Truly Free Film

Indie Film in South Africa Part 2

By Jon Plowman

How do you turn your passion for film into a profit? How does one take all that experience built up on non-paying indie projects, and turn it into a career? I’m glad you asked. Welcome to the second part of a two-part article on indie filmmaking.

It seems to me that a lot of filmmakers are chronically losing sight of a very simple fact: there has been a total revolution in the film industry in the last few years.

Categories
Truly Free Film

Indie Film in South Africa Part 1

By Jon Plowman

Ted asked me for this article last year. I agreed, because there are a couple of important points I’d like to put out there to encourage filmmakers in the same kind of position as I find myself. But before I could actually get around to writing the damn thing, I found myself retrenched. That’s “laid off” to most of you. I lost my job. Yeah, you know the one I mean, the one that actually pays the bills while I work on movies. My boss gave me a sob story about how he couldn’t afford to keep me on because the business was struggling. He has a wife and two small kids, and his business was their sole income. I couldn’t blame him. We feel the global recession here just as keenly as the US or Europe. So there I was, out on the street with R150 in my pocket. To put that in perspective, R1 = US$0.15, give or take.

Welcome to life as an indie film maker on the southern tip of Africa.