alexbakshaev wrote:

---

Even if a fraction of this beautiful prediction comes true, we're in for some great discoveries!
Sit back and enjoy the face of modern film changing...

I've been writing about it for quite some time, now, in various venues. I don't see how the proletarianization of filmmaking (let's call it) could fail to produce all sorts of discoveries. The DIYers have already produced some amazing results. A lot of crap, as well, obviously, but that's true with anything.

Believe it or not, when I write about this, I'm often met with outright hostility. Not because my enthusiasm wrongly strikes many as naivete (though I do gt those sorts of comments, too), but mostly because people think what I'm promoting is a cinema made up of a lot of low-end junk ground out by talentless, untrained hacks. I see what's happening now as an opportunity to recapture some of the indie spirit that existed in the U.S. prior to the early 1980s, when film was relatively inexpensive, there were plenty of funding sources for someone who wanted to make movies, and, with plenty of distribution venues like the drive-ins, indie theaters, etc., you had this incredible flowering of talent turning out these remarkable movies all over the country. For a few years, there, even Hollywood fell into the hands of what were essentially independent filmmakers. That ended at the close of the '70s and beginning of the '80s--all the physical distribution venues went under, the funding sources dried up, the cost of film skyrocketed, and the new corporatized Hollywood took over again, and that's where things have mostly stood since. The one brief effort at an indie revolution began in the late '80s, and ended in the early '90s with Hollywood coopting the movement. I've never understood why anyone would prefer slickly produced shit to something that, while maybe roughly produced, is interesting, but that does seem to be the case for many. I think I need to write about some of the individual no-budget films that have already been made; do some work to show some of the naysayers that DIY doesn't equal POS. You wouldn't think I'd have to with some: It never ceases to amaze me that so many people who will say I'm promoting the creation of a lot of rubbish will, when asked about their favorite movies, offer lists that include things like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and half a dozen other films produced during that previous era.

---
"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/

bobmonel wrote:

---

The thing is, as you say, that Hollywood always wants to co opt innovation and imagination into the mainstream. I think the real problem in the present system of film exhibition. Two of my favorite films of recent years DIARY OF THE DEAD and INLAND EMPIRE couldn't get wide distribuiton. And they are great, innovative works by major American artists.

I was particularly surprised by the failure to give DIARY a wide release. LAND OF THE DEAD, which wasn't nearly as good, had 8 times the budget, got a wide release, and was quite successful in its initial run (and later did well on DVD).

Theatrical exhibition isn't the way movies make money any more, anyway, though. DVD surpassed it as a revenue source several years ago. DVD makes even self-distribution a potentially profitable exercise, particularly when you're talking about no-budget flicks. Direct downloads are going to be a big source of revenue for such features, as well. The beauty is that most of them won't even really need to make any real money. If they never make a dime, one isn't really out anything. This removes a lot of pressure from filmmakers.

I worked for 10 years as a mainstream film critic, from 1971 to 1981, but that was a better time for American movies.

One of the best times for American movies!

But I share your enthusiasm. I'm just a bit more guarded.

Great movies can be made for very little, if one is clever and has the resources. I've been looking at a lot of small-scale (not just low budget) films lately, just taking them in. TWO SMALL BODIES is a great German production starring Suzy Amis and Fred Ward, and their pay was probably the biggest expense. It was just two actors, one set. Very good movie. HARD CANDY, from just a few years ago. Two actors, one set (and a few incidental exteriors). Fantastic movie, if you haven't seen it. Even something like 12 ANGRY MEN has 12 actors, one set. They're all extremely talented actors, of course, but if you could find people to competently play those parts who were willing to work for little, you could make that movie for next to nothing.

Right now I'm writing a script for a no-budget film which is designed to defy all the rules of screenwriting and present mainstream short attention span filmmaking.

My likely first project is also going to be a challenge for the deficit-disorder crowd. I think it's a myth that movies have to play to the ADD crowd anyway. Something like THE SIXTH SENSE, for example, would have proven excruciating to anyone without an attention span, yet it played forever, and made a bloody fortune.

I once submitted a script to Paramount Pictures to be told "people wouldn't understand it."

Ha! At least you got a response of some kind!

bobmonel wrote:

---

I think that there will indeed be more room for no-budget visions across all these venues, as you suggest. The thing with me is that after making movies on 8mm, Super 8mm and 16mm, I tried to make a 16mm experimental/horror feature in 1973. It was very much like FEMALE VAMPIRE, complete with the cape and a scantily clad bloodsucker in misty (local) graveyards. I was not aware of Franco at the time, btw. After spending about 5K I ran out of money for completion shooting and post-production. I estimated that would cost another 5 to 10K. I simply couldn't afford it.

Five grand was serious money in 1973, but still a mico-pittance for a feature. Film is an extremely expensive medium on which to shoot. On the budget level at which you were working, the costs associated with it were probably by far the single biggest expense, right? The good news is that the thing which, more than anything, has enabled the coming DIY movie boom is the development, in only very recent years, of quality professional video equipment, and its availability at a relatively low cost (anywhere from $1,300 to $4,000, depending on how fancy you want to get). And it's a one-time expense. Minus the equipment costs, the (admittedly very rough) budget figuring I've done on a few of my projects comes to a few hundred dollars, and two of them are costume period pieces! Of course, it helps to know a lot of people, and be able to get things for free. I haven't been able to put together the money to get started because of a string of luck so bad, no one would believe it if I told them about it in any detail. I'll get there, though. (I've been out of work for a year, now--I've been shooting music videos for hire and selling some of my writing to keep from going completely under)

I still have the footage in storage, probably unusuable.

Did you get the actual film in the can? If you have the footage shot, or, at least, enough of it, finishing it is the easy part, these days, thanks to more of those technical innovations in the intervening years. You can have the footage transfered to digital, and edit it on your own computer.

I decided I didn't want to self-produce so I switched to writing scripts and plays, several of which were produced. I wouldn't invest my own money again. Having investors is a consideration. But even 10K is a lot for me and I wouldn't want to risk OPM.

I've been adamant in refusing to seek out investors or incur any debt on my first few projects. Probably stupid--it's the reason I haven't been able to get the first off the ground yet--but I insist that I own the final product free and clear. That avoids complications in actually doing something with it later, and it also means I can sleep at night without some big Damoclean sword hanging over me. A well-off girlfriend of mine even offered to fund the endeavor more than once, and I turned it down like an idiot. Maybe not like a complete idiot, though--she later dumped me. The equipment really is my biggest expense, and we're only talking a very few grand, here. I've designed the pictures around locations and people I have readily available. Something that really surprised me--but probably shouldn't have--is how people, when they hear what you're doing, will just come up to you and volunteer. A lot of them will work for nothing, or for very little, just to be a part of it. You get some less-than-useful "help" in this way (if people work for free, you often get what you pay for), but it's usually little trouble to separate the wheat from the chaff, and there's an abundonace of wheat when its over.

Didn't the makers of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (which I liked very much, btw) end up making a more expensive follow up which bombed? Where are they now?

Dan Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez had, as I understand it, very minimal involvement in the studio-produced sequel. They've been in the news lately, after the success of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY; they're trying to get a sequel of their own design off the ground.