I feel like the core idea has issues, when viewed in the larger context of what's going on in the market. Here's how I see the indie film market. There's this huge number of people, and we're all dealing with this same puzzle, to which there are obvious solutions. Here's the crux of the issue. In art like many other things, value is determined by rarity. So Indie films as a whole are approaching or at zero dollars default valuation. Anything common, derivative, predictable, or in short, anything that looks like a copy of what the last 10,000 people did is going to have no value.
So let's go back to that finance/creative puzzle that everyone identifies in their first few years as a filmmaker. What's the biggest problem? You don't have funding. That causes cascading failures in almost every single aspect of the filmmaking process. I could give examples all day, but the point is, this is where we are faced with "solving the puzzle"
Here are the top 10 most common attempts to solve low financing
1. Use local actors
2. limit the settings to places you own, or local locations such as bars or parks
3. Talk about things you are expected to show as an alternative to SFX work
4. Try to market your product organically
5. "Decide" that only the parts of the film you're focused on actually matter, in spite of the fact that the audience is widely known to favor a more balanced approach.
6. Imagining sound design and music choice as a minor part of the film
7. Having expensive things happen off screen, with characters reacting to them as though they had seen the thing.
8. Not producing a trailer, or producing a weak trailer as an afterthought rather than an integral part.
9. Making a short film, while imagining some ladder of talent scouts leading to a feature as a result of the short
10. Developing mental bias toward available talent, and vastly overestimating their draw (local band with a lot of posters up in your town is going to draw in a netflix audience, Uncle who guest starred on Dallas once as a box cover draw) You see this all the time on indie film sets. "He was the guy standing behind Willow in the 28th shot, and Lucas Directed that, so we're basically using the same caliber of actors that were in Star Wars"
So you'll notice that some of these ideas are good ideas, and they make perfect sense. Ironically, that's exactly why a vast majority of films following this type of logic fail completely. Since these are the obvious paths, millions take them, and inadvertently produce ten thousand nearly identical outputs per year, devaluing films based around these strategies similar to how currency can be devalued by dilution.
When an indie film does make it, it's often due to a fluke aspect, and money, such as Napoleon Dynamite, Borat, or Jackass. They aren't actually good films, they just contain something people want to see, such as a comedian's brand of humor.
The main thing to remember is that less than a fraction of a percent are winning at this game, and that if you want to be 1 in 1000, you absolutely cannot repeat the same ideas everyone else is using, it doesn't matter if they are good ideas. It's a counter intuitive situation, where if you're on a paved road, you're already going the wrong direction. The goal is to stand out from the pack, and that can't be achieved by repeating the same steps we've seen people take thousands of times. Think outside the Box. A expertly shot nature film about a beehive might produce better results than a Bruce Willis action film where it all takes place in your Garage.
Ultimately, times have changed, and fortune will likely favor those that can best adapt to the rapidly changing technology, market, and saturation of content.
Lastly, I think a key aspect of film is that it feel unrestrained, unlimited. You should never see restrictions, or it's wrong. Never try to do something that you can't actually accomplish, and then accept a degraded version of that, just so you can say you did the thing you imagined, because you didn't. If I thought It would really impress people if I could jump 10 feet in the air, I'd probably be right about that, and it would feel right. When I discovered that I could realistically only jump 3 feet, I wouldn't plow ahead with the "Amazing Jump Tour", or build a box to stand on. I'd find another way to entertain the crowd, something that I could execute without having to visibly cut corners. Bottom line, the last thing you want to do is compromise. The film "City in the Sky: Anatomy of a Beehive" wouldn't require anywhere near the compromise that the 1 million dollar action film would.
This movie was successful and well respected - the guy made it in his back yard basically, but no compromise. It's a good movie.
This movie had a much higher budget, but was about 85% compromise by volume, it became a laughingstock, at 10x the budget of Microcosmos. Team 1 made a humble and inventive film perfectly, Team 2 made a much more ambitious film very badly, which team to you think people remember favorably?