In the past we’ve written extensively about the economics of low budget filmmaking from the fundraising stages through the sales delivery. We’ve focused heavily during the early stages of our producing careers (and the founding days of the company) to build a sustainable business model that would allow us to produce content with a return structure. Bottom line — our focus has been economical and that was never the intention when we first started in the film/entertainment business. Our real passion was (and still remains, although slightly altered over the years) great content & impressive artists that have mastered the difficult craft of visual storytelling.
Whether an actor like DeNiro enthralling us with a performance, or a director like David Lean dazzling us with both the scope and intimacy of his storytelling abilities or a producer Harvey Weinstein impressing the notion that great films can be made — we were hooked and drawn in, like the majority of the entertainment business, by the art itself.
As Buffalo 8 Productions was launched – we soon realized the necessities of business (cash flow/revenue, turn over rate, project deal flow, investment structure, overhead simplicity, etc) and our focused shifted. We began seeing the business side of entertainment very clearly as we climbed the ladder, networked with higher level executives and built trust with our customers, clients, vendors and investors.
A few weeks ago — we sat as a team and discussed where we currently stand in the feature division (a 35 film library spanning budgets of $50,000 up to $5,000,000) with sales deals at HBO, IFC, Cinedigm and a handful of strong projects in the pipeline — and we paused to reflect on where we want to be positioned going forward.
The easiest way for us to assess our next step is to evaluate case studies of producers/bodies of work we respect and excite us. The names Cassian Elwes & Harvey Weinstein both come to mind and for different reasons.
Elwes has made his mark as the marquee indie producer of our times — known for incredible taste and the depth of his abilities to get content made & seen.
Weinstein is a king-maker; that of Tarantino, Kevin Smith and diverse brand of indie content that rivals the studio systems more than anyone else.
Bottom line — both producers focus on content first-and-foremost while never neglecting the reality that business has to be the driving factor behind decisions — otherwise you’ll simply cease to exist as a functioning entity.
At Buffalo 8, we’re now honing back in the essentials that made us so drawn to entertainment: great storytelling, craftsmanship and artistry.
Both in our feature & commercial work we are refocusing on these basics to get back to the roots of why we started the company in the first place. With a solid roster of content (most of which admittedly was focused on business rather than content quality) and with an impressive director roster in the commercial space — we have built the foundation for a successful enterprise that can have the leisure of discussing “art” as a decision point in all conversations regarding business.
How do you strike this balance? Like all things we’ve learned & experienced thus far — time will prove to be the deciding and swaying factor. We’ll throw ourselves in to the market and allow the decision process to be exploratory and experimental.
We want to be (and have always wanted to be) producing content that we love creatively. The balance of economics and art is a constant presence and one we’ll continue fleshing out as we progress — but as stated, we’ve worked hard and diligently to build a business model that allows for economic sustainability.
With a services based model (post-production facilities, production services/line producing, development/consulting services) we’ve found that the independent film space is continually expanding and while the financial margins may be slimming down – the underlying technologies driving the industry allow for innovation and stunning results.
In the end, we want to balance a sustainable economic business model (services and revenue based) with the necessity for producing great content.
We have a ton of work ahead — work that we both look forward to and wouldn’t even know how to neglect given our ever present love of great storytelling and artistry.
Buffalo 8 is a turn-key development, production and post-production company based in Beverly Hills with a library of 30+ indie titles. Having produced 30+ feature films, the team recognized a dilemma in the production process — union deposits — and launched BondIt to resolve the situation to assist producers & union representatives alike.
