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To
Be Or Not To Be – Independent
Fiona Ashe
attended New York's IFP Market, where panels of industry insiders
offered advice on anything from selling your first script
to marketing your first feature. [Extract]
New York's annual IFP Market has been running since 1979 and
is the largest East Coast film market. Part of the event is
a five-day conference which brings together leading figures
of the Indie scene to debate all aspects of filmmaking. The
originality-oriented, less commercially-driven independent
film industry in the U.S. throws up 2,000 Indie films every
year, most of which vanish immediately and forever. So, although
keen and focused, many of the filmmakers attending have an
air of desperation as they wait on advice from the expert
panels.
First up for their attention is some practical counsel from
Richard Wesley (Assistant Professor of Dramatic Writing, NYU)
for writers: market yourself. "Screenplays are not written
to be read, they're written to be produced. The centrality
of the writer exists in the theatre and to some degree in
TV. It has no place at all in screen... it's very important
if you have written a script to go out and aggressively seek
the people who can make that script happen."
On a more technical note, and discussing narrative strategies,
Henry Bean (Screenwriter, Mulholland Falls) uses Citizen
Kane as an illustration of the theatricality frequently
asserted by Orson Welles. "That theatricality is part
of what gives him that freedom to tell the story the way he
wants to: jumping around. Plot sucks up all the time of a
movie, but with the newsreel strategy employed by Welles a
large proportion of it is already out of your way. And by
having a flashback structure, you can jump ahead and tell
things in whatever order you want for emotional effect rather
than narrative purposes." But citing the fact that Citizen
Kane was a box office failure, Bean explains that "the
studios want straight-ahead narrative and they want the immediacy
of the narrative chronological sequence and the immediacy
of live sound. They don't want somebody back there, telling
you about what you're seeing because it produces a distance.
In that distance, thought and reflection can occur which they're
trying to exclude, because they want a passionate, immediate,
almost visceral experience instead of a contemplative one."
One way to generate interest in your project is a demonstration
of capability through previous work, e.g. a short film. And,
while potential deal-makers will view shorts before your next
script is ready, many of the production/distribution companies
regard the combination of a completed short film with a feature-length
script as the ultimate package. Nicolas Karlson (Senior Director,
Hypnotic): "Most of the solid short films blindly submitted
to us that are great are ones where an actor, writer or cinematographer
turned director, because they understand what is important
in a film". Shorts aren't the only way: first-time directors
are advised by Eamonn Bowles (President, Magnolia Films) to
write or plan to make very low budget features, to get one
under their belt. But he recommends keeping a level-head.
"Remember your sense of scale. Making movies is a privilege
not a right."
A good way to source information on who's cutting deals is
through the trade magazines, but Amy Kaufman, (Acquisitions,
Focus Features) warns that being ill-informed can cost you
an opportunity to pitch. "Look at your project and research
the different companies. Figure out what films these companies
have done in their past, what their mandate is, how they operate;
whether they provide money if you're looking for money; if
you don't have a director yet, whether this company has a
history of getting involved with projects without a director
attached." Once you attract interest, Matthew Greenfield
(Producer, The Good Girl) urges caution when choosing
your team. "You don't want to put four years into a movie,
do a deal with the first person to give you money, then find
out they're not the right person for you, knowing that if
you'd waited another six months, you could have made a movie
you like".
Sam Kitt (President of Production at Spike Lee's 40 Acres
and a Mule) gave first-timers hope by underscoring the advantage
of working with people who have a fresh vision. "There's
a real tendency among people who've done things a certain
way for years to say 'it can't be done that way'. But first-time
directors don't know it can't be done that way, so they do
it and it works. There is that power of 'Why not?'"
The
full text of this article is printed in Film Ireland
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