Stop wasting time & first feature film

Michael LaVoie · January 24, 2017

I think everyone looks at crazy situations like Blue Ruin which was a case of someone begging borrowing and risking everything including allowing his wife to empty her retirement fund all for a movie with no stars and no guaranteed distribution. They ran up 6 figures of debt and Sundance said no. By some miracle it was viewed by someone at Cannes and accepted. Then picked up for worldwide distribution.

That's what everyone who self finances hopes for. Having seen Blue Ruin, I will admit it's an awesome flick. Would I risk it all to make that? Yeeesh. I don't know. It's definitely a crazy gamble.

There are safer bets. 2 examples that fit most definitions of "indie" would be Like Crazy and Your Sisters Sister. Both have respectable names and both were made for under $300k and both grossed over 10 million when you add in the VOD revenue. The PNA costs on both films were half a million. Well over the cost of the films. So it's fair to say that the investment is really the marketing of the movie. Not the actual movie. And the only way to market it is to have some kind of on camera talent that has a draw and fan base.

If you lonewolf it and make a Blue Ruin. You are relying entirely on the strength of the script and director and hoping that your unknown and unseen actors can really bring it. It's a HUUUUGE risk. But it's what our original poster seems interested in.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Michael LaVoie

Bruce Greene · January 24, 2017

To Mendes (the original poster) and all new filmmakers:

I've been in the business for a while...

I know indie film producers and filmmakers who make a living, and sometimes a very good one, making films from $100,000 to $5,000,000 budgets.

It is possible, not just for Richard :)

Of course, it's not easy. It's not just making a good movie. It's being a business man/woman, promoter, showman, impressario, and also filmmaker. If you don't have all these personality traits, then you'll need to partner with someone who does.

In the long run, relationships with talent (stars and future stars) seem to matter the most.

And to build these relationships, you'll need to be a filmmaker. You have only one life. If you desire to be a filmmaker, just find a way to do it. If you fail, you will have just lost money (hopefully someone else's!)

Stop promoting your self doubts here on the forum and start promoting your project! Good luck!!!

Tyler Purcell · January 24, 2017

Well technically any film made outside the major studios is an "indy" that's what I mean.

Technically "indy" means, the finances have nothing to do with distribution. They are "independent" and the filmmakers can go wherever they want to go.

Phil Rhodes · January 24, 2017

If you lonewolf it and make a Blue Ruin. You are relying entirely on the strength of the script and director and hoping that your unknown and unseen actors can really bring it. It's a HUUUUGE risk. But it's what our original poster seems interested in.

Then he's crazy.

Stuart Brereton · January 25, 2017

I know indie film producers and filmmakers who make a living, and sometimes a very good one, making films from $100,000 to $5,000,000 budgets.

It is possible, not just for Richard :)

I know a few as well. They make a very tidy living turning out TV movies in the $300 -$500k range. They hire name cast (not huge names, people either still on their way up, or people on their way down), and shoot each movie in 12 to 15 days. They make 6 to 10 movies a year

Phil Rhodes · January 25, 2017

I can only assume they're fairly simple movies. The preproduction alone would kill anyone.

Stuart Brereton · January 25, 2017

They are fairly simple, and often formulaic movies, but the point is, it can be done, and done profitably.

JD Hartman · January 25, 2017

I think everyone looks at crazy situations like Blue Ruin which was a case of someone begging borrowing and risking everything including allowing his wife to empty her retirement fund all for a movie with no stars and no guaranteed distribution. They ran up 6 figures of debt and Sundance said no. By some miracle it was viewed by someone at Cannes and accepted. .

A cash incentive perhaps?

Keith Walters · January 26, 2017

Kickstarter has not liberated as much of this as I'd hoped, possibly due to catastrophic oversubscription of complete bilge.

P

Which is pretty much what word processors did for book publishing....

Same ol' same ol'; the people at Sundance et al are perfectly well aware that there are young people out there with refreshing new ideas and the drive and passion to make them into interesting and even financially viable movies despite the limitations of their budget, but who can't be arsed trying to rise above the logjam of mediocrity, ineptitude, execrable vanity and knuckle-dragging stupidity that characterizes most wannabe film makers.

I had 15 years at Panavision and Cameraquip, sitting through some of the most nail-screeching-on blackboardly-awful, über-cliched, abysmally-acted, cretinously-written, putridly-directed, and moronically-edited GARBAGE, that people inexplicably managed to scrape together the finance and resources to produce.

Earth to Wannabes: A student film is meant to demonstrate to interested parties that you have the talent, industry and skill to rise above the limitations of the media that you can afford; it's not meant to expensively document your utter incompetence, insufferable vanity and complete indifference to reality.

Keith Walters · January 26, 2017

They are fairly simple, and often formulaic movies, but the point is, it can be done, and done profitably.

Apart from commericals, that sort of production was pretty much rental houses' bread-and-butter.

I occasionally used to have to go on the set of US movies being made in Sydney, and I often used to wonder who the hell watched that rubbish, until one of the production guys explained to to me. It seems that cable TV companies in particular have a voracious appetite for anything that is "new". Basically if you have anything that is not obviously the work of amateurs, is reasonably watchable and is about 90 or so minutes long, you'll find someone with a programming hole that needs something like that to fill it. Each slot doesn't pay a huge amount, but there's an enormous number of such holes to fill, and it all adds up.

I generally found these sorts of productions more pleasant to visit, because if you could come up with anything that helped them get the job done more efficiently or produce a better result, they were almost pathetically grateful.

Too many beginners want their first production to be another Citizen Kane. If they set their sights a bit lower and tried to make something that looks more like one of these schedule stocking-fillers, they'd have more chance of getting a foot in the door with one of these "McDonalds" producers, which would provide a possible pathway to more prestigious work.