California just created a major new incentive for post-production. Indie filmmakers should take the larger hint: post isn't where you send the movie after you've made it. It's part of the movie you should be planning before you shoot. California just made a fairly extraordinary admission about the changing economics of filmmaking. In September, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation creating a standalone California tax credit for post-production. Editing, sound, music, visu

The success of Obsession has reignited an old argument about indie-film compensation. But there’s a difference between generosity after a miracle and pretending everyone took the same risk before it happened. There is probably no better problem for an independent filmmaker to have than discovering that the movie you made for roughly $750,000 has grossed more than $500 million worldwide. That is essentially what happened with Curry Barker’s Obsession. The little horror movie b

FilmQuest has awarded its top prizes to the last three short films that subsequently won Oscars and now receives 3,000 submissions a year. Founder Jonathan Martin believes that gives the festival something buyers increasingly need: a way to find commercially viable genre movies before they disappear into the noise of the traditional market. This week I sat down with the founder of FilmQuest, and there is one statistic about FilmQuest that probably deserves to come before anyt

Forget the politics for a minute. If Congress gets this right, a federal production incentive could make more independent films financeable—and make shooting overseas considerably less attractive. President Trump has called on Congress to create a federal incentive for film and television production, throwing his support behind an idea the industry has been quietly pushing for some time. The effort has support from an unusual coalition that includes the Motion Picture Associa

Brainstorm Media CEO Michelle Shwarzstein on what audiences still want, where acquisition prices are landing, why cast has to match genre, how TVOD can create downstream leverage, and how smart producers can still make the economics work. There is plenty to be pessimistic about in independent film right now, and if you’ve been reading BTL for any length of time, you already know I’m not interested in pretending otherwise. Pay-1 has contracted, buyers are cautious, audiences h

The independent film market hasn’t stopped buying movies. It has become much less forgiving about what it buys—and what it pays. I hear some version of the same filmmaker complaint constantly: “buyers don’t know what the hell they’re doing.” A filmmaker makes what they believe is a genuinely good movie, sends it into the marketplace and gets back silence, passes or an offer that feels insulting. The natural conclusion is that acquisitions executives have become overly conserv

This is a companion piece to "Amazon Is Rebuilding Cable—and Right Now, That’s Great for Indie Film," so read that first. There are more than 100 subscriptions available through Prime Video Channels, but most of them are irrelevant to an independent feature producer. What matters is identifying the services that actually acquire or program films like yours—and understanding that the economics can vary enormously even within the same release window. The ranges below are not pu

Prime Video Channels is creating new Pay-1 buyers, new licensing revenue and even second lives for movies whose transactional business was supposedly over. Independent filmmakers should take advantage of it now—and be very careful about assuming it will last. For most of the last decade, independent filmmakers have thought about Amazon in fairly simple terms. Amazon was where your movie rented or sold. Maybe it landed on Prime. Maybe it disappeared into AVOD. Maybe the royalt

Most producers spend their time perfecting the pitch. The better question is whether you understand what the person across the table is actually buying. I've watched producers spend months trying to get in front of potential film investors and then completely misread them once they finally get the meeting. They arrive with the deck polished, the budget ready, the comps carefully selected and the financial projections formatted to within an inch of their lives. Then they proce

Before blaming the movie, take a hard look at everything surrounding it. One of the most frustrating calls I get from filmmakers usually starts with some version of the same question: "Why isn't anybody buying my movie?" Sometimes the answer really is the movie. It isn't good enough, the pacing doesn't work, the genre is difficult, or the audience simply isn't there. Nobody likes hearing that, but it happens. Increasingly, though, I think filmmakers are too quick to blame the

TIFF launches its first official marketplace in September. What I'm hearing from other buyers and sales agents suggests this could be much more than another stop on the calendar—and filmmakers need to prepare accordingly. For decades, the Toronto International Film Festival has been one of the most important unofficial film markets in the world. Deals happened everywhere. Hotel suites became sales offices. Buyers bounced between screenings and meetings. Sales agents worked ou

What a two-hour conversation with Radial Entertainment's SVP Acquisitions & Orignals, Jordan Fields, reveals about how sophisticated distributors really evaluate independent films. Most filmmakers think buyers are looking for great movies. That's only partially true. After spending more than two hours speaking with Jordan Fields, Senior Vice President of Acquisitions & Originals at Radial Entertainment, I came away convinced that many filmmakers are asking the wrong question.

The most expensive mistakes in independent film usually aren't made during production. They're made before the first dollar is ever spent. Every independent film begins the same way: a script, a budget, a dream and a belief that everything else will fall into place. Sometimes it does. More often, producers spend months—or years—building a project before asking the one question that matters most: Does this movie make business sense in today's marketplace? That's a dangerous wa

What the world's largest streamer can teach filmmakers about pacing, audience gravity, and why "good" isn't good enough anymore. "My movie is just as good as what's already on Netflix." I have heard some version of that sentence hundreds of times over the years. Sometimes it is said confidently, and sometimes it is delivered with the frustration of someone who believes the platform has made an obvious mistake. My response is usually another question: Says who? The filmmaker'

The budget should not tell you what the movie costs. It should tell you whether the movie makes financial sense. A producer sends me a screenplay and tells me the film will cost $3 million. Before discussing the cast, genre or sales potential, I usually ask one question: How did you arrive at $3 million? The answer is often some version of the same story. A line producer read the script, estimated the shooting schedule, priced the locations, added the crew, equipment, post-pr

Why the market rewards clarity—and why trying to be everything to everyone often leaves you with no audience at all. One of the first questions I ask a filmmaker before I watch their movie is deceptively simple. "What genre is it?" You'd be surprised how often the answer begins with a pause. "Well... it's kind of an action thriller with dramatic elements." "It's really a horror comedy." "It's a dramedy." "It's sort of a coming-of-age science fiction film." While I genuinely a

Every producer has heard some version of the same sentence: "But it's a great script." Sometimes it really is. Sometimes it's one of the best screenplays I've read all year. And yet, I and others still pass. That doesn't mean the screenplay isn't exceptional. It means I'm asking a different question than most writers assume. A screenplay doesn't sell because it's well written. It sells because someone can see a path to selling the finished film. That distinction has become mo