Comments on: Film Fund-amentals: Is the Party Over?

By: Ariel Wapnir

Ariel Wapnir — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:10:24 +0000

The business has been crying wolf since I got into it 2o years ago! But Bill Mechanic ‘s speech was right on the money…for there is always opportunity for good ideas to get made. When compared when I was in the business and the only way to get something done was either pitch/sell to a Studio or Production Company or raise the money to make it on your own via foreign presales and/or friends & family…today at least you have the tools to create and the avenues to promote your project online!

By: John Larrabee

John Larrabee — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:04:05 +0000

It would appear that the over spending Hollywood studios have been doing for decades is catching up with them. There is so much fat at the studios and incredible overhead, that it’s a miracle any of those films make a profit. The indie sector is filled with many companies and filmmakers who are making a profit at lower budget levels and foreign markets. Buy low, sell high, that’s how you make money. Not the other way around. And the internet is making very little money if any. That distribution platform is still developing and should not be blamed for losses other than piracy. People will always go to see movies, whether in theaters or at home. The demand and need will always be there. The market just needs to adjust itself and business sections (and blogs like this) need to consider the other portions of the film industry, the ones you don’t read about in the NY Times, and stop lumping all “indie films” into one big studio basket for comparison. Indies are streamlined and efficient due to necessity. Indies are not just films like “The Constant Gardner” which are uber high risk to begin with. Indies produce many genre films, you know the ones that actually do make money successfully, and are scooped up by studios for distribution platforms. Studios adopt the over spend on tent pole films, and thing they have a better shot at profit- when it’s just a bigger risk – toss of the dice and the returns have to be enormous to profit. It’s time Hollywood purged itself, and might as well join the rest of the planet in the same demise.

By: Anne Turley

Anne Turley — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:42:12 +0000

I like what you say about the indie films paying the bills, but isn’t it more of the same, we are being asked to do more and more for less and less? Or am I not getting something here?

By: guynoir

guynoir — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:39:34 +0000

Just because the major studios are cutting back smaller films and their more “indie” arms doesn’t mean indie films are done. There was, if you hadn’t noticed, a global banking collapse that began about a year ago and is far from over. THAT has impacted indie film production way more than consumer viewing habits. Getting the financing is just not as easy as it once was, combined with the fact that people don’t have the disposable income to spend $30-50 (for two, with gas, some popcorn….) at the movies a couple nights a week.