I’ve been doing Raindance for a long time – and I’ve produced 5 features and about 700 shorts since 1992. I have had my fingers burnt a zillion times. Every industry has dirty secrets. But in the run up to this year’s Raindance Film Festival I thought I’d share what I have learned about the dirty secrets of independent film. What is relevant in the health pandemic is uncertain.
Elliot Grove, London, April 25, 2020
1. There is no such thing as independent film
The film industry is all run by the conglomerates and studios who hatch small boutique companies to trade on the name ‘independent’. These production companies are run by the same moguls as their bigger budget Hollywood counterparts. In this corporate realm, moguls offer actors scale work on the promise that the cool films and directors they work with will enhance their careers. The producers of these lower budget films are offered elusive back end deals based on the success of the distribution process. Of course any profit is gobbled up by expenses.
Check out Elliot Grove’s 99 Minute Film School2. It’s who you know, not what you know.
A good political mind is a far better asset to a budding filmmaker than anything else. Get really good at building relationships with the people that will matter to your career: distributors, sales agents and journalists. While you are at it, find out who the hot new PR’s are. And budget their fees into your monthly budget.
3. Casting counts.
Forget talent. Low budget films are bought and sold depending on the cast. Develop your relationships with new and established talent. Prove to them that you are the ‘Next Hot Thing,’ Demonstrate your skills working with actors by taking gigs in fringe theatre and by directing award winning short films.
If pursuing talent is not your game remember that you can always play the genre card and make either a horror or science fiction movie where the concepts are generally so strong you won’t need cast.
4. Originality is shunned.
The film industry is very conservative. Remember that your original idea might just terrify a studio executive at a production or distribution company. Find the basic message of your movie and learn how to tone it down so the suits can swallow it. If you want to slip in some controversy, great, but don’t flag this during the pitch or you won’t get through the front door.
5. Want to get into a film festival?
All festivals get thousands of submissions. And who are you? You are unknown, untried and untested. The major festivals rely on a handful of their trusted advisers to recommend the films that will make them look good and guarantee good press and box office. It is these people you need to get to know and schmooze. It’s a fact of life. It’s the way it is. Develop a strategy for dealing with it.
6. Awards are meaningless.
We’ve had filmmakers in the past say they have won an award at Raindance. When confronted with the reality of the fact they didn’t win an award at Raindance, they say things like ‘But you sent me an invoice for the submission fees. I thought that was an award’. Still, an award with the olive branches on the poster for your film gives it pedigree. And with that bit of kudos hopefully more people will see your film. We at Raindance believe that is all tht counts. Really.
7. No one cares about orphans.
Until you get a mentor or champion for your film, no one is going to care about you or your film. Until you get such a person – your film is an orphan. Despite what they say, no one in the industry gives a toss about orphans. There are so many of them. Don’t you be one. Get a champion.
8. Looks count.
The trick is to give your film a look, a style and presence that makes it stand out from all the other newbies clamoring for attention. Audiences buy a ‘look’.
9. The industry loves new talent.
Oh no they don’t. The industry is petrified by new talent. Everyone inside the film industry is worried that someone smarter, brighter, more capable, younger (and cheaper!) will come along and snatch their job. The film industry shuns new talent.
10. The Truth.
The truth is there’s no such thing as the film industry. It is a total misnomer to describe a collective of a dozen or more industries loosely linked by film. There are the camera manufacturers, the equipment rental houses, the labs and post-production suites, the unions and guilds, the lawyers and accountants, the distributors and exhibitors (both on and off line) and of course the film festivals. None of these sub industries trust or even like each other. And they all pretty much hate filmmakers.
Everyone in the film industry lies. They lie about what they really think about your work. They lie about when they are going to pay you. They lie about you to their friends and colleagues. It is a pretty unpleasant and nasty business.
How do you survive?
By being honorable and truthful. Everyone, even the crusty owner of a lab will respect that. And respect gets you an awful long way in the film industry.
Fade Out
Dirty secrets of independent film can leave you paralysed and demoralised. Never forget that the so-called ‘big-boys’ are desperate for content. Don’t let them bowl you over with their bully tactics. With that in your armour you should be able to deal with the dirty secrets of independent film.
About Elliot Grove
Photo Credit David Martinez / BIFA 2018
Few people know more filmmakers and screenwriters than Elliot Grove. Elliot is the founder of Raindance Film Festival (1993) and the British Independent Film Awards (1998). He has produced over 700 hundred short films and five feature films: the multi-award-winning The Living and the Dead (2006), Deadly Virtues (2013), AMBER (2017), Love is Thicker Than Water (2018) and the SWSX Grand Jury Prize winner Alice (2019). He teaches screenwriting and producing in the UK, Europe, Asia and America.
Elliot has written three books which have become industry standards: Raindance Writers’ Lab: Write + Sell the Hot Screenplay, now in its second edition, Raindance Producers’ Lab: Lo-To-No Budget Filmmaking and Beginning Filmmaking: 100 Easy Steps from Script to Screen (Professional Media Practice).
In 2009 he was awarded a PhD for services to film education.
Thank you for sharing your information.
Wow, thanks for the info!
thank you elliot for telling the truth. I am no longer involved in film, since I had such a horrendous.
experience after doing a short film, I have decided to have nothing to do with filming at all.
since my experience of producing my short and all the crap that goes along with it. I am now.
in volved with what I should have been doing all along, promoting my book true blondes.
i am doing well now, have a decent pr person working with me, getting a lot of social media.
and feel I am where I belong.. I should have heard of you and your guidelines before I decided.
to do that short ,,, the lifters is the name of it… it is good, but the trouble I went thru was not.
worth it… I am much more content now… sorry I didn't know about you before, carol hollenbeck.
And you found someone who did not know this? Hopefully it will help that someone and they will find there are some really nice people in the "film industry?"
1 – 50% correct.
2 – 50% correct.
3 – 100% correct.
4 – 50% correct.
5 – 75% correct.
6 – 50% correct.
7 – 25% correct.
8 – 100% correct.
9 – 50% correct.
10 – 50% correct.
The most significant opinion from Mr. Grove was this:
Q: How do you survive?
A: By being honourable and truthful. everyone, even the crusty owner of a lab will respect that. And respect gets you an awful long way in the film industry.
100% correct.
# 8 .
Great article.
I have had the privilege of working with some truly great people in the "industry"; it is, however, cutthroat from the community level to the studios. Although most of my work has been with independently funded features, produced apart from studio money or influence, I have sampled enough "Hollywood" relationships to know that what happens in the hometown, happens everywhere. Still, as Mr. Grove stated, honor and truth are principles to live by, and will help you keep your head up when others try to tear you down.
This is why self-distribution is going to take off. Movie studios are only doing one thing: ruining movies. So why do we keep giving them our money? We try to be conscientious of our food by purchasing it directly from the farmer, so why can't we do this with movies and buy our entertainment directly from the artist? This is what I'm doing with my short film "The Store" and I've never felt better! I want the film to be known as "the grass-fed beef of independent film."
Studios are destroying the film industry and the only way to stop them is by not giving them any more of our money… Oh, and seeing The Avengers. (Joking).
Ok. This is, hands down, the best article I ever read about filmmaking tips.
Ok. This is, hands down, the best article I ever read about filmmaking tips.
the best article ever !!!
the best article ever !!!
Once called 'too naive' when I entered the industry years ago, but today i'm still standing in it and glad I can still see my way thru. Honesty and patience works for me.
Can't agree with No.6. Winning awards ain't gonna be meaningless to me.
your right the film industry is an illusion, mostly touted by bullshitting egomaniacs ,follow your own path
A film maker is a film maker is a freaking film maker.
Thanks Elliot. To the point as usual. I’m discovering a lot of this for myself – the hard way. From an award-winning writer/director wondering what’s going on.