Tag: Age Of Access & Surplus

What Does This Decade Offer As An Opportunity For Indie Film? (Pt 3 of 3)

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date January 8, 2011
79 Comments on What Does This Decade Offer As An Opportunity For Indie Film? (Pt 3 of 3)

I have been rambling/ranting the last two days about Indie Film’s missed opportunity over the last decade. Where are we headed now?

If we missed an opportunity over the last ten years, do you know what it was? We missed the opportunity to make indie film a sustainable culture and business. I earned a good living for over fifteen years, but I don’t expect to do that now or even going forward — if I am even going to stay in Indie Film, that is. It is going to take an awful lot of work from a great number of people to bring that squandered opportunity back. Are the people out there, who are willing to do that work?

Do you know why we missed that opportunity to make Indie Film a sustainable enterprise? Because we all were/are selfish, focused on own short-term success, chasing a hit, not devoted to the long term or the community. The filmmakers, the performers, the artists and the craftspeople all feel as if we’ve behaved as selfishly and as greedilyy as the bankers who have virtually destroyed this country. Yes, a great number of people give a great deal back, but that is not enough. Instead of building a system that works for a wide and diverse populace, we all went out and just got ours. We squandered a great opportunity.

Tags Age Of Access & Surplus, Culture Of Distraction, indie film

Truly Free Film

What Happened To Indie Film Over The Last Decade? (Pt 2 of 3)

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date January 7, 2011
58 Comments on What Happened To Indie Film Over The Last Decade? (Pt 2 of 3)

Yesterday, I started my reflection on the last decade of American Indie Film. I will conclude it tomorrow (I promise). Today, I wonder what opportunity did we miss over the last decade.

There wasn’t really ever a transfer of power in the film biz, was there? During the growth of AmerIndie, Hollywood remained a business of blockbusters. Yes, previously underserved audiences got full on banquets of offerings as the menu of filmed entertainments grew more diverse, but the clamoring hordes born from the niches didn’t climb the castle walls as some have claimed; the same power sat on the same throne as before. Fanboys & geeks were inevitably the masters once Hollywood embraced the logic of tent poles — so there is nothing surprising about their current reign. And yes, Hollywood’s current crop of top directors were born from that indie big bang of the nineties, but for those directors, Indie always seemed more like a training ground than sort of a manifesto. And the power in the Hollywood system, still rarely rests with the directors.

What is it that happened between Indie’s growth in the 1990’s and now? What did the last decade do to the hopes and dreams of The Indie Wave?

Tags Age Of Access & Surplus, Culture Of Distraction, indie film, Kelly Reichardt, Ramin Bahrani, Todd Haynes

Truly Free Film

Tic-Toc: Thinking About Generations & Opportunity (Pt 1 of 3)

Post author By Ted Hope
Post date January 6, 2011
140 Comments on Tic-Toc: Thinking About Generations & Opportunity (Pt 1 of 3)

I was reflecting at the end of the year. It got me to this three part post. I offer you my apologies in advance for any rambling. Stay tuned for the posts to come tomorrow and Saturday.

I graduated from high school in 1980, the year often associated with when the Hollywood Business fully became the Blockbuster Business. When I graduated I thought I had a revolution to run (even if I wasn’t prepared to run it), but I didn’t get around to finding the film business for a few more years.

I was fortunate in the timing of my professional & artistic pursuits that I could benefit from the DIY aesthetic, the approach of the first wave of punk rock (circa 1977), and political events like the class antagonism of the Reagan Years, and the fear & consequences of the AIDS epidemic. Add to that the prevailing post-modern, multi-culti, deconstructionist sway of academia, the birth of a new distribution platform (VHS video), and Hollywood’s abandonment of the complex and personal. What could have been a more perfect storm for the coming wave of American Indies?

Circumstances gave me and my generation of filmmakers opportunity (even if some paid a high price). Has such an opportunity come again over the next thirty years? Did we miss it?

As fortunate as I have been, I think it does not compare to the opportunity appearing before us now.