We "cannot in good conscience encourage you to pursue our profession". Breaking down this statement from the Art Director's Guild & embracing the thought that one day no one will want to make films.
The greatest export America has is its culture: our movies, our music, our books. What happens when we stop making art & therefore being relevant, interesting & influential to the rest of the world?
I’ve been thinking a lot about why many of us choose this often punishing, unforgiving and unrewarding profession. Why we stick with it year after year, trying to make it work, and especially now, when it feels like we’re all going down like the string quartet on the Titanic, playing for people who are not only not listening, but who are trying desperately not to sink themselves.
And the headlines everywhere aren’t good:
Yikes.
With all these warning bells, why in the world would anyone do this to themselves?
For me personally, the desire to make films stems from a deep love of storytelling, shaped during my formative years. I know it’s different for everyone, but I knew what I wanted to do with my life when I was a kid and have worked ceaselessly over the years to pursue this passion, first as a performer, then as a writer, and now as a writer / producer applying my 20 year background in marketing and PR to indie filmmaking.
In my bones, I know that as much as I resisted developing a skillset in marketing and PR (all I wanted to do was create, damn it!), it’s been the thing that’s carried me through and gotten me to where I am now and I hope to use my knowledge to help other indie filmmakers through the mess we’re all in.
A big reason Scholastic bought my kids book was because of the marketing and PR I had done around it. The ONLY reason our feature film got made and the reason we’ve got our eye on a theatrical this fall is because of the marketing and PR around it.
A key piece of advice that’s often doled out by veteran filmmakers (and most artists) is that if you can be happy doing anything else with your life, then do it. Because the wins in this business are often few and far between and overshadowed by the many no’s you’ll hear throughout the course of your career. In 2023 I clocked a total of 1197 no’s alone. I kept track of all of them in a spreadsheet for an experiment that I’ll make a post about at another time.
But despite the many, many, many obstacles put in front of me and the thousands of no’s I’ve received over my lifetime, I’ve kept at it because there’s always been a glimmer of hope that things will turn out favorably and that maybe I can eek a career out of it. And I have, but it’s been one entirely of my own making. Every YES I’ve gotten, had been one that’s been given to myself.
And I feel like that’s often the piece of the puzzle that’s missing for most filmmakers and creatives: they’re waiting for permission for someone to say go ahead and give them the green light.
Learning self-sustainability is the key to longevity because the glimmer of hope that keeps so many of us here, trying day after day, feels like it’s dying across the industry. The spark that inspired so many of us to become filmmakers is also being extinguished, not just for those of us in the industry, but for future generations of creatives and filmmakers.
It certainly feels like we’re not nurturing the drive for the next generation of filmmakers to want to make films.
What happens then, not only to our industry as a whole, but to our culture? To our country?
I’m not Old Man Yelling at Clouds here, I’m posing a serious question: what happens when no one wants to make films any more?
What happens when the business becomes so unsustainable and so undesirable that no one is willing to put up with the struggle any more?
Is indie filmmaking an art form that’s soon to be lost?
What happens when no one wants to make films any more?
Last week the Art Director’s Guild suspended their Production Design Initiative, a training program designed to train the next generation of art directors and production designers.
The Union issued the following statement:
The Union “…cannot in good conscience encourage you to pursue our profession while so many of our members remain unemployed.”
If the alarm bells haven’t already been sounding for you, they should be now. Because we’re actively telegraphing the message that a career in film is unsustainable, futureless and futile.
And that message is being heard loud and clear and it’s not entirely inaccurate either. Because at this point, who in their right minds wants to do this to themselves?
No offense to any of the blockbuster films of late, but those aren’t exactly the kinds of films that inspire people to want to change the world or themselves, let alone help them decide to dedicate their lives to the craft of making movies.
Those films aren’t the Rocky’s of the world, The Little Miss Sunshines, the Pulp Fictions, The Breakfast Clubs… I could keep going on but you hopefully get my point.
Those are the kinds of films that move and inspire people and whose titles are known all over the world. The films that speak to generations. The films… that are art.
Again, there’s NOTHING WRONG with escapism films. Nothing. Those are often the films that pay the bills and allow us to create the more artistic films we all yearn to make (one for the meal, one for the reel). But we’re not only not rewarding the efforts of indie filmmakers and auteurs, we’re not teaching filmmakers how to effectively build their audiences and promote their work.
It therefore becomes lost in the giant diner menu of streaming platforms and because of that, it feels like we’re witnessing the death of indie film in real time.
But that’s not all we’re losing. We’re losing a piece of ourselves as well.
At one point, the preservation of the American cinema was so valued, so vital and so critical that the US government issued screen quotas as part of negotiating free trade agreements with other countries.
Streaming has changed all of that.
Ignoring the Bill Cosby reference in the opening sentence, this quote in the article is the one that stands out the most for me from this 1987 article:
For viewers the world over, America is the place where the individual has a chance to make a better life. And that’s a very powerful message for people in other countries, many of them newly coping with the social changes of this “century of the common man,” as the late U.S. Vice President Henry Wallace once called the 20th Century. What the world sees in American entertainment, says one producer, is political and economic freedom.
Except… our own industry is now telling future generations that, well, there may not be a future in our industry.
According to a recent Screen Daily article, more than 42% of the total budget of the average European film now comes from public financing support. Most individual states in America offer production incentives to attract filmmakers and bring in production dollars to their economy.
But I really don’t think that’s enough as incentives are drying up, costs are skyrocketing and the sad reality that most films have no place to go when they’re done is setting in. And I’m not holding my breath in the hopes that America will one day invest in cinema the way Europe and other countries do, as much as I’d love to see that happen.
I believe that the success and sustainability of indie film lies in the hands of indie filmmakers.
In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity…
I often mentor writers and filmmakers and a recent encounter with a sharp, talented and eager filmmaker has haunted me these past few weeks. They were so eager and earnest in our meeting and they asked me about turning a profit on indie film. But with the current state of indie film distribution, I had to give them some really sober and unsettling news and I could see the disappointment and reality register on their face in real time. And it genuinely upset me. I hate giving bad news but this is reality of where we are.
And because the state of indie distribution is so bad, well, naturally no one is going to want to invest in projects without an audience because, as I already said in a previous post, who wants to invest without the possibility of not recouping? This is why we’ve got to be smart about getting our films out into the world.
I also want to state that if we don’t invest in these kinds of films, we’re losing something truly vital and I don’t know if we’ll be able to get it back once it becomes too late. This is why funding for arts programs in schools is so vital.
In 2021, the arts brought over in over $1 trillion in gross revenue in the Unites States, but arts education budgets in schools continue to get cut. I genuinely don’t understand the disconnect here because the math is mathing.
Art is good for the economy. It’s good for our culture.
But it seems like it’s up to us, indie filmmakers, to preserve the art of indie filmmaking and shepherd our films through from beginning to end.
And I think it can be done, but I think it starts at a very macro level, on an individual film by film basis.
As Distribution Advocates said in a podcast last month, “there is an audience for every film.” But it’s up to you, filmmaker, to find the audience before you launch into production and connect with them at every stage of the game.
My advice to the filmmaker who wanted to know how to turn a profit on their film was to focus on audience building and getting the word out about their project on their own outside of a distributor now. Because that’s really the only way we can guarantee an audience will see our films, if we’re the ones behind it, driving it and pushing it out into the world.
This may not be the answer you were hoping for but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but the cavalry isn’t coming to save us. It’s up to us to be smart about our filmmaking and our promotion of our work. It also allows you to be in control and not wait for anyone to give you a green light. If you’re waiting for that “yes”, you might be waiting for a very, very long time.
I truly believe there’s a path to sustainability for indie film through the efforts of auteurs and filmmakers like you. And I hope we don’t lose this vital part of our culture.
My list of favorite films was short at the beginning of this post but I would love it if you could chime in on the comments with the films that moved and inspired you! I know there’s some incredible films left off the list and would love to see what’s motivated you.
Click to watch the video of Mark Duplass’s 2015 SXSW keynote speech.