The PC As Marquee:
The New Route to Moviemaking for 21st Century Indies
By Kevin Nickelson
“Everyone who makes a film is at the major distributors’ mercy.”
–John Cassavetes
This has been one quote that has kind of stuck with me over the years. It comes from an interview that he did with Judith McNally for Filmmaker’s Newsletter in January of 1975. He’d just completed a Woman Under the Influence, one of his stellar achievements in a career littered with them. Cassavetes’ comment came in the context of the frustration he was feeling when the biggies refused to pick up his film. He ended up privately financing, with Peter Falk assisting (and even deferring his salary for it) and an $800,000 estimated budget. And the icon self-distributed because he felt, unless the majors fully fund the budget or paid a hefty price for purchase of distribution rights and assume the mantle of risk in releasing the film, he was not going to simply hand over the easy, risk-free task to them.
As difficult as distribution was in those days for someone with the reputation
and name as Cassavetes had, it must’ve been the insurmountable nightmare for the newbie kid who just got their first moving camera and dreamed of that brightly-lit theatre marquee with their name emblazoned on it. For every rare success of a John Landis, George Lucas or Steven Spielberg and their ‘little movies that could’ which found an audience early on, there are hundreds to thousands of others whose failures stand in piles covering the landscape. Cassavetes spoke of a different set of problems regarding making cinema available to the cinema masses, really. Yet his comments really got me thinking over the years since the beginnings of the internet about the impact that online services have in both the production and distribution of film, especially for the aspiring helmer out there who doesn’t have either famous name or immediate access to a giant cash reserve. While there are certainly pros in ample amounts (which I will examine here) there would seem to be some cons lingering as well.
In the decades leading to the tech revolution, much as you had the problems that Mr. Cassavetes details above, you also had the obstacles of a lack of reputation and a contact network so vital to getting yourself in the Hollywood door as the newcomer. The artist persevered by going door to door to every studio in the book, sometimes for a period of years, hoping just one would answer, give you ten minutes for a pitch, and either call security to have you escorted out or give you a contract right then and there. Mailing scripts was similarly an option, provided you had a few hundred bucks for postage and strong will to combat the flood of rejection letters. Now, along comes the internet with the information superhighway in tow. A pathway to getting in touch with the right people just became easier. First, there was email from America Online, Microsoft etc. Then search engines such as Yahoo!, Google, Ask Jeeves and the like. Everyone who could afford a computer now (film studios being no exception) had email and a way for the average Film 101 student to find just the exec or department to pester was born.
It could be argued that the internet has aided young talent in the same way that the birth of the home video market did in the early 80s. Creating a higher demand for product than even the major movie studios could produce and, therefore, giving jobs to a lot of fresh blood for straight to video entries that wouldn’t otherwise have seen the light of day. Without VHS and Beta, would we have seen the likes and successes of the Fred Olen Rays, the Charles Bands or even the Quentin Tarantinos of the world? With a more difficult road to traverse, who knows? Then came the social media platforms of the new millennium like Myspace, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. The time was ripe for anyone with an idea and a digital camera to have their voice heard by production executives. The silence remains deafening in many cases.
While social networks and the online presence have been a boon to helmers, who can now shoot, upload and/or sell their own work via self-created websites or through web giants such as Youtube and other upload sites, problems remain in finding money sources and a ceiling limit to how popular your brand can become persists. How many stories are there of people actually scoring $10,000,000 via kickstarter or Indiegogo to get that killer, singing transvestite nun horror pic off the ground and running? Not many at all (though I’d contribute $100 just to see it through because that would be disturbingly awesome). As freeing as it is to not have to go through studios to find money for a picture, crowdfunding is a positive method that has its limits still. You could end up with a budget of $8000, creating a short film that makes the festival circuit and garners a few accolades and gives you, the creator, something of a rep that resonates mostly within horror chat groups online. Great for the person who is satisfied with keeping their daytime job paycheck and relegating their passion to a sidelight. It’s different if you dream big. And, suppose you luck into a lottery bonanza of say a six figure budget, how do you yet go up against a worldwide force and expect anything close to success? With major companies attacking distribution two-fold by working with television companies for streaming rights at the same time as securing theatre screen bookings across the globe, the struggle is the age-old David versus Goliath. Additionally, you have an over-saturation of product to contend with as more people have DSLR cameras and are armed with their own ideas than ever before.
To try and find some answers to this and shed further light on the subject, I decided to chat with two individuals, each representing a different angle of the indie business and having their own views on the pluses and pitfalls of using the internet to make and sell film.
Peter Angel is CEO and co-founder (with Itai Guberman) of AngerMan Distribution, formed in 2008 to help the independent filmmakers find their audience. Who better to discuss the matter with than someone who sees the risks and rewards of net distribution everyday? On the question of the big studios teaming with streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, combining financing and publicity power and whether its squeezing out the little guys, he was quite frank regarding his concerns. “It is an issue as big names and big budgets tend to crowd out the smaller films. This means filmmakers and distributors need to be more agile, and more creative to get buzz and an audience for their projects. It is also difficult to get viewers to come and watch indie films due to the stigma that they are lower quality when compared to Hollywood productions. While that was somewhat true in the past, it is no longer the case.”
In a tangentially-related side effect of the new tech world, Angel can even envision a point where the future may see movie theatres and multi-plexes becoming quite secondary in importance of selling to the motion picture industry. “Yes, I think we’re pretty much there now. Outside of the biggest 1% or so of films being released, there’s very little chance of a film that’s released at a cinema breaking even, let alone making a profit.” AngerMan, itself, has felt the pinch of the increased competition in terms of financing sources and product that comes with the spread of online streaming, per Angel. “We have found that it can be difficult getting some of our films to viewers. The successful indie films tend to have a great idea and look, a loyal audience, and filmmakers with a strong social media presence that help get the message out about their films.”
I’ve often wondered if entities geared to advocate for and help the indie filmmaker, one such as AngerMan, can do a service of bridging relations between the small creators and the majors such as Universal, Fox and Sony. Angel thinks that may not be likely. “I’m not sure that Universal, Fox and Sony are really that interested in real indie films that don’t have a bankable star or a cliched storyline. Indie films made for niche audiences are very rarely going to make the tens of millions of dollars needed to repay the advertising budgets let alone to make any money for anyone else involved. For this reason I feel that there will always be a need for indie distributors.”
While AngerMan is busy fighting the uphill battle in defense of the new stars on the rise, I still wondered how the struggle looked from the perspective of a young filmmaker stuck in the same quagmire.
Enter actor/writer/director Christopher Wesley Moore, a native of Jackson, Mississippi, who’s been peering behind a camera lens since 2007 and is finding a good deal of notoriety on the festival circuit these days. Moore sees internet as a divided blessing and curse. “I think it’s a bit of both. I still miss the video stores where, even if you ended up picking up something you didn’t like, you powered through it because you paid for it and you weren’t going back again until next week. Sometimes, powering through paid off. These days, if we’re bored by something ten minutes in, we switch it off and find something else. I used to pride myself on my attention span and even I’ve gotten worse lately.” Like Angel, Moore agrees that over-saturation is the ever-present elephant in the room to him and that you need something extra to stand out. “Because the market is so saturated these days, you really have to do something that stands out. Just to get your film noticed, you might need an established actor or a controversial topic or something to set yourself apart from the pack.”
When I asked Moore about the propensity for filmic freedoms that come with hands on creation and distribution of movies on the net, he agreed but offered a quantifier along with it. “It depends on the producers. If you produce your own work, you have free reign and it’s wonderful. You can also bypass the ratings system and all that stuff if you’re going straight to DVD or VOD.” When I queried him about why many studios seem to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the potential of the internet while some like Universal and Fox are on the forefront of embracing the future, Moore looks at it with something of a mix of realism and hope. “Maybe they are still waiting, but I think it’s obvious that this isn’t going anywhere. They’d be smart to go ahead and join. I’d actually say the most exciting stories are being told on platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and even cable TV. The mid-budget drama that used to be so big in the 70’s-90’s rarely makes an appearance at a neighborhood multiplex these days. All these mature stories are going straight to streaming or cable. It’s fascinating.” And this gifted youngster does not subscribe to the notion that cinemas will soon disappear. “I think movie theaters will always be around. Some movies demand to be seen on opening night with a hungry crowd of fans. I think that’s why these studios keep making big budget action and comic book movies instead of these lower budgeted character driven movies.” He does feel that there is an unfair stigma assigned by many to low budget pictures. That they are built better for desktops and the tv screen due to their intimacy in scope. “I don’t always believe that and I think studios should chill out on the big tentpole movies for a bit and get a bit more diverse with the projects they choose to produce.”
In the end, there is no shaking away the inevitable. Social media, websites and streaming platforms are here to stay when it comes to resource for the budding camera folk. It’s easier to produce and provides both more creative free license and a clear avenue to reach your fan-base. Yet the battle for funding is ever more fierce and the ceilings on profit and fame remain daunting as ever. If there was ever a time for big investing and banking entities to swoop in as the superhero to save the day, it is certainly now. True art in motion pictures can only be emboldened by the variety of choice that occurs when independent and mass market property are on the same viewing palette. Thank goodness for the efforts of Peter Angel and Itai Guberman with their AngerMan Distribution and Guberman’s myindieproductions.com, a website dedicated to the furthering of dreams of the indie artist (of which I am proud to be a writer for and member of). Kudos also to Christopher Wesley Moore, one of the brightest stars in the sky today. Check Chris out online for the latest on his works like Blessed are the Children or the very promising Triggered, which is making the festival rounds even as I write this. Keep up the fight, guys!
