I guess I misunderstood. When you said quite a few people you know
personally, in your circle, have had great success I thought you meant
people you knew personally - not just people you have spoken to.
Right. That's probably the wrong way to say it in regards to the online distro thing. Those people are more peripheral. The right thing to say is I am aware of and have talked to a number of (10 or more) people, that I have kept in communication with and had conversations with, that have done the online distribution thing with success ranging from some to great.
As far as distribution in the traditional sense, I do know people who have become friends in a lot of different places that've had successful distribution within the last two years. At least two of them I worked on personally in different capacities, some of them very close friends have worked on or DP'd, produced, etc. Those people I'd consider a circle.
So my bad, wrong term.
I'd be shooting for traditional distro models before online, personally, but both are viable options.
I’ve seen terrible movies with poor acting, sound, photography find an
audience and make money. And I have seen wonderful movies in
festivals that didn’t find an audience and didn’t make any money at all.
I am not as convinced as you that making a great movie is all it takes
to find an audience and make money. Marketing may come into play.
Word of mouth (what people say after they have seen the movie) will
sink a bad movie, but good marketing might get people to watch a bad
movie. And I tend to believe a great movie will not find an audience
if it is poorly marketed. That leads me to believe that marketing is
important to the success (making money) of a movie - perhaps even
more important than making a movie with great acting, story and
production value.
I'm not saying marketing isn't important, but I am saying that the product is just as important as marketing.
So let me ask you, Kholi; have you never come across an
independent movie that is very good and was not a success? Among
your circle or people you have spoken to or associated with, are
there no very good movies that didn’t find an audience at all? If
so, why do you think those films did not reach a paying audience?
I haven't. To be dead honest, I seriously have not come across any "very good" no named low-to-no budget features that are very good and have not had success.
In my peripheral, nearly everyone I know who's done a feature has found moderate to serious success and are going into their next project, some beginning this year, some next.
Not all of them were very good. In fact, most aren't good at all, decent at best? But, nearly all of them have a pretty decent look, large cast, and are targeted very specifically at a paying demographic.
The most monetarily successful ones have been Christian Films, the second Sci-FI with lots of VFX, the third Creature Feature/Monster Horror. I've even got a friend who's got a sizable advance for all rights waiting for her for a slasher gore feature she just finished out of her effects company, if she can get the rest of it in order in time. And, me personally, I didn't think that gore stuff still moved but I guess it does.
It probably goes without saying that very very very very few of them (two at most) are straight-up comedies or dramas. Off the top of my head I know like two people who are doing that (non christian films) and have secured respectable distro through small channels that are focusing on VOD.
They also looked pretty good, and are now one of them's kickstarted their way into 50K from those people that liked his stuff and is working on his next feature. It's more genre oriented, which is pretty cool.
ANyway, that's why I'm more optimistic, because--like I said, in my peripheral--I'm seeing more success than not. The only caveat is that these people didn't pop up thursday and sell a movie on Saturday, they've been at it much longer than I have.
In the end, I just don't see enough no-budget, no-named indies that are worth paying ten dollars for in a broad sense, and then these features lack a very strong target audience. You could get away with murder if you create a feature aimed at a demo that'll pay for anything that's oriented in what they like.
And, I also know that no one sets out to make something that looks bad or sub-par. The reality is that not all filmmakers are created equal, and not everyone has the ability to go to that level. I think everyone can learn how to do it, though... it just takes a long time and a few teammates.
