01 Mar Film Fund-amentals: Hollywood and the Indie Spirit

It is really getting to be more and more difficult to tell the difference between the Oscars and the Film Independent Spirit Award presentation. OK, there are some differences. For one, two-time Spirit winner James Franco seemed more animated at the Spirit Fest than he ever appeared during the Oscar broadcast (though I’ve heard that his backstage tweets during the Oscar show were engaging).

Otherwise, they were all pretty much the same movies and the same players. This is ironic, since the Spirit Award is the prime showcase for low-budget indie cinema while the Oscars are… well, nobody actually remembers any more exactly what the Oscars are for, and they’re mostly held every year because of all the fashion designers who need someplace to display their wares. That and providing Kirk Douglas with a safe place to cruise.

Despite the fact that these two award shows represent polar opposites in the film industry, they have merged into some kind of conjoined existence. Oh sure, the Spirit Award show has a livelier and scrappier approach (including the odd way they start handing out awards before the program even starts). Nobody can accuse the Academy Award show of ever being lively. The event this last Sunday was (as usual) over-produced, over-stuffed, and thankfully, after three long hours, finally over. At its best, the Spirit Awards have a sense of spontaneity that the Academy rigidly rejects. Maybe that’s why many of the people at the Spirit Awards act as if they are really enjoying themselves. At the Oscars, a lot of folks appear to be sneaking a peak at their watches.

So it seems that indie filmmaking is hot again (kind of) in Hollywood. Even Variety is insisting that the suits are all looking at the low (and lower) budget structure as a major new direction. Gosh, just two years ago the major studios were closing down their indie shops and announcing that the future would be a limited slate of big over-the-top productions. So why did they change their tune?

Actually, they haven’t. Not exactly, except for the odd way most of the major Hollywood studios will often try to go both ways at once (and any way in between). For a brief moment it almost looks as if the majors have just discovered the virtue (and value) of making smaller movies with stronger scripts. But the Hollywood production slate is still crowded with blockbusters, sequels and remakes. Budgets for many movies are still spiraling out of control (the real budget for many of these films is reaching past $200 million a pop) and the studios remain largely focused on the male teenage audience despite repeated demonstrations of the commercial limits of that market.

The only difference now is that Hollywood basically realizes that this game plan isn’t working, but they’re so used to working this way that they simply can’t stop. In fact, many in Hollywood seem almost proud of just how dysfunctional the system is becoming as they double-down on everything that hasn’t worked. Charlie Sheen and his out-of-control craziness isn’t really such an anomaly out there. Heck, he’s almost nutty enough to be running a studio.

So the situation for indie movies is only slightly better now than it was a year ago (regardless of what Variety says). Back then, the suits were largely telling indie filmmakers to screw off. Now they’re inviting a few to come over for a quickie with a possible stay over (if they behave). But don’t expect any breakfast or coffee in the morning. And no matter what, they’re not calling you back the next day. I’m not saying there’s no future for indie filmmaking in Hollywood. It’s the other way around. There’s no future for Hollywood in indie filmmaking, because Hollywood just doesn’t get it.

That was the main thing on display Sunday at the Oscars. This was supposed to be the hip Oscar show for a younger and more edgy demographic. Of course it fell flat on its face (and dropped in the ratings from past presentations). All that got displayed was the extremely limited bubble that currently dominates Hollywood. The result was a slightly strange meandering through various layers of disengagement, occasionally punctuated by brief bursts of minor narcissism. Billy Crystal acted as if he was one of the few people on stage who knew what he was doing, and he was mostly trying to get back off stage as fast as possible. And he isn’t even part of the demographic they were trying to attract.

Which suggests to me that the indie cinema doesn’t have to worry too much about Hollywood one way or the other. Over the past several years, indie filmmakers have been exploring alternative methods for financing, production and distribution. In many respects, they were forced to survive in a strange new land. In the process, many indie filmmakers have begun developing new systems of funding (for example crowdfunding and other approaches based on various micro-financing systems) and new ways for digital distribution. Everything is in flux, and somewhere within the apparent chaos of these various alternative models, a new system is emerging.

Meanwhile, Hollywood stays fixed on a top-down management system that is largely connected to an out-of-control business model. The decentralized nature of the digital revolution baffles many studio executives who view the Internet as a threat in need of congressional fixes to bring it under corporate control. They are still convinced that they own the future and seem deeply perplexed by their own inability to predict anything beyond yesterday. Though they control most of the system (technically as well as financially), they are no longer so sure that the system itself will last. The failure of the digital revolution to produce a hit is their only solace. Privately, they have convinced themselves that it will never happen.

Oh by the way, there is now a hit. Granted, it’s a self-published ebook, not a movie (and the publication industry is in much of the same state as Hollywood – heck, it’s mostly the same companies). But the first hit digital movie is coming, and it’s coming much sooner than Hollywood cares to think. It is an historic inevitability.