An
independent film, or
indie
film, is a
film that is
produced mostly outside of a
major
film studio. The term also refers to
art
films which differ markedly from most mass marketed films. In
addition to being produced by independent production companies,
independent films are often produced and/or distributed by
subsidiaries of major studios. In order to be considered
independent, less than half of a film's financing should come from
a major studio. Independent films are sometimes distinguishable by
their content and style and the way in which the filmmakers'
personal artistic vision is realized. Usually, but not always,
independent films are made with considerably lower budgets than
major studio films. Generally, the marketing of independent films
is characterized by
limited release designed
to build word-of-mouth or to reach small specialty audiences.
History
Resistance to the Edison Trust
The roots of independent film can be traced back to filmmakers in
the 1900s who resisted the control of a
trust called the
Motion Picture Patents
Company or "Edison Trust."
The Motion
Picture Patents Company, founded in December 1908, was a trust of
all the major film companies (Edison,
Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay
, Selig, Lubin,
Kalem, American Star, American Pathé), the leading
distributor (George Kleine) and the
biggest supplier of raw film, Eastman
Kodak.
At the time of the formation of the MPPC,
Thomas Edison owned most of the major
patents relating to motion pictures, including that
for
raw film. The MPPC vigorously
enforced its patents, constantly bringing
suits and receiving injunctions against independent
filmmakers.
Because of this, a number of filmmakers
responded by building their own cameras and moving their operations
to Hollywood,
California
, where the distance from Edison's home base of
New
Jersey
made it more difficult for the MPPC to enforce its
patents.
The Edison
Trust was soon ended by two decisions of the Supreme Court of
the United States
: one in 1912, which canceled the patent on raw
film, and a second in 1915, which cancelled all MPPC
patents. Though these decisions succeeded at legalizing
independent film, they would do little to remedy the
de facto ban on small productions; the independent
filmmakers who had fled to
Southern
California during the enforcement of the trust had already laid
the groundwork for the
studio system
of
classical Hollywood
cinema.
The studio system replaces Edison
In early 1910, director
D.W. Griffith was sent by the
Biograph Company to
the west coast with his acting troupe, consisting of actors
Blanche Sweet,
Lillian Gish,
Mary
Pickford,
Lionel Barrymore, and
others.
They started filming on a vacant lot near
Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles
. While there, the company decided to explore
new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood
, a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the
movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever
shot in Hollywood, In
Old California, a Biograph melodrama about California
in the 1800s, while it belonged to Mexico.
Biograph stayed there for months and made several films before
returning to New York.
During the Edison era of the early 1900s, many
Jewish immigrants had found employment in the U.S. film
industry. Under the Edison Trust, they were able to make their mark
in a brand-new business: the exhibition of films in storefront
theaters called
nickelodeons. Within a few years,
ambitious men like
Samuel Goldwyn,
Carl Laemmle,
Adolph Zukor,
Louis
B. Mayer, and the
Warner Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and
Jack) had switched to the production side of the business. After
hearing about Biograph's success in Hollywood, in 1913 many such
would-be movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by
Edison. Soon they were the heads of a new kind of enterprise: the
movie studio.
By establishing a new system of production, distribution, and
exhibition which was independent of The Edison Trust in New York,
these studios opened up new horizons for
cinema in the United States. The
Hollywood oligopoly replaced the Edison monopoly. Within this new
system, a
pecking order was soon
established which left little room for any newcomers. At the top
were the five major studios, MGM, Paramount Pictures, RKO, Warner
Bros., and Twentieth Century Fox. Beneath them were
Universal Studios and
Columbia Pictures. Finally there was
"
Poverty Row," a catch all term used to
encompass any other smaller studio that managed to fight their way
up into the increasingly exclusive movie business. It is worth
noting that though the small studios that made up Poverty Row could
be characterized as existing "independently" of any major studio,
they utilized the same kind of vertically and horizontally
integrated systems of business as the larger players in the game.
Though the eventual breakup of the studio system and its
restrictive chain-theater distribution network would leave
independent movie houses eager for the kind of populist,
seat-filling product of the Poverty Row studios, that same paradigm
shift would also lead to the decline and ultimate disappearance of
"Poverty Row" as a Hollywood phenomenon. While the kinds of films
produced by Poverty Row studios only grew in popularity, they would
eventually become increasingly available both from major production
companies and from independent producers who no longer needed to
rely on a studio's ability to package and release their work.
The following table illustrates the categories commonly used to
characterize the Hollywood system.
United Artists and the resistance to the studio system
The studio system quickly became so powerful that some filmmakers
once again sought independence as a result. On February 5, 1919
four of the leading figures in American
silent cinema (
Mary
Pickford,
Charles Chaplin,
Douglas Fairbanks, and
D. W. Griffith) formed United Artists, the first
independent studio in America. Each held a 20% stake, with the
remaining 20% held by lawyer
William Gibbs McAdoo. The idea for the
venture originated with Fairbanks, Chaplin, Pickford, and cowboy
star
William S. Hart a year earlier as they were traveling
around the U.S. selling
Liberty bonds
to help the
World War I effort. Already
veterans of Hollywood, the four film
stars began to talk of forming their own company
to better control their own work as well as their futures. They
were spurred on by the actions of established Hollywood producers
and distributors, who were making moves to tighten their control
over their stars' salaries and creative license. With the addition
of Griffith, planning began, but Hart bowed out before things had
formalized. When he heard about their scheme,
Richard A. Rowland, head of
Metro Pictures, is said to have observed,
"The inmates are taking over the asylum."
The four partners, with advice from McAdoo (son-in-law and former
Treasury Secretary of
then-President
Woodrow Wilson),
formed their distribution company, with
Hiram Abrams as its first managing director.
The original terms called for Pickford, Fairbanks, Griffith and
Chaplin to independently produce five pictures each year, but by
the time the company got under way in 1920-1921,
feature films were becoming more expensive and
more polished, and running times had settled at around ninety
minutes (or eight reels). It was believed that no one, no matter
how popular, could produce and star in five quality feature films a
year. By 1924, Griffith had dropped out and the company was facing
a crisis: either bring in others to help support a costly
distribution system or concede defeat. The veteran producer
Joseph Schenck was hired as
president. Not only had he been producing pictures for a decade,
but he brought along commitments for films starring his wife,
Norma Talmadge, his sister-in-law,
Constance Talmadge, and his
brother-in-law,
Buster Keaton.
Contracts were signed with a letter of independent producers,
especially
Samuel Goldwyn,
Alexander Korda and
Howard Hughes. Schenck also formed a separate
partnership with Pickford and Chaplin to buy and build theaters
under the United Artists name.
Still, even with a broadening of the company, UA struggled. The
coming of sound ended the careers of
Pickford and Fairbanks. Chaplin, rich enough to do what he pleased,
worked only occasionally. Schenck resigned in 1933 to organize a
new company with
Darryl F. Zanuck,
Twentieth Century Pictures, which
soon provided four pictures a year to UA's schedule. He was
replaced as president by sales manager
Al
Lichtman who himself resigned after only a few months. Pickford
produced a few films, and at various times Goldwyn, Korda,
Walt Disney,
Walter
Wanger, and
David O. Selznick were made "producing partners"
(i.e., sharing in the profits), but ownership still rested with the
founders. As the years passed and the dynamics of the business
changed, these "producing partners" drifted away. Goldwyn and
Disney left for
RKO, Wanger for
Universal Pictures, and Selznick for
retirement. By the late 1940s, United
Artists had virtually ceased to exist as either a producer or
distributor.
The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers
In 1941, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney,
Orson Welles, Samuel Goldwyn, David O.
Selznick, Alexander Korda, and Walter Wanger—many of the same
people who were members of United Artists—founded the
Society of
Independent Motion Picture Producers. Later members included
William Cagney,
Sol Lesser, and
Hal
Roach. The Society aimed to preserve the rights of independent
producers in an industry overwhelmingly controlled by the studio
system. SIMPP fought to end
monopolistic practices by the five major
Hollywood studios which controlled the production, distribution,
and exhibition of films.
In 1942, the SIMPP filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's
United Detroit Theatres. The
complaint accused Paramount of conspiracy to control first-run and
subsequent-run theaters in Detroit. It was the first
antitrust suit brought by
producers against exhibitors alleging monopoly and restraint of
trade.
In 1948,
the United States
Supreme Court
Paramount
Decision ordered the Hollywood movie
studios to sell their theater chains and to eliminate certain
anti-competitive practices. This effectively brought an end
to the studio system of
Hollywood's Golden Age.
By 1958, many of the reasons for creating the SIMPP had been
corrected and SIMPP closed its offices.
Low-budget films
The efforts of the SIMPP and the advent of inexpensive portable
cameras during
World War II effectively
made it possible for any person in America with an interest in
making films to write, produce, and direct one without the aide of
any
major film studio. These
circumstances soon resulted in a number of critically acclaimed and
highly influential works, including
Maya
Deren's
Meshes of the
Afternoon in 1943, Kenneth Anger's
Fireworks in 1947, and
Raymond Abrashkin's
Little Fugitive in 1953. Filmmakers
such as
Ken Jacobs with little or no
formal training began to experiment with new ways of making and
shooting films.
Little Fugitive became the first independent film to be
nominated for
Best Picture at the
American
Academy Awards. It also
received Silver Lion at
Venice.
Both Abrashkin and Anger's films won acclaim overseas from the
burgeoning
French New Wave, with
Fireworks inspiring praise and an invitation to study
under him in Europe from
Jean Cocteau,
and
François Truffaut citing
Little Fugitive as an essential inspiration to his seminal
work,
The 400 Blows. As the
1950s progressed, the new low-budget paradigm of filmmaking gained
increased recognition internationally, with films such
Satyajit Ray's critically acclaimed
Apu Trilogy (1955-1959).
Unlike the films of the collapsing studio system, these new
low-budget films could afford to take risks and explore new
artistic territory outside of the classical Hollywood narrative.
Maya Deren was soon joined in New York by a crowd of like minded
avant-garde filmmakers who were
interested in creating
films as works of
art rather than entertainment. Based upon a common belief that
the "official cinema" was "running out of breath" and had become
"morally corrupt, aesthetically obsolete, thematically superficial,
[and] temperamentally boring," , this new crop of independents
formed
The Film-Makers'
Cooperative, an artist-run, non-profit organization which they
would use to distribute their films through a centralized archive.
Founded in 1962 by
Jonas Mekas,
Stan Brakhage,
Shirley Clarke,
Gregory Markopoulos, and others, the
Cooperative provided an important outlet for many of cinema's
creative luminaries in the 1960s, including
Jack Smith and
Andy
Warhol. When he returned to America, Ken Anger would debut many
of his most important works there.
Mekas and Brakhage would go on to found
the Anthology Film
Archives
in 1970, which would likewise prove essential to
the development and preservation of independent films, even to this
day.
The exploitation boom and the MPAA rating system
Not all low budget films existed as non-commercial art ventures.
The success of films like
Little Fugitive, which had been
made with low (or sometimes
non-existent) budgets encouraged a huge boom
in popularity for non-studio films. Low budget film making promised
exponentially greater returns (in terms of percentages) if the film
could have a successful run in the theaters. During this time,
independent producer/director
Roger
Corman began a sweeping body of work that would become
legendary for its frugality and grueling shooting schedule. Until
his so-called "retirement" as a director in 1971 (he continued to
produce films even after this date) he would produce up to seven
movies a year, matching and often exceeding the five-per-year
schedule that the executives at United Artists had once thought
impossible.
Like those of the avante-garde, the films of Roger Corman took
advantage of the fact that unlike the studio system, independent
films had never been bound by its self-imposed
production code. Corman's example (and that
of others like him) would help start a
boom in independent
B-movies in the 1960s, the principle aim of which was to bring
in the
youth market which the major
studios had lost touch with. By promising
sex, wanton
violence,
drug
use, and
nudity, these films
hoped to draw audiences to independent theaters by offering to show
them what the major studios could not.
Horror and
science fiction films experienced a
period of tremendous growth during this time. As these tiny
producers, theaters, and distributors continued to attempt to
undercut one another, the B-grade shlock film soon fell to the
level of the
Z movie, a niche category of
films with production values so low that they became a spectacle in
their own right. The
cult audiences these
pictures attracted soon made them ideal candidates for
midnight movie screenings revolving around
audience participation and
cosplay.
In 1968, a young filmmaker named
George
Romero shocked audiences with
Night of the Living Dead, a
new kind of intense and unforgiving independent horror film. This
film was released just after the abandonment of the production
code, but before the adoption of the
MPAA rating system. As such, it was the
first and last film of its kind to enjoy a completely unrestricted
screening, in which young children were able to witness Romero's
new brand of highly realistic gore. This film would help to set the
climate of independent horror for decades to come, as films like
The Texas Chain Saw
Massacre in 1974 and
Cannibal Holocaust in 1980 continued
to push the envelope.
With the production code abandoned and violent and disturbing films
like Romero's gaining popularity, Hollywood opted to placate the
uneasy filmgoing public with the MPAA ratings system, which would
place restrictions on ticket sales to young people. Unlike the
production code, this rating system posed a threat to independent
films in that it would affect the number of tickets they could sell
and cut into the
grindhouse cinema's
share of the youth market. This change would further widen the
divide between commercial and non-commercial films.
New Hollywood and independent filmmaking
Following the advent of
television and
the Paramount Case, the major studios attempted to lure audiences
with spectacle.
Screen gimmicks,
Widescreen processes and technical
improvements, such as
Cinemascope,
stereo sound,
3-D and others, were invented in order to
retain the dwindling audience by giving them a larger-than-life
experience.
The 1950s and early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals,
historical epics, and other films which benefited from these
advances. This proved commercially viable during most of the 1950s.
However, by the late 1960s, audience share was dwindling at an
alarming rate. Several costly flops, including
Cleopatra and
Hello, Dolly! put severe strain on
the studios. Meanwhile, in 1951, lawyers-turned-producers
Arthur Krim and
Robert Benjamin had made a deal with the
remaining stockholders of United Artists which would allow them to
make an attempt to revive the company and, if the attempt was
successful, buy it after five years. The attempt was a success, and
in 1955 United Artists became the first "studio" without an actual
studio. UA leased space at the Pickford/Fairbanks Studio, but did
not own a studio lot as such. Because of this, many of their films
would be shot on location. Primarily acting as bankers, they
offered money to independent producers. Thus UA did not have the
overhead, the maintenance or the expensive production staff which
ran up costs at other studios. UA went public in 1956, and as the
other mainstream studios fell into decline, UA prospered, adding
relationships with the
Mirisch brothers,
Billy Wilder,
Joseph E. Levine and others.
By the mid 1960s, RKO had collapsed completely, and the remaining
four of big five had recognized that they did not know how to reach
the youth audience. Foreign films, especially
European and
Japanese cinema, were experiencing a major
boom in popularity with young people, who were interested in seeing
films with non-traditional subjects and narrative structures. An
added draw for such films was that they, like the American
independents, were unencumbered by the production code. In an
attempt to capture this audience, the Studios hired a host of young
filmmakers (many of whom were mentored by Roger Corman) and allowed
them to make their films with relatively little studio
control.
In 1967, Warner Brothers offered first-time producer
Warren Beatty 40% of the gross on his film
Bonnie & Clyde
instead of a minimal fee. The movie proceeded to gross over $70
million worldwide by 1973. This initial successes paved the way for
the studio to relinquish almost complete control to the
film school generation and began what
the media dubbed "
New
Hollywood."
On May 16, 1969,
Dennis Hopper, a
young American filmmaker, wrote, directed, and acted in his first
film,
Easy Rider. Along with his
producer/star/co-writer
Peter Fonda,
Hopper was responsible for the first completely independent film of
New Hollywood.
Easy Rider debuted at Cannes
and garnered the "First
Film Award," ("Prix de la premiere oeuvre") after which it
received two Oscar nominations, one for best original screenplay
and one for Corman-alum Jack
Nicholson's breakthrough performance in the supporting role of
George Hanson, an alcoholic lawyer for the ACLU.
Following on the heels of Easy Rider just over a week later, the
revived United Artists'
Midnight
Cowboy, which, like
Easy Rider, took numerous
cues from Ken Anger and his influences in the French New Wave,
became the first and only
X rated film to
win the Academy Award for best picture.
Midnight Cowboy
also held the distinction of featuring
cameo roles by many of the top
Warhol superstars, who had already become
symbols of the militantly anti-Hollywood climate of NYC's
independent film community.
Within a
month, another young Corman trainee, Francis Ford Coppola, made his debut in
Spain
at the Donostia-San
Sebastian International Film Festival with The Rain People, a film he had founded
his own studio, American Zoetrope,
to make a reality. Though
The Rain People was
largely overlooked by American audiences, Zoetrope would became a
powerful force in New Hollywood. Through Zoetrope, Coppola formed a
distribution agreement with studio giant, Warner Bros., which he
would exploit to achieve wide releases for his films without making
himself subject to the controlling forces of Hollywood.
These three films provided the major Hollywood studios with both an
example to follow and a new crop of talent to draw from. In 1971,
Zoetrope co-founder
George Lucas made
his feature film debut with
THX 1138, also
released by Zoetrope through their deal with Warner Bros.,
announcing himself as another major talent of New Hollywood. By the
following year, the leaders of the New Hollywood revolution had
made enough of a name for themselves that Coppola was able to
convince Paramount to fund his multi-generational
gangster epic,
The
Godfather. Meanwhile Lucas had obtained studio funding for
American Graffiti from
Universal.In the mid-1970s, the major Hollywood studios continued
to tap these new filmmakers for both ideas and personnel, producing
idiosyncratic, startling original films such as
Paper Moon,
Dog Day Afternoon and
Taxi Driver, all of which were met with
enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the
members of New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and
more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the
audience.
It can often seem that all members of the New Hollywood generation
were independent filmmakers. Though those mentioned above began
with a considerable claim on the title, almost all of the major
films commonly associated with the movement were studio projects.
The New Hollywood generation soon became firmly entrenched in a
revived incarnation of the studio system, which financed the
development, production and distribution of their films. Very few
of these filmmakers ever independently financed or independently
released a film of their own, or ever worked on an independently
financed production during the height of the generation's
influence. Seemingly independent films such as
Taxi
Driver,
The Last Picture
Show and others were studio films: the scripts were based
on studio pitches and subsequently paid for by the studios, the
production financing was from the studio, and the marketing and
distribution of the films were designed and controlled by the
studio. Though Coppola made considerable efforts to resist the
influence of the studios, opting to finance his risky 1979 film
Apocalypse Now himself
rather than compromise with skeptical studio executives, he, and
filmmakers like him, had saved the old studios from financial ruin
by providing them with a new formula for success.
Indeed, it was during this period that the very definition of an
independent film became blurred. Though
Midnight Cowboy
was financed by United Artists, the company was certainly a studio.
Likewise, Zoetrope was another "independent studio" which worked
within the system to make a space for independent directors who
needed funding. George Lucas would leave Zoetrope in 1971 to create
his own independent studio,
Lucasfilm,
which would produce the
blockbuster Star Wars and
Indiana
Jones trilogies. In fact, the only two
movies of the movement which can be described as uncompromisingly
independent are
Easy Rider at the beginning, and
Peter Bogdanovich's
They All Laughed, at the end.
Peter Bogdanovich bought back the rights
from the studio to his 1980 film and paid for its distribution out
of his own pocket, convinced that the picture was better than what
the studio believed — he eventually went bankrupt because of
this.
In retrospect, it can be seen that
Steven Spielberg's
Jaws (1975) and
George Lucas's
Star Wars (1977) marked
the beginning of the end for the New Hollywood. With their
unprecedented box-office successes, these movies jump-started
Hollywood's blockbuster mentality, giving studios a new paradigm as
to how to make money in this changing commercial landscape. The
focus on
high-concept premises, with
greater concentration on tie-in merchandise (such as toys),
spin-offs into other media (such as soundtracks), and the use of
sequels (which had been made more respectable by Coppola's
The Godfather Part
II), all showed the studios how to make money in the new
environment.
On realizing how much money could potentially be made in films,
major
corporations started buying up
the remaining Hollywood studios, saving them from the oblivion
which befell RKO in the 50s. Eventually, even RKO was revived. The
corporate mentality these companies brought to the filmmaking
business would slowly squeeze out the more idiosyncratic of these
young filmmakers, while ensconcing the more malleable and
commercially successful of them. Like the original independents who
fled the Edison Trust to form old Hollywood, the young film school
graduates who had fled the studios to explore on-location shooting
and dynamic,
neo-realist styles
and structures ended up replacing the tyrants they had sought to
dislodge with a more stable and all-pervasive base of power.
Outside of Hollywood
Though many of the thematic changes which would resound through the
American cinema of the 1970s would prominently feature heightened
depictions of realistic sex and violence, those directors who
wished to reach the audience which the old Hollywood once had
quickly learned to
stylize these actions in a way
that made them appealing and attractive, rather than repulsive or
obscene. However, at the same time that the maverick film students
who would become the American new wave were developing the skills
they would use to take over Hollywood, many of their classmates had
begun to develop in a different direction. Influenced by foreign
"art house" directors, (such as
Ingmar
Bergman and
Federico Fellini)
exploitation shockers (including
Joseph
P. Mawra,
Michael Findlay, and
Henri Pachard) and those who walked the line
between, (
Kenneth Anger, et al.) a
number of young film makers began to experiment with transgression
not as a box-office draw, but
as an
artistic act. Directors such as
John Waters and
David Lynch would make a name for themselves by
the early 70s for the bizarre and often disturbing imagery which
characterized their films.
When Lynch's first feature film, 1977's
Eraserhead, brought Lynch to the attention
of producer
Mel Brooks, he soon found
himself in charge of the $5 million film
The Elephant Man for Paramount.
Though
Eraserhead was strictly an out-of-pocket,
low-budget, independent film, Lynch made the transition with
unprecedented grace. The film was a huge commercial success, and
earned eight
Academy Award
nominations, including
Best Director
and
Best Adapted Screenplay
nods for Lynch.
It also established his place as a
commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional, Hollywood director. Seeing Lynch as a fellow studio
convert,
George Lucas, a fan of
Eraserhead and now the darling of the studios, offered
Lynch the opportunity to direct his next
Star Wars sequel,
Return of the Jedi. However, Lynch
had seen what had happened to Lucas and his comrades in arms after
their failed attempt to do away with the studio system. He refused
the opportunity, stating that he would rather work on his own
projects.
Lynch
instead chose to direct a big budget adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel
Dune for Italian
producer Dino De
Laurentiis's De
Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that the
company release a second Lynch project, over which the director
would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis
hoped it would be the next
Star
Wars, Lynch's
Dune
(1984) was a critical and commercial dud, costing $45 million to
make, and grossing a mere $27.4 million domestically. The producer
was furious that he would now be forced to allow Lynch to make any
kind of film he wanted. He offered Lynch only $6 million, reasoning
that it would be best to let it be a small flop and be rid of the
director. However, the film,
Blue
Velvet was a resounding success. Lynch subsequently
returned to his independent roots, and did not work with another
major studio for over a decade.
John Waters, on the other hand, proved too hot to handle for the
major studios. Distributing his films locally though a production
company of his own creation known as
Dreamland Productions, Waters defied the
mainstream completely until the early 80s, when the fledgling
New Line Cinema agreed to work with
him on
Polyester. During the 80s,
Waters would become a pillar of the New York based independent film
movement known as the "
Cinema of
Transgression," a term coined by
Nick
Zedd in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded New
York artists using
shock value and
humor in their
super
8mm films and
video art. Other key
players in this movement included
Kembra
Pfahler,
Casandra Stark,
Beth B,
Tommy Turner,
Richard Kern and
Lydia Lunch. Rallying around such institutions
as the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Anthology Film Archives, this
new generation of independents devoted themselves to the defiance
of the now-establishment New Hollywood, proposing that "all film
schools be blown up and all boring films never be made
again."
The Sundance Institute
In 1978, Sterling Van Wagenen and
Charles Gary Allison, with Chairperson
Robert Redford, (veteran of New
Hollywood and star of
Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid) founded the
Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to
attract more filmmakers to Utah and showcase what the potential of
independent film could be. At the time, the main focus of the event
was to present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel
discussions; however it also included a small program of new
independent films. The jury of the 1978 festival was headed by
Gary Allison, and included
Verna Fields,
Linwood Gale Dunn,
Katherine Ross,
Charles E. Sellier Jr.,
Mark Rydell, and
Anthea Sylbert.
In 1981, the same year that United Artists, bought out by MGM,
ceased to exist as a venue for independent filmmakers, Sterling Van
Wagenen left the film festival to help found the
Sundance Institute with Robert Redford.
In 1985, the now well-established Sundance Institute, headed by
Sterling Van Wagenen, took over management of the US Film Festival,
which was experiencing financial difficulties.
Gary Beer and Sterling Van Wagenen spearheaded
production of the inaugural Sundance Film Festival which included
Program Director
Tony Safford and
Administrative Director
Jenny Walz
Selby.
In 1991, the festival was officially renamed the
Sundance Film
Festival, after Redford's famous role as
The Sundance Kid. Through this festival,
such notable figures as
Kevin
Smith,
Robert Rodriguez,
Quentin Tarantino,
Paul Thomas Anderson,
Steven Soderbergh,
James Wan and
Jim
Jarmusch garnered resounding critical acclaim and unprecedented
box office sales.
In 2005, about 15% of the U.S.
domestic box office
revenue was from independent studios.
Present day and digital filmmaking
Today, due to the large volume of inexpensive, high end digital
film equipment available at the consumer level, independent
filmmakers are no longer dependent on major studios to provide them
with the tools they need to produce a film. Post production has
also been simplified by
non-linear
editing software available for
home
computers.
Presently, five of the Golden Age Majors continue to exist as
important Hollywood studio entities through 2009. Their output is
still marked by familiar stories and conservative choices in cast
and crew. Companies such as
Lucasfilm
continue to exist, co-financing their productions and partnering
with Big Six studios for distribution. In fact, co-financing has
become a growing trend in modern day Hollywood, with over
two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 being
funded as joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987.
In an effort to cash in on the present day boom in independent
film, today's Big Six major studios have created a number of
independent-flavored subsidiaries, designed to develop less
commercial, more character driven films which appeal to the growing
art house market.
These include MGM, UA (under MGM), New Line
Cinema, HBO Films, Castle Rock Entertainment,
Disneynature, DreamWorks SKG
, Sony Pictures
Classics, Fox Searchlight,
Miramax Films, Warner Independent, Picturehouse, Paramount Classics/Paramount Vantage, Go Fish Pictures (under DreamWorks),
Focus Features, Screen Gems, TriStar
Pictures, Destination Films,
Fox Faith, Fox
Atomic, Gener8Xion
Entertainment, Hollywood
Pictures, Rogue Pictures and
Sherwood Pictures.
The increasing popularity and feasibility of low-budget films over
the last 15 years has led to a vast increase in the number of
aspiring filmmakers — people who have written
spec scripts and who hope to find several
million dollars to turn that script into a successful independent
film like
Reservoir Dogs,
Little Miss Sunshine,
or
Juno. These aspiring
filmmakers often work day-jobs while they pitch their scripts to
independent film production companies, talent agents, and wealthy
investors. Their dream seems much more attainable than before the
independent film revolution because these novice filmmakers no
longer need to gain the backing of a major studio and access to
perhaps a hundred million dollars to make their film.
Independent movie-making has also resulted in the proliferation and
repopularization of
short films and
short film festivals.
Full-length films are often showcased at
film festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival, the Slamdance Film Festival, the
South By Southwest film festival,
the Raindance Film Festival,
ACE Film Festival, or the Cannes Film
Festival
. Award winners from these exhibitions are
more likely to get picked up for distribution by major film
studios.
The following studios are considered to be the most prevalent of
the modern independent studios (they are used to produce/release
independent films and foreign-language films in America):
In addition to these higher profile "independent" studios there are
thousands of smaller production companies that produce authentic
independent films every year. These smaller companies look to
regionally release their films theatrically or for additional
financing and resources to distribute, advertise and exhibit their
project on a national scale. The
direct-to-video market is not often noted as
artistically fertile ground but among its many entries are
ambitious independent films that either failed to achieve
theatrical distribution or did not seek it. Moving forward,
particularly as theatrical filming goes digital and distribution
eventually follows, the line between "film," direct-to-disc
productions, and feature-length videos whose main distribution
channel is wholly electronic, should continue to blur.
Technology and independent films today
The independent film scene's development in the 1990s and 2000s has
been stimulated by a range of factors, including the development of
affordable
digital
cinematography cameras that can rival
35
mm film quality and easy-to-use computer editing
software.
Until the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional
film equipment and stock was a major obstacle to independent
filmmakers who wanted to make their own films. The cost of
35 mm film is steadily rising: in 2002 alone,
film negative costs were up
23%, according to
Variety. Studio-quality filming
typically required expensive
lighting
and
post-production
facilities.
But the advent of consumer
camcorders in
1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-definition
digital video in the early 1990s, have since
lowered the technology barrier to movie production considerably.
Both production and post-production costs have been significantly
lowered; today, the
hardware and
software for post-production can
be installed in a commodity-based
personal computer. Technologies such as
DVD,
FireWire
connections and professional-level
non-linear editing system software
make movie-making relatively inexpensive.
Director Francis Ford Coppola, long an advocate of new technologies
like non-linear editing and digital cameras, said in 2007 that
"cinema is escaping being controlled by the financier, and that's a
wonderful thing. You don't have to go hat-in-hand to some film
distributor and say, 'Please will you let me make a movie?'"
Popular software (including commercial, consumer level and
open source) includes:
Mac OS X
Windows
Linux
Popular digital camcorders, mostly semi-professional equipment with
3-
CCD technology,
include:
Most of these camcorders cost
US$2,000–$5,000 in 2003, with costs
continuing to decline as features are subtracted, and as models
depreciate. Additionally,
open source
software holds the potential for increasing high-level editing
capabilities being available for also increasingly lower prices,
both for free and paid software.
See also
References
- "La-La Land: The Origins" Peter Edidin. New York Times.
New York, N.Y.: August 21, 2005. pg. 4.2. "Los Angeles's distance
from New York was also comforting to independent film producers,
making it easier for them to avoid being harassed or sued by the
Motion Picture Patents Company, AKA the Trust, which Thomas Edison
helped create in 1909."
- Siklos, Richard (March 4, 2007). Mission Improbable: Tom Cruise
as Mogul. New York Times
- The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made By THE FILM
CRITICS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, New York Times,2002.
- History
- http://www.davidlynch.de/tiplynchtrans.html
- http://www.ubu.com/film/transgression.html
- MPAA data from January
to March 2005
- Sharing Pix is Risky Business variety.com.
Retrieved June 23, 2007.
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