2001 -
"It's all well and good to have all these great new avenues for distribution, but if nobody knows it's there what good is it? People will just log on and watch the same old crap the studios have been pushing."
Amen.
Throw in audience fragmentation to boot, and... It ain't good.
Speaking of the same old [studio] crap, I just watched
NEVER LET ME GO, which had a striking similar feel to it as
MONSTERS.
Lo and behold, it has endured
a similar distribution and audience reception as the latter despite glowing reviews at prestigious film festival debuts as the latter.
The following sensible summary-quote of
critical analysis may haunt my budding film making career for a while:
Now, I know there's some mealy-mouth, back-peddling Monday morning quarterbacking going on there, but if they knew it was going to have such an uphill climb why didn't they pass on it to begin with? Let Lion's Gate pick it up.
Pfft. Executives. Hacks.
In the full article there's a comparison to
WINTER'S BONE which also has this "downer" feel to it and is also excellently shot/acted/edited.
I've attended enough sidewalk art festivals to know much of the supplies sold from Hobby Lobby will eventually be thrown out, destined for the municipal landfill, decades later by adult children and adult grandchildren when someone goes off to the nursing home.
Certainly the tools for making beautiful looking (and sounding!) films have broadened the opportunities to play the game. I'm just not interested in making something destined for the curb.
I hope you guys understand my prudence and appreciate your patience as I pick out planets and comets amongst the stars moving about the night sky.
"I was at an indie screening recently in Portland..."
It's painful to consider how common that likely is.
Screening after screening across many countries and many weeks and many years.
And then consider the 39 for every 40 that never made it that far.
Or the 249 for every 250 submitted at the larger festivals.
And even those features that screened well - and - got distribution - and - commercially still went nowhere.
Salmon eggs.
Sonny -
"Buyers for theater chains are a lot harder to find than anyone. They have such a sweet deal with the traditional distributors "
Yeah... That's a tough phalanx to break through, isn't it.
"Realistically, a true "indie" without any kind of studio backing will find themselves really hurting if they attempt a theatrical run..."
God, I wish I was naïve enough to rebuke that. But...
"It's a bad bad scene out there for DVD and indie films at the moment. The majors aren't faring much better. They just have the law of averages to win out the profit margins. They aren't making nearly the cash they did a few years ago."
Yeahhhp.
All true, I'm afraid.
You are a pragmatic businessman, I see.
"I guess that means I should get angry and upset and take my ball and go home."
Ah, one ball.
Hate that testicular cancer.
Bummer.
