Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Sundance odds, 2009

J

jpp

Banned
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
384
Reaction score
0
Points
0
For those interested in dispiriting statistics, Sundance received 1026 submissions for the Dramatic Competition (open to American films only) and accepted 16, for odds of about 1.5%. Since a good number of the selected films have stars (Susan Sarandon, Pierce Brosnan, Kevin Bacon, Paul Giamatti, among many other lesser lights), the real odds, for the poorly connected or under-financed (sometimes known as "independent films"), would appear to be well under 1%. Budgets are unknown, so we can't slice it that way, though the number of films producible on the filmmaker's personal resources is likely to be very small or, more probably, non-existent.

Odds were slightly better for the documentary feature competition, with 16 films chosen from 879 submissions, but with well-known (and, presumably, better financed) directors accounting for about a quarter of those selected.

In all categories, 118 features were selected from 3661 submissions, of which 1756 were of non-U.S. origin, for overall odds of about 3%.

So celebrate or curse, depending.
 
Keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of novels are written and submitted each year, and only a couple dozen ever make it. So 1.5% odds aint that bad!
 
Tom said:
Keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of novels are written and submitted each year, and only a couple dozen ever make it. So 1.5% odds aint that bad!
Click to expand...
Not to mention all the guys playing electric guitar in their garage ... how many become ... ROCKSTARS?
 
  • Thread starter
  • Banned
  • #4
Tom said:
Keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of novels are written and submitted each year, and only a couple dozen ever make it. So 1.5% odds aint that bad!
Click to expand...

Yeah, but you're competing against celebrity vehicles and corporate-produced movies. And ground-breaking work will usually be consigned, if it gets accepted at all at Sundance, to one of the off-categories.

Though it's true that, in the arts, 1.5% odds are, if anything, too generous. It's more like 1 in 1,000 or 10,000. But that ain't Sundance.
 
Andy Palmer said:
"Never tell me the odds."
-Han Solo, Empire Strikes Back
Click to expand...

Yep.
icon14.gif
 
  • Thread starter
  • Banned
  • #8
Try telling that to your investors....
 
Nobody asked me, but I guess the subtext here isn't so much that the odds in the arts are bad (how could that be otherwise?), but that the typical level of commercial failure in traditional arts like writing, music or painting, applied to independent film, is a disaster for investors and filmmakers, and for independent filmmaking in general in the U.S., absent other forms of meritorious subsidies.

When all this shakes out, the end result seems to be the Sundance Dramatic Competition: large numbers of so-called independent films with A- and B-list movie stars, a few others with generic characteristics which helped get them get delusively financed and accepted at Sundance, and maybe one or two genuine independents.

None of this should be surprising, since Sundance, like any business, has to cater to its sponsors, to the larger industry, to the tastes of general festival audiences, and to the interests of its owner, which is Robert Redford, not Tarkovsky, Cassavetes or Hou Hsiao-hsein. When Redford started the venture, the ski lodge was supposed to pay for the festival and the Institute, but in fact it's the festival which promotes and sustains Redford's other business interests.

Then again, a festival full of difficult or genuinely independent films -- which, in the U.S. means largely self-financed films -- would bring down the roof on the whole affair. No more bidding wars and no more celebrities or celebrity gift bags. Just another forgettable regional festival full of under-funded movies mass-audiences don't want to see.
 
I guess the dreamer and director in me would tell the investor that my team and I are that 1.5%, I think you have to believe that you have the capability to rise to that challenge to survive in this rough and tumble business. But the producer in me would also have no problem showing those odds to an investor and flat out say, forget about Sundance, if we get in, great, but the days of Clerks, Brothers McMullen, and Blood Simple are over. I would tell my investors that we need to build our marketing and distribution strategy beyond the traditional Sundance or bust mentality. Their are more areas of distribution and exhibition than ever before and we need to explore those to the fullest, and not worry about 1-piece ski suits and hanging with Robert Redford, (Although I love one piece ski suits) When people tell me that getting into film is hard and the odds are bad, I just say to them yes, but all it takes is one success to make it all worth it. By the way I do have a meeting with an investor in about two hours for my first feature, and I might have to let him know that two hours previous I just got my rejection letter from Sundance for my last short, here's what it looks like if you guys want to see it.-

As the Director of the Sundance Film Festival, I would like to thank you for submitting your work to us, and I truly appreciate your hard work and dedication as an independent filmmaker. Unfortunately, we are not able to include your film in Sundance Film Festival 2009.

For the first time in our Festival's history, we received over 9,000 submissions. While this gives us the unique opportunity to consider work that spans a wide spectrum from around the globe, it certainly doesn't make it any easier to narrow those entries down to an entire program of just over 200 films. I'm sure it is no consolation to you that we are forced to make these difficult decisions, but I do believe that there certainly is an audience for your film and I anticipate that you will find the appropriate platform for presenting it. I regret not being able to include all of the films that we appreciate, but we simply don't have the room. We look forward to having the opportunity to view your work in the future.


Sincerely,


Geoffrey Gilmore
Director, Sundance Film Festival

-All it takes is one shot to turn it all around
 
Andy Palmer said:
-All it takes is one shot to turn it all around
Click to expand...

That's true in a limited sense -- just as someone always wins the lottery in the end, no matter how bad the odds are.

The trouble is, you need a mechanism to sustain excellence in non-Hollywood filmmaking. The Sundance Institute was originally conceived as one means of achieving that excellence, but it's always been a preserve of administrative myopia and industry influence -- people who aren't artists, or even educated about the arts, making decisions about what gets promoted.

Indie film has been big in the U.S. for going on 20+ years now, with tens of millions down the drain on film investment, and we still don't have a tradition which can stand up to countries as diverse as France or Taiwan.

Without that mechanism, you can get thousands hoping that they'll be the next Kevin Smith, difficult as that kind of success would be today. Or you can spend lots of time raising money, in the hope you can hoodwink ignorant investors. 1.5% may be good enough for most filmmakers -- actually, more like .5%, if you don't have stars, and maybe .1%, if you expect to get production costs back -- but no sane investor is going to go for it.
 
JPP, my man I hear what your saying, and I agree that the foundation for which Sundance was built is not what it has become, and that true artists trying to have their voices heard in independent film struggle because of lack of support now more than ever. It's always amazing to me when you watch a foreign feature and many times the principal financiers behind the project are a government entity for the arts, and I wonder why not here? It is frustrating that we are the wealthiest country in the world and yet our contribution to the arts seem to dwindle more and more. I guess what I am saying is that as a filmmaker and businessmen, I can't focus on what doesn't work or what isn't being done for artists, and try to focus on how I can let my voice be heard and also figure out a way to recoup and reward my investors. One way that my team and I are doing this is by focusing on genre flicks that we want to make first, rather than our true passion projects, and hopefully if we can succeed in waters that are a little more friendly and lucrative, we can move on to the projects that move us. But for the true indie filmmaker with a passion project that may not have stars or appeal to a mass audience, there are great resources for them. Cameras like the RED, and HVX, EX1, allow you to make flicks so much cheaper and a sound marketing plan, and web savvy can allow that person to recoup money for investors through self-distribution, by focusing on the audience that would love to watch that movie. I know I'm spouting out quotes left and right here, but one of my favorites comes from my man John Wooden,
"Don't let what you can't do, get in the way of what you can do"
 
Sundance is nice but its not the ending (if ones films isn't selected)

call my naive but I truly believe the cream rises (and yes I'm well aware of corporate sponsors, goofy celebs, etc)

Ballast is a perfect example... low budget, very "slow" (avant garde), non professional actors, etc.... yet it was chosen and it won... and now Lance Hammer is doing the whole DIY route, walking away from a deal with IFC.

and I think with the passing of time, we're going to see more and more of these stories (Lance's alternate distro route)
 
Jacob_Ross said:
Ballast is a perfect example... low budget, very "slow" (avant garde), non professional actors, etc.... yet it was chosen and it won... and now Lance Hammer is doing the whole DIY route, walking away from a deal with IFC.

and I think with the passing of time, we're going to see more and more of these stories (Lance's alternate distro route)
Click to expand...

I wish one could take comfort in this story, but "Ballast" disappeared with a gross of about $64,000, which means they lost money even on the distribution (not to mention production costs). Maybe they'll get a little back from home video and cable.

Anyone interested in the self-distribution route might want to check out the DVD of something called "The Talent Given Us", an odd no-budget feature with an interesting "extra" on the filmmaker's attempts at self-distribution. More than a year of full-time work for him and his wife, many theaters, and no profit -- actually, a sizeable loss.

There's always something to celebrate....
 
Actually according to IMDB Pro "Ballast" grossed $80,000 theatrically in just 5 theaters on a two month release. It was made an offer by IFC which was turned down by the director, not so much because of the low up front offer, which any character driven drama with absolutely no names involved would get, but because of the length that he would have to relinquish rights for the flick. Another mistake that he's just learning now, is that he didn't budget in any money for marketing the flick after it was done. There has to be money in the budget to get it out there, I build this into all of our business plans and can't stress enough to investors how important money to market the movie is. Also your boy Andrew Wagner from the Talent Given Us may have struggled distributing that flick, but it sure catapulted him to his next film which did have name actors and classical distribution and a theatrical gross of almost a million bucks. I'm thinking no matter what, there are always two sides to look at things, I just hate to see you so pessimistic, I don't know you from Adam JPP, but I suspect you got a project or several you want to get off the ground and right now your discouraged on how to do it. I hope you can find the fire and confidence and investors who can push aside the "What ifs" and you can get your projects off of the ground. Preferably with a RED camera no less.
 
Andy Palmer said:
Another mistake that he's just learning now, is that he didn't budget in any money for marketing the flick after it was done.
Click to expand...

Marketing a low-budget indie in the major American urban centers is a 7-figure affair -- there's simply no way for most filmmakers to budget such an expense, and I'm not sure that it would make sense to withhold those funds from the production, even assuming they could be found.

But you're right about Andrew Wagner. He did make the most of it by attaching Frank Langella to his second project, though the company that produced the film has since gone out of business. The film can't have been very profitable (if at all), but he did get the opportunity to do productive work, which is all that matters in the end. I just wish there was a more reliable mechanism to get there.

But, anyway, thanks for your best wishes.
 
JPP,

I hear ya, the film industry is about as reliable as a corvair. There is some middle ground in terms of marketing flicks. We certainly don't build massive numbers into our production budget, but we do have money to put into niche markets where we know our audience is going to be viewing. A friend of mine shot an indie last year, called "Last Stop for Paul" It was a little dv movie that was beautifully done, it won more festivals than I have fingers, and had offers from several distributors including Magnolia films. No stars, just a great story. They had a limited theatrical run, and the way they got asses in the seats every night was by cutting a professional trailer and then placing tv spots through local cable divisions. Local cable has to place so many local ads per hour, but with a kick ass trailer no one would know it was a local spot, they placed adds in areas around where the theater was, and bam they had a ton of sold out shows, and those spots ran from anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to 10 bucks a spot during off hours. Now I realize if you have an indie that costs a good chunk of change, the scapel approach to marketing can be tough, but with little things like that, you can build some momentum really quick and then you never know what could happen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top