Is the indie film market dead?

Not really but its definitely not the same as it used to be.

Technology is both the gift and the curse of Independent filmmaking. On the one hand its easier to make a movie than ever before. But on the other the market is flooded with product. Much of it amateur product by people who dont always speak cinematic language.

Not get all high brow. I like a good gross out comedy as much as the next guy. But bad movies can (not always) lessen the value of other films. Imagine living next door to a crackhouse. Might mess up the property value a bit.

So where does the Indie Filmmaker stand these days….. unless you have the elements that the money players are looking for (name talent, easily marketable element) Its boiling down to film festivals as a start and then self-distribution. Instead of counting on a distribution company to pick up your film you’ll do better to watch your spending ahead of production and keep control of your film rather than turn it over to the small distributors expecting to make any money.

The harsh reality for the small distributors is it can cost them alot of money to properly market a film without any guarantee of its success. And with the tremendous amount of product in the market they are counting on having a library of films, not just one. to recoup their cost. Hopefully a film breaks out and becomes a hit but they’re not going to gamble on it up front with a money advance like they used to. In fact money advances are practically non existent unless you are playing with the big boys.

That leaves self distribution. Having tried my hand at self distro, I can tell you its not the easiest road in the world but there is some profit to be made.

Case in point we distributed a concert DVD by Karen Gibson Roc about a year ago. The DVD’s were created in house in our small facility and we managed to move a couple hundred units. But we never really built up the head of steam neccessary to make the product a huge success. I used my jack of all trades mentality designing most of the art myself and outputting all the product. And since I was only printing as needed there was no loss of money just profit on each unit sold.

You can accomplish the same thing albeit more tediously with a single disc home set up and some good design software or by marketing your film yourself thru an on demand publisher such as Create Space.

I’m just scratching the surface on indie distribution and there are many other sources of information out there. I’ll impart what I know in a few articles on this site in the near future.