by Lynnette Porter.

“Question me an answer, if you please. I will answer with a question, clear and bright!” This lyric by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for 1973’s Lost Horizon echoes game show host Alex Trebek’s perhaps more familiar Jeopardy! instruction, “Answer in the form of a question.” Asking questions, providing answers, and then formulating more questions based on those answers is more than basic communication—it’s an effective marketing strategy for independent films.

When audiences and filmmakers can ask questions of each other and discuss a film, everyone wins. Distributors and indie filmmakers have learned this lesson well, as evidenced by a growing number of Q&A sessions held during film festivals or, ever more frequently, after screenings at neighborhood theaters.

The competition for moviegoers’ dollars is fiercer than ever in a tight global economy, and the gap between “big” and “small” films’ promotional budgets continues to widen. Studio-backed blockbusters have the money for promotion across all media and the clout to get onto multiple screens at cineplexes almost anywhere in the world. “Big” films generate lots of publicity during preproduction and filming, as well as in release.

The public knows months in advance which films they likely will see; recent Super Bowl commercials for The Avengers, for example, ensured that a high percentage of the game’s television audience—not only millions in the US but worldwide via satellite or Internet—received an impressive first glimpse of the Marvel characters coming to theaters this summer.

Read the rest of this article from Pop Matters.

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by Lam Thuy Vo.

I’ve recently started looking into the world of independent documentary filmmakingin an effort to understand how so many filmmakers figured out a way to make a living with long-form storytelling. One thing is for sure: Most successful filmmakers I spoke to also are savvy business/sales people.

It was very interesting to get a glimpse into this world, mostly through the FilmShop and the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, two collectives I am part of. As a journalist, the divide between the ad sales department and the editorial side was as holy as anything could be. Here, filmmakers were writing proposals for grants, setting rates for their film screenings and speaker appearances, and working out ways to get funding from advocacy groups and corporations.

Here are a few things I think we could learn from our filmmaking colleagues.

Read the rest of this article from Journalists.org.

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by Michelle Kung.

The word ‘collective’ may evoke 1970s hippie counterculture, but in the independent-film community, it’s helping to get movies made.

A new generation of filmmakers in their 20s and 30s are forming affiliated groups—with names like Court 13, Blue-Tongue Films and Borderline Films—to produce modestly

Instead of focusing on their own projects exclusively, filmmakers join together and pitch in to help their colleagues. At least four collective-produced films were bought out of the Sundance Film Festival last month, including the award-winning “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

Filmmakers have long worked collaboratively. In 1919, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and others formed United Artists so they could produce and distribute their own films. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, social causes drove the Amber Film and Berwick Street Film Collectives. A focus on bare-bones, special-effects-free storytelling was at the core of the Dogme 95 group, with director Lars von Trier, in the late 1990s and 2000s. But today’s film collective are spawned by economic pressures.

Read the rest of this article from WSJ.

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by Ted Hope.

Until the double whammy of Toronto 2010 & Sundance 2011, it looked like the US acquistion market for feature content had fully collapsed.  No reasonable P&L would have shown more than a modest six figures for US acquisitions.  Hybrid & DIY models have not been developed yet to consistently deliver returns in excess of this amount (or even at these figures).  Perhaps this is now changing, but it would still be foolish for any filmmaker or investor to expect this and we can’t budget for such expectation.

How many of the 7500 films produce in the US annually return 20% of their negative cost from US licenses?  Although it puts emerging filmmakers at a great disadvantage, I think the surest determining factor for predicting US acquisition potential is the filmmakers’ track record.  If you have found buyers previously, you are well suited to find them again — and even still exceeding that 20% is the exception and not the rule.

Read the rest of this article from Truly Free Film.

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by Ted Hope.

This past Wednesday I screened Andrew Haigh’s WEEKEND for my HopeForFilm/Goldcrest Screening Series.  It is a truly romantic film.  It may be a gay love story, but in it’s tale of a one night stand that could become something more, Haigh’s has tapped into a longing and hope that I never feel in any corporate filmmaking and is entirely universal.  It makes me wonder if when creators are forced to think first about the market, if their work will be deprived of love and romance.

Read the rest of this article from IndieWire.

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from Ai Insite.

It takes guts to make an independent film. Unlike big budget studio flicks, independent films are self-financed with the hope that they’ll be picked up for distribution. And while working in this industry may present unexpected challenges, independent filmmakers see it as a true labor of love – one that allows them to create visionary pieces that create buzz and capture audiences’ imaginations.

“Independent films have the freedom to work with niche content without worrying about answering to an investor. This is why indie films have a stereotype of being controversial and experimental,” says Eve Okupniak, department chair for Digital Filmmaking at The Art Institute of New York City.

Story, characters, and craft are the three areas that make an independent film stand out from the sea of films being made, she asserts, adding that successful movies contain characters people can relate to.

“Filmmaking can be compared to a large puzzle. There are several thousand pieces that make up the whole picture,” Okupniak says.

Read the rest of this article from AI Insite.

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This article was written by Dan Seitz.

“I’m a filmmaker, and have been for more than a decade. Seriously, I’ve got an IMDb page and everything (it’s less impressive than you think; they’ll give those things to a dog). I spend sickening amounts of money on gear and graduate school. And at this moment, I’m as qualified as anybody else to say we really are about to see doors open to artists who never would have been able to afford filmmaking, and also open the floodgates to a tidal wave of crap unlike any outside of sewer workers playing with dynamite have ever witnessed.”

Read the rest of this article from UPROXX.

This article was written for Free Web News.

“Hollywood has had a stranglehold on movie making since the early 20th century but since the late 60s more and more mavericks have taken independent film making to greater heights. Movies like Putney Swope and The Graduate were innovative when they were first released and paved the way for future generations of independent film making students and directors.

Who can forget the young, fresh-faced Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate? This movie not only introduced us to Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft but also brought us the great song from Simon and Garfunkel Mrs. Robinson.”

Read the rest of this article from Free Web News.

This article was written by Neal Tolani.

“I have devoted a significant part of my life’s work in support of the independent artist — independent referring not to the size of a project, its funding or subject matter; rather, to the singular vision and voice of that artist. I founded Sundance Institute 30 years ago out of the belief that it is vital to ensure that the artist’s voice remains vibrant, valued and heard in civil society at large.

It is with this in mind that I ask you to join me in bringing wider attention and broader support to a critically important case currently in play in U.S. courts.

On May 6, 2010 Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered filmmaker Joe Berlinger to turn over to Chevron Corporation all raw footage — some 600 hours — from the making of his documentary, Crude: The Real Price of Oil. Chevron has sued to use this footage to bolster its legal proceedings in the very same case that is the central subject of Berlinger’s film. The potential ramifications of this for the journalist community, film world and society in general are both shocking and profound.”

Read the rest of this article from USA Trends.

This article was written by Kidane Mariam.

Haile Gerima, the internationally acclaimed director of Teza, Adwa, Bush Mama and Sankofa, hosted a discussion on the challenges of independent film-making last week here in New York.

The public discourse was part of a series of events designed to promote the release of Gerima’s latest film Teza.

The Q & A session, moderated by Tigist Selam, was held on Wednesday, April 7, 2010 at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute.”

Read the rest of this article from Tadias.com