More than a few industry folks I've spoken to of late have said that independent cinema is dead.   So I pose the question to others out there.   Do you think that's really true?  I'm not sure I'd go as far as dead, and if next year's Sundance comes up big, all these folks will say the opposite of what they're saying now.   Even now, someone will win the lottery with a film like "Once" or "Ballast", but as stated, that's kind of like winning the lottery.  It happens once or twice out of the more than 5,000 indie films made each year.  If you want odds not much better than the Lotto, is it viable?   I was told recently that I was extremely fortunate to even be offered an advance by the dvd distributor for my latest feature film.  And I heard many stories of indie films that got picked up this year by distributors at Sundance with little to no advance.  Which astounds me.  It tells you where the market is at.   Another filmmaker I know who's repped by one of the biggest film sales agents in the Biz, recently said that his own sales rep says that independent cinema is currently dead.  That the difference between trying to sell a truly independent feature now versus only a few years ago is huge.  It's now totally an Insider's game.  I was told that with only a few, rare exceptions, the vast majority of films that screen at Sundance now are actually submitted or pushed to the festival by the likes of CAA, ICM, Endeavor, etc., and if your project wasn't a Sundance Lab project or repped by a major industry rep prior to submitting, your film had almost no shot at getting in, even if it's good.  And then the smaller festivals all follow what the larger festivals do, instead of operating independently of them.   Back in 2002, I had a film at Sundance (the same year "Better Luck Tomorrow" was there), and I know back then, there were quite a few feature films that didn't have major representation prior to getting into the festival.  Apparently, it's all different now.  You either have to have an inside connection, or win the lottery.    In the old days, the term "independent" originally meant it wasn't financed by a major Hollywood studio.  But now, even if it's not financed by a studio, if it's being pushed at festival programmers by the William Morris Agency, and has a budget of millions of dollars with major celebs in it, should it truly be a considered an independent film??   And should the festivals be promoting these kinds of films that already have the backing to be marketed without the festivals???   The easy answer is of course to say that festivals should be focused on discovering and promoting voices in cinema that don't have all that, but the truth is, this is still a business, and I suppose even the festivals need to make money to keep themselves afloat.  The problem is, if this current trend continues, where festivals only promote the films that are pre-ordained by the establishment, eventually, it could lead to the death of independent cinema. 

For those who already know me, this will come as no surprise.  But to those who are just meeting me for the first time, I have a confession to make.  I have an addiction.  And I swear it's worse than crack.  I am absolutely addicted to ice cream.  In just about any form.  Hard ice cream, soft ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt, fudgesickles, drumsticks, melon bars, mochi ice cream, deep fried ice cream, ice cream sandwiches, ice cream cake, you name it.  If it's got ice cream in or around it, I'm all over it.  I am so addicted, I can't stop.  Can't go a day without having at least a little.  And if for some reason I do, I have major withdrawal.  My mouth starts salivating.  I get fidgety.  Antsy.  I can't concentrate.  I even have trouble sleeping at night, unless I get my fix.  I'm not picky about brands either.  I dig 'em all.  From the expensive gourmet stuff to your local supermarket brand.  Odd, that a man of my age still hasn't gotten past this.  When my friends wanna grab drinks after dinner, all I want is to get ice cream.  More than once, it's altered my evening plans.  Could it be because I'm a filmmaker (i.e., immature)?  I won't answer that.  People say too much of anything can't be good.  But in this one case, I beg to differ.  

I was corresponding recently with an old film school classmate of mine who directed a big studio movie last year.  It was a big family comedy for Disney, and it was one of the biggest box office hits of 2007 (grossing over $250 million worldwide).  Not long after, another friend of mine asked me what percentage of my film school class was still in the business.  I thought about it for a beat, and realized it was definitely less than half.  And shrinking.

Since I'm still in the biz, it's probably better not to think too much about these things, but to talk to someone who's doing so ridiculously well, and then to consider right afterwards all my colleagues who've fallen away completely, it's quite sobering.  Still, I think it's better to face reality, than hide from it completely.

When I look around at all the folks I know in this wonderful yet insane industry, I find it's a very thin line between success and failure.  There is no logic to it as it often seems so random why certain people end up on either side.  None of us can really predict where we'll be 10 years from now, and in the end, I suppose it's about having faith in the master plan, whatever that may be. 

Anyways, I gotta get back to my rewrites...

So I've been quite the delinquent blogger since I joined this site several weeks ago.  Guess there's never really a good excuse, but I just signed with a new management company and they want me to retool one of my scrīpts so they can take it out on the market.  Needless to say, I've been swamped in rewrites lately and it's pretty much taken my attention from everything else.  (That, and I still have some dealmaking stuff to handle for my latest feature film.)  Anyway, I'm hoping to be a better blogger once I finish these rewrites.  Everyone out there has their own style or way of screenwriting.  For me, I literally have to shut myself off from the rest of the world if it's a significant amount of work.  Whenever I see folks in crowded coffee shops like Starbucks writing scrīpts, I wonder how they could ever get real work done that way.  Too distracting for me.  I need to be like a lone bear in a cave.  In the end though, to each his own.  ; 0)