Well, this is pretty damn fascinating:
When “The Age of Stupid,” a climate change movie, “opens” across the United States in September, it will play on some 400 screens in a one-night event, with a video performance by Thom Yorke of Radiohead, all paid for by the filmmakers themselves and their backers. In Britain, meanwhile, the film has been showing via an Internet service that lets anyone pay to license a copy, set up a screening and keep the profit.
The glory days of independent film, when hot young directors like Steven Soderbergh and Mr. Tarantino had studio executives tangled in fierce bidding wars at Sundance and other celebrity-studded festivals, are now barely a speck in the rearview mirror. And something new, something much odder, has taken their place.
Here is how it used to work: aspiring filmmakers playing the cool auteur in hopes of attracting the eye of a Hollywood power broker.
Here is the new way: filmmakers doing it themselves — paying for their own distribution, marketing films through social networking sites and Twitter blasts, putting their work up free on the Web to build a reputation, cozying up to concierges at luxury hotels in film festival cities to get them to whisper into the right ears.
When things have collapsed, as they have in the indie film world over the last several years, you’ve got to adapt to survive. And leave it to a screenwriter to lead the way:
“Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” a documentary about a Canadian metal band, turned into the do-it-yourself equivalent of a smash hit when it stretched a three-screen opening in April into a four-month run, still under way, on more than 150 screens around the country.
“I paid for everything, I took a second mortgage on my house,” said Sacha Gervasi, the film’s director.
Mr. Gervasi, whose studio writing credits include “The Terminal,” directed by Steven Spielberg, nearly three years ago, began filming “Anvil!” with his own money in hopes of attracting a conventional distributor. The movie played well at Sundance in 2008, but offers were low.
So Mr. Gervasi put up more money — his total cost was in “the upper hundred thousands,” he said — to distribute the film through a company called Abramorama, while selling the DVD and television rights to VH1.
The aging rockers of Anvil have shown up at theaters to play for audiences. Famous fans like Courtney Love were soon chattering online about the film. And an army of “virtual street teamers” — Internet advocates who flood social networks with admiring comments, sometimes for a fee, sometimes not — were recruited by a Web consultant, Sarah Lewitinn, who usually works the music scene.
The idea behind this sort of guerrilla release is to accumulate just enough at the box office to prime the pump for DVD sales and return the filmmaker’s investment, maybe even with a little profit. “Anvil!” has earned roughly $1 million worldwide at the box office so far, its producer, Rebecca Yeldham, said.
All hail Sacha Gervasi. Here’s someone who almost literally put his money where his mouth is for Anvil!. Sure, he made good money on The Terminal and is probably still pulling in some nice residuals and royalties on it, but actually putting your house up as collateral to self-finance the self-distribution of a documentary film about an aging rock band hardly anyone has heard of? That’s some serious stones.
At the risk of dating myself, I remember as a kid living on Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, how every so often some outfit would show up with a film projector and a big screen, set up their equipment in the school gym, and screen a movie. I seem to remember most of the films were family movies, set in the mountains involving kids and wild animals. The outfit must have paid money to rent out the space, put out word locally, and whatever the take was, that had to cover their costs. Then move onto the next backwoods town, presumably one without a movie theater.
Even back then, owning the IP was a big deal.
One of my favorite topics Scott. That which I predicted a few years ago, shooting my mouth off to friends and family…
The localization of the major arts.
The music biz is, for all intents and purposes, dead. They missed the boat on everything in the name of greed and it cost them. What stands in its wake (besides really bad FM radio) is localization. Bands thriving and surviving on a regional scale.
I see this happening with film. Not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but it's coming. And nothing could make me happier.
The BIG OPENING WEEKEND mentality is gonna' bite Hollywood in the ass hard. It's a broken, severely flawed business model. You can quote huge Transformers 2 box office all you like but ONE money is gonna' feed the beast? I think not.
Remember the 90's and early part of this decade when it was all about FACE? Jim Carrey, Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson? Now, those actors are all taking pay cuts because the studios know they can't hinge their films on those faces. It's trickling down from there.
And I love every minute of it.
And what is the ONE state in the union that's utterly, completely financially vanquished? Slap on an Austrian accent and say it with me kids… "Callyfonia!" Since Hollywood and the golden state are so inexorably linked, it only goes to reason that filmmaking, both pro and otherwise, will start to look elsewhere for a viable place to do business.
It's a really neat time to stand back and watch all this. I think we're at or nearing a historic turning point.
Even if it means projectors and screens in your local gymnasium!
Yeah, Jeff — on the one hand, it's great. On the other, a lot of people in California are hurting.
But I think there's no mistaking the fact that Hollywood is killing itself, and better get hip quick or see itself swept aside like the record companies were. The creative equivalent of "think globally, act locally" is here, and the internet only makes it that much more viable an option.
Hence my plans to produce some of my own stuff in the very near future…
Luzid…
My cavalier attitude towards California's plight are directed solely at the entertainment industry. I can't imagine what it's like trying to get any sort of support for critical government social programs out there right now. Very sad.
I imagine we'll see a reverse Grapes of Wrath soon, this time with the wagons headed eastward.
Jeff, I got that much — some of the people hurting and now needing those programs are industry folk. That was kind of my point.
Believe me, when you're on the outside like we are it's very tempting to herald the downfall of the studio system — especially when you're banging so hard on the gates to break through. But the truth is that California, and this country, needs the revenue Hollywood creates.
Indeed.
Point taken.
The last thing I would want are the craft services, IT admins, receptionists, drivers, electricians, and carpenters to suffer… (especially since I've been each one of those at some point in my life!)
Going back to Scott's post, I guess my real joy is to see the marshaling in of a new and improved distribution network for the arts, one more creator controlled than corporate controlled.
We're definitely in agreement on that last point, Jeff. I personally feel that screenwriters not owning their i.p. is a travesty — and something that needs to change in the future. No studio ever sits in front of that blank page, afraid that no matter how many times you've done it before you may utterly fail this time around.
Technology is both destroying the old system and creating a new one. Quite a time to be alive and creative!