Must Read: Paul Shuttle - Hollywood's Bubble Is Bound To Burst

Excerpt:

"....Consider the career of Edward Burns, whose performances in Entourage and Saving Private Ryan have overshadowed compelling work as a writer-director of 11 films. His fourth, the well-regarded Sidewalks of New York, cost $1,000,000; Newlyweds, his latest, just $9,000. His is an example of the emerging phenomenon. Today, with a little ingenuity and a consumer level DSLR camera, a crew of four can emerge from the editing suite - itself little more than a laptop - not with a crudely shot amateur production, but a professional, mainstream film that can take the kind of chances denied those operating under budgets a thousand times larger.

The third development is a familiar one to over 200 million of us: the on-demand revolution. Just as cost has proven an obstacle to their even getting as far as the soundstage, so too has it prevented many smaller movies from finding nationwide distribution; a key driver in the word-of-mouth sales so crucial to the viability of independent film. Yet the growing success of LoveFilm, Netflix and iTunes is proving that cinema - and the major studios' stranglehold over it - isn't the gatekeeper to success it once was.

This spring, Sebastián Gutiérrez became the first director to release a film direct to YouTube, for free, to an audience of over half a million people. Kevin Smith, once the darling of the independent movement, was shunned - his behaviour likened to that of a 'meltdown' by some commentators - when he announced an unprecedented move towards self-distribution. Just a year later, his film Red State - with the help of neither traditional cinema nor home video - had more than made its money back with a roadshow that took the film directly to his fans. If that was possible on a budget of $4,000,000, imagine what you could achieve starting just $9,000 in the red...."

via huffingtonpost.co.uk

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales