Five years and no pay day

The writer of my short film has just had his first feature made. He almost got screwed out of a credit and had to take the directors to arbitration, twice, but at least he got shared credit. It went to Sundance and got rave reviews and now is being released on a thousand screens in August. The trailer is really good and you can watch it here and read a bit about the film. I read this script a couple of times and made suggestions to develop the characters and story, so I was a big fan. The directors, of course, took out the good stuff and made it Hollywood bland but they got the job because they were able to cast name actors like Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman.

See, the studios still control distribution and still rely on theatrical to develop a buzz. They figure it takes $20 million to market a movie and that is the sole determinant for whether to distribute one. Is it worth $20 million? If there are no name actors, the answer is no. If the actors are recognizable but not bankable, like a movie my friend Steve is in called Plumm Summer with William Baldwin and Henry Winkler, the answer is still no. Sure, people know who they are but they won't go to the theaters to see them. It's to the point where no matter what the film or the budget, you better have at least one bankable name in the film or no one wants it, not even for cable.

What happens, then, is independent filmmakers can't make a film without a star in it, shunning their friends - fantastic actors who may have even originated the role - and other talent struggling for exposure. To attract top talent, it can't just be a fun romp, the script has to be really good or different or the characters have to be really interesting; requirements that no Hollywood film has to fulfill. And, the journey is a grueling five years for a movie made with independent financing; Little Miss Sunshine being the pinnacle of success.

Over the fourth, I met a couple - an actress/producer and a writer - who just finished making an independent film. They both spent five years on it and were involved in every detail of production and independent distribution. In the end, it sold and the investors almost broke even but they got no major distribution and didn't make a dime on it. It got rave reviews at festivals and in the press but it doesn't have any bankable talent in it. Now they're talking contingency plans and day jobs and these are two people that, to most of the struggling talent in Hollywood, are "making it." Stories like these make it very difficult to motivate oneself to make a feature.

We've all seen what's happened to film since the acceleration of visual effects. Basically it's all that films are about these days. People going to the theater expect to see something pretty spectacular. You can watch a good story on TV or get a laugh on YouTube but the cinema experience has to be eye-popping and better have one or more big stars. I expected that with On Demand and digital distribution, the field would have expanded. Instead it has contracted. Because all the Hollywood movies are soulless, empty effects extravaganzas, the name talent are starving for more substantive roles. They take the indie parts and push lesser known talent out of the running but still don't guarantee success of the film or the filmmaker. Filmmakers and investors are so worried about making their money back that they don't take risks that might make a better movie.

I know there's a huge demand for independent film. My mom will buy or rent a film from Blockbuster because she likes the cover and the title, even if she's never heard of or recognizes any of the actors. Some of them, she really likes. I read an article recently about how the record industry was digging out all these out-of-print recordings to distribute on iTunes. It said that the low cost of digitizing music made it possible to sell music that is obscure or rare and might have a small audience but they are sales they wouldn't otherwise be making. I was really excited by that; it sounded like the entertainment executives were finally realizing that there is big money in niche audiences. Just like Chris Anderson says that the way to make money on the Internet is to target a meganiche, because point one percent of Internet users is still a million, I think there is money to be made in film from the meganiche audience. So far, though, no one has tapped that potential because the greed and ego in the business has everyone stalking big game instead of catching the thousands of smaller animals running around. Too much work they say.

Imagine something like a game console with a sophisticated interface designed just for this: an On Demand platform just for independent film. Not the Sundance variety of stars in "small" 15-25 million dollar films, but real independent films. We could program our interests, rate films, browse titles, watch trailers, read synopses and get recommendations: It's like Xbox and Tivo met Netflix and Apple Trailers for a cocktail and they got crazy. These films could be $.99 instead of $3.99 On Demand charges for the Hollywood titles. If you don't like it, you could just turn it off. It's only ninety-nine cents! Or if you liked a film by a certain director, you could easily find more. The database would match talent too. If you enjoyed the guy in one film, you could watch everything he's in and rate him.

People think that the reason we don't already have this is because of some technical limitation. It's not true. 2 million people all over the world are playing massive multiplayer online roleplaying games, together, on XBox Live. On Demand is already bringing instant titles to people's TVs and Netflix to their computers. You can only watch one film at a time, so the selection does not slow down the system. The selection is limited because it is controlled by the studios. They don't want you to have more choices, they want you watch their third-rate film that bombed in the theater and they honestly don't care what you want.

If filmmakers could make movies without worrying about name talent and studio distribution, there would be many more stories to watch. They could make movies that some people will love without trying to please everyone. As it is, we're all watching the films that make the biggest box office, movies made for the slow moving masses. I hear people sigh and say that the entertainment industry is a business and that's just the way it is (and that I should stop complaining). But this business, like every other business in this country, is actually operating as a monopoly; the big guys work together to squeeze the little guys out by making it impossible for them to make a living doing it and then force feed us their mediocre product. In some countries, film is considered vital to freedom of expression and subsidized by the government. In this country, we shrug our shoulders and shell out $13 to see the latest superhero movie.