Film Directing Tips, Film Making Articles and Online Resources for the Independent Filmmaker » indie filmmaking

The Sundance Dream: A Guide to Independent Filmmaking

Peter D. Marshall — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:19:55 +0000

by Chandra Steele.

Every town has gone a little Hollywood this month. Cinemas are packed with theatergoers wanting to see esteemed Oscar nominees and this week’s Sundance Film Festival previews what could be the next gleam in their eyes.

One of the Oscar favorites, Hugo, is an uncommonly gentle film from Martin Scorsese that’s a love note to those who go to the movies and also to those who create them.

Whether it’s a recent fancy or a long-time fantasy of yours to make a movie, now’s the time. Most filmmaking tools are low-cost (or even free) and easy to use. Here’s what you’ll need to create everything from the opening scene to the end credits.

Read the rest of this article from PC Mag.

Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get the first 30 pages of my 220 page Film Directing Multi-Media Online course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar.”

Making your own movie? Indie pros offer their advice, encouragement

Peter D. Marshall — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:59:46 +0000

by Matt Soergel.

When Patrick Barry was in high school at Bishop Kenny, in the dark ages of the late 1990s, filmmaking was his passion, though it wasn’t an easy one to follow.

“But I guess we just did it,” he said. “You got your friends together, got to the thrift shop, found the funniest costumes you could and built around that.”

Not many amateurs were making movies back then, he says, and no wonder: Shooting and editing on bulky video camcorders was awkward, time-consuming. Then converting that video to film, so your work actually looked good when you showed it to an audience, was way too expensive.

He’s 30 now, still making movies. And things have changed greatly since the dark ages: The number of today’s budding filmmakers is “absolutely, without a doubt” booming, said Todd Roobin, head of Jacksonville’s film and TV office.

Just consider the advantages offered to them, after all: Digital technology makes shooting, editing and distributing your film far easier than the video and film cameras of the past.

Read the res of this article from Jacksonville.com

Shrewd handling of indie films yields real profits

Peter D. Marshall — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:55:58 +0000

by Adam Dawtrey.

Time and again, independent filmmakers around the world claim that without Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and their team at Sony Pictures Classics, there would be no market in the U.S. for their work.

Barker and Bernard are known for being frugal in buying and marketing their movies. With a tiny but long-serving staff, they have made consistent returns for 20 years in the toughest arthouse niche, which has kept them in the game when others have come and gone.

Their low-cost model gives auteurs from home and abroad not just an aud, but also a real chance of seeing profits.

Read the rest of this article from Variety.

Edward Burns, Director of Newlyweds, on the Changing Face of Indie Film Distribution

Peter D. Marshall — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:57:33 +0000

from The Daily Beast.

Ever since his 1995 directorial debut, The Brothers McMullen, which grossed over $10 million at the U.S. box office on a budget of just $23,800, Edward Burns has been at the fore of cutthroat,low-budget indie filmmaking. With his latest film, Newlyweds, released Dec. 26 on video-on-demand, the director opens up about how independent film distribution models have changed, and what it means for the future of indie moviemaking.

Sixteen years ago as a film student at Hunter College, I made my first movie—The Brothers McMullen. While film technology has made rapid leaps and bounds since then—I shot my most recent film on a Canon 5D—the method of exhibiting indie films theatrically has seen little change over the years, and it is still as difficult as ever for independent filmmakers to reach a sizable audience in movie theaters.

Read the rest of this article from The Daily Beast.

Documentary filmmaker finds distribution through Woolworths

Peter D. Marshall — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:14:09 +0000

from Encore Magazine.

A first time feature documentary maker has struck a deal with Woolworths to distribute his film. Woolworths will stock DVDs of Australian Joe Cross’s healthy living documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead in the produce section of its supermarket.

Cross’s story is the opposite to Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me. As an overweight broker, Cross sold his company and used a roadtrip across America with a cameraman, sound guy and a juicer as a way to get slim. While eating and drinking only fruit and vegetables Cross aimed to discover why people didn’t eat better.

Cross told Encore: “I did the deal directly. Woolworths are supporting the film as their view is this is a film that inspires people to eat more fresh food and they’re the fresh food people.”

Read the rest of this article from Encore Magazine.

Adventures in Filmmaking: Making a List, Checking it Twice

Peter D. Marshall — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 12:26:03 +0000

by Kim Voynar.

Last time on Adventures in Filmmaking, I told you all about the awesome crew we’ve lined up to shoot my short film, Bunker, and promised that I’d write another journal entry about the art design and such. Then things got a little busy, what with going off to NYC a week before my shoot, but I thought I’d take a few minutes out of my day to catch up on this before I disappear into the netherworld of last-minute pre-production and shooting for two 12-hour days this weekend.

One of the things I see lacking on a lot of low-budget indie films is production design. I was reading an article in Filmmaker Magazine about how the economy and budget crunches are affecting below-the-line spending and how art direction is one of the areas taking a hit with this, and how more and more filmmakers are using their own furniture and such in their production design to save dollars.

Certainly this has been the case with Bunker. We’re spending a lot of money on this film, for a short film (and we’re still looking at doing a crowd-funding thing to help defray some of our post costs, even though we’ve managed our expenses as well as I think we could have while getting the level of crew experience I wanted), but when it came down to the bottom line, I felt like I needed to focus our spending on those areas in which I have zero experience or knowledge (all the tech stuff, basically). If I wanted to get the best folks for those jobs, something was going to have to give.

Read the rest of this article from Movie City News.

Things I learned while co-writing “Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul”

Peter D. Marshall — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:51:42 +0000

by Sheri Candler.

Some may be aware that I have co-authored a book that is about to be released in a couple of weeks. It is a a book of case studies on recent independent films that have taken the road less traveled to the market and the cases run the gamut regarding subject matter and genre. Few of these films took the tried and traditional route of selling all rights to a distributor and hope they treat you well, pay a good upfront minimum and send regular revenue checks and accounting statements.

Most used either a hybrid approach to distribution (retained some ownership control over their work by splitting up rights with the most qualified distribution partners and reserving the ability to sell it themselves), a DIY approach (did not sell any rights to the work to outside distributors and have complete control over selling it directly to audiences) or distributed it for free using the global internet. They also used online tools and grassroots efforts to reach their target audiences rather than over reliance on large advertising and publicity budgets to get attention.

Though I didn’t write all of the chapters, I was part of the vetting process in choosing the cases. One of the main qualifiers was the ability to report numbers. We felt that there have been many books devoted to film distribution theory and deal brokering, but not many that dove deep into the revenue results and the budgets those results were based on. We were determined to get that information out as it is most useful in making business decisions for producing a film.

This resulted in many cases refusing to participate from the beginning or dropping out at the last moment, leaving us scrambling to replace them. I am proud to say that we believe we have accomplished our goal or providing independent filmmakers the world over with a useful resource about the current landscape of film distribution on which to base their business decisions.

Without further ado, here are 5 things I learned while writing this book

1) Myth and secrecy are rampant in the film industry. No wonder no one knows the true state of the industry or what to base their decisions off of! Filmmakers won’t talk (or their investors won’t let them) about how much is spent making their films because they are trying to get a sales agent or distributor interested in buying it and paying as much upfront as possible, but how can anyone possibly know what is achievable and what is fantasy?

Secrecy in the industry is probably not really a revelation to you, but by holding back information in the hope of sales that mostly aren’t materializing, it keeps anyone from really knowing what budget level films should be made at if recoupment is part of the plan. Solid decisions, both by filmmakers and by investors, can’t really be made if no one knows the truth, both about the budgets and about the profit.

2) A realistic budget level for indie films. In order for an indie film using a hybrid or DIY strategy to see recoupment and possibly more, the production AND marketing and distribution budget must stay low. Based on our case studies, that number is below $200,000. Films that went over this budget level were far less likely to recoup within the first 2 years of release, none of the cases over this amount in the book have recouped in full yet.

3) Marketing and distribution are the production’s responsibility and must be part of the budget. Many of our cases did not plan or budget for taking on this expense from inception and were caught in that familiar scene of thinking a distributor would be found and scrambling to make a plan and raise more money to implement it when low offers or no offers materialized. Over and over again our participants noted they could see now why it was important to think about this work, they remarked on how big of a job this is and that they would need to get some help on board much earlier in the process, and why a clearly defined audience was important to maximizing their efforts at reaching them.

4) Financial gain is not always the main goal. This was particularly true for the subjects of my chapter who are using file sharing sites to distribute work. Most of them were first time filmmakers and mainly they are interested in reaching the widest audience possible for the least cost and building names for themselves that could be used to get attention from the industry. Publicity and word of mouth play a huge part in this. Most of the time when filmmakers say they want to reach the “widest audience possible” what they mean is they want to make the most money possible.

Those 2 things do not always go hand in hand and it is especially so for complete unknowns. For filmmakers who have very little financial resources to reach wide audiences, it is better to spend as little budget as possible to make the content and spend a lot of time engaging with audiences and figuring out how to cost effectively distribute the work.

5) The importance of research before you sign with anyone. With the internet as pervasive as it is, there is no reason not to do your due diligence before you sign a contract, including research on sales agents and distributors. Don’t just rely on a company website to inform you of their reputations or a few media write ups of some well known films they handled. Really take the time to contact a cross section of their client accounts and see if you are getting the clear picture.

You should also know what all the terms of your contract mean and don’t be rushed to sign because your big premiere is happening. If you have someone on board who is solely responsible for the marketing and distribution of your film, have them get samples of contracts and really understand what you will be agreeing to, what you can negotiate, how you can terminate if the agreement isn’t being followed and how to protect yourself should the company go bankrupt.

I am proud to say that I believe we have accomplished our goal of providing independent filmmakers the world over with a useful resource about the current landscape of film distribution on which to base their business decisions. I can’t wait for everyone to read it.

Written by The Film Collaborative’s co-executive directors Orly Ravid and Jeffrey Winter in association with filmmaker/author Jon Reiss (“Think Outside The Box Office”) and social media marketer Sheri Candler, “Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul” will be released September 13 via Apple iBooks, followed by Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, a printed edition and free ePub version. The book is supported by Presenting Sponsors Prescreen and Area23a Movie Events and Official Sponsor Dynamo Player. Find it on Facebook and follow the hashtag #syfnotsys on Twitter.

New film pact helps Canadian independent producers deal with major networks

Peter D. Marshall — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:08:06 +0000

by Brian Morton.

A new national film deal is being praised for redefining the relationship between independent producers and broadcasters.

“This agreement solidifies our control over our production, so it helps us sell our product in Canada, internationally, and across different platforms,” Vancouver producer David Paperny said about the new Terms of Trade Agreement between the Canadian Media Production Association and five private English-language broadcasters in Canada, which took effect Aug. 1.

“It makes us a stronger company as a result,” Paperny is owner of Paperny Films, which specializes in documentaries and lifestyle programs for television.

The agreement is a new tool that standardizes business practices and terms between broadcasters and producers and applies to the entire life cycle of hundreds of independently produced shows commissioned by Astral, Bell Media (CTV), Corus, Rogers and Shaw Media.

Read the rest of this article from Vancouver Sun.

Are Indie Filmmakers Slave Drivers?

Peter D. Marshall — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 12:29:48 +0000

by David Geertz.

So you’re planning on producing an independent film — good for you, join the club. You are now officially a Slave Driver.

Before I begin this post I’d like to state that this post is mainly precursor of a series of posts to come for filmmakers and backers who see film as both an art form and an enterprise. An enterprise that pays skilled people a living wage, and provides an opportunity for those who fund those endeavors a chance at seeking a return on their money, while providing the needed funding for best and the brightest to continue to push boundaries within the moving image.

Let’s play a numbers game first before we dive into this post. Here are some assumptions that I am going to make on your behalf about your unmade film stuck in development hell.

Read the rest of this article from Hope for Film.

Crowd sourcing funds new independent film

Peter D. Marshall — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:50:31 +0000

by Jimmy Graziano.

A local film-making troupe in Buffalo is working on a project that is not only being filmed in the city, but it is also being funded via crowd-sourcing.

The film which is being titled Granted received its funding through local contributors and social media with time to spare. The funding goal on IndieGogo was to reach $6,000, but the group raised $6,400 with a stunning 45 days left in their schedule to raise money.

Read the rest of this article from Buffalo 123.