At his recent SXSW Keynote, mumblecore alumnus Joe Swanberg related his approach to making money making independent movies. Summarized in forty words:
- Share information.
- Be prolific.
- Capitalize on festival buzz with day and date VOD releases.
- Own as much of your films as possible.
- Invest in your own projects.
- Sometimes no budget is better than some budget.
- Happiness is money too.
Regarding budgets, Joe explains:
“If you have ‘some money’, everybody is going to want some of that ‘some money.’ If you have ‘no money’, everybody knows it — and then they’re just there to work. In a best case scenario — you sell a movie and then you’re able to pay people afterwards better than you could’ve paid them if you had ‘some money.'”
Here’s what he says about taking that industry job that kills your soul:
“It’s often just not worth the money to take a shitty job on something you hate. Nobody likes a bad movie. I don’t know any scenario where a filmmaker hates the film they’re making and have that movie turn out any good. You may think that you’re taking a paycheck or making some money, but in fact you’re making the next person who wants to invest in your work less likely to do it.”
More coverage at Indiewire, No Film School and The Guardian.
By the way, Netflix has just placed an order with Swanberg for an 8-episode comedy series called Easy.
My take: I wholeheartedly agree with Joe’s thoughts on budgets. As soon as you have some real money, it’s never enough. Shoestring budgets force you to be creative and pay for critical items only (and food).