I agree with almost everything that's been said, but names aren't the whole story. If we look at major chain, global cinema released films then it certainly is. Hollywood owns that market
However, in many genre films names aren't as important and it's certainly possible to make very profitable films without them.
We expect to make a significant profit on our first feature, even though it's an arthouse film and it has no names in it. We'll do this because we've keep costs down to a minimum, but at the same time we've made sure that the production values are very, very high.
We've shot on High Def and are releasing just as the High Def TV market is really taking off and there is a global demand for High Def product.
We've made sure that we've not compromised on any of the key areas, script, acting ability, format, cinematography, sound, music, post production. So now we've got a film that looks like we spent $1.5 mil and yet we spent much less than that.
A film like Whale Rider has no names and yet has done great global business. The Australians have been turning our great, no name films for decades.
As indies we look too often to Hollywood for our model and yet there is a larger global market for "good films." Sure it's a TV/DVD/Arthouse cinema market, but a real one none the less.
It seems to me that there is a balance to be struck in this market. There isn't enough return in this market to recover the cost on a $6 mil, 35 mm, no name film and on the other hand, distributors are sick of being offered no budget, low end format mini dv movies.
This is the reason that I believe quality Hi-Def film making is a revolutionary tool for the indie film maker. Especially with Avid Inferno coming into the market place and driving down Hi-Def post production costs. In fact, there is already a cheaper way of doing professional post on Hi-Def; shoot on Hi-Def, transfer to digi-beta, online edit and colour correct on Avid Symphony and then copy back up to Hi-Def. You retain the Hi-Def look, the costs are much lower and you have good enough resolution for most of the primary DVD/TV markets. We haven't gone down this route, but I've seen some great results from doing this.
The point I'm trying to make is that the english speaking, American DVD TV Cinema market, is just one part of a much larger, much more complex market place. There is a place for indies turning out script driven, cinematography driven, arthouse driven products and providing we understand the realistic returns ($0.5 mil to $2mil) and budget accordingly, we can be profitable in those markets.
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