How Low Can You Go: Even at Cannes, Longevity Means Living Lean
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👋 Hello! The Cannes Film Festival was a blur, the American Pavilion was packed, and IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking summit was a huge success. Today I'm flying to Paris for two well-earned days visiting my sister, but here's my take on what Cannes had to tell us about sustainable film careers. Turns out Beverly Hills' sister city had a quite a bit to say. (As always, if you've got anything to say to me reach out at the contacts above.)
Richard Linklater on the down low
Zero is a minimum guarantee
Minimalism is a superpower
Here's Richard Linklater's best advice to aspiring filmmakers: 'Keep your overhead low.'
Given our location, that might sound ridiculous. We're at the American Pavilion in Cannes and I've asked him how he might advise today's filmmakers, who operate in a world very different than the one that shaped his career.Later, at IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking summit, the director of Cannes Competition title 'Nouvelle Vague' got real about how much the industry has changed since his 'Slacker' days. 'I don't know if guilty's the word, but when I talk to young filmmakers… it was such a different time that just doesn't exist anymore.'
This was my 10th Cannes Film Festival, but my first since 2013. To the naked eye, little changed: massive Carlton Hotel billboards for the latest 'Mission: Impossible'; a stunning Emma Stone on the red carpet, even while being attacked by a bee; and guest appearances by shameless strivers. (The faux Bezos-Sanchez couple was mightily convincing until they were seated in the nosebleed section of the Palais.)
However, after talking with independent producers, filmmakers, and sales agents, it's clearly a different world. A $1 million film may make money; $3 million and up is cause for anxiety. We live in the era of the zero m.g., where theatrical distribution doesn't necessarily mean the filmmakers were paid.
Negotiations for the advance (or, the minimum guarantee) can start at zero and sometimes that's where they stay. As two producers noted, in separate conversations: 'The worst part is they expect you to be grateful.'
So how do you make it work? One unlikely role model is a filmmaker I met in Cannes, Elizabeth Blake-Thomas.
Her career doesn't look anything like Linklater's. Originally a U.K. theater director, she's made more than two dozen low-budget genre films you might find on TVODs like Amazon or Tubi, with actors like Mena Suvari or Casper Van Dien. Sometimes the cast includes her daughter and producing partner, Isabella.
Blake-Thomas' first film cost $26,000; she's had budgets up to $3 million. Whatever the number, she's never gone over. That applies to her own life as well.
She keeps overhead low — very low. Elizabeth and Isabella live in a one-bedroom apartment in the Valley and share a Fiat 500. No debt; no vacations; yes savings. 'If a job wasn't to come straight away, you can still live,' she said. 'That would be awful if I was in that situation.'Most of all, she said, this isn't temporary. Her lean and focused life leaves her the energy to focus on making movies that make money for her investors, which means she can keep making more. 'I don't put time and effort into things that don't matter,' she said. 'I have my dog and my daughter. We love our life. That lets me put my full energy into filmmaking but I have to be really intentional about it, because it takes everything.'
This won't be the first time Hollywood's compared to gambling, but: The less you spend at the casino, the longer you last. Aspiring filmmakers need a runway — the time required to meet people, make things, make mistakes. And time is money.
'Everything you do, you're taking a leap,' Linklater said at the summit. 'I tell filmmakers: If no one wants to support you, that just means you are not ready yet. People [need] to believe in you, and that's usually you believing in yourself. You can't fake that. You have to earn that through your own experience, your own confidence, your own hard work and dedication. But I think the timing works out when it's ready.'
Not every sustainable career requires sleeping on a sofa bed, but creative lives constantly face factors beyond their control. For people like Blake-Thomas, minimalism means controlling her destiny. Keep it simple, keep costs down, and keep making movies.
'It means I get to be here,' she said from our table overlooking the Mediterranean, 'and do this.'
Future of Filmmaking has partnered with Universal Studio Group for a series of virtual panels about the making of TV shows like 'Hacks,' 'Man on the Inside,' and 'The Four Seasons.' Quinta Brunson of 'Abbott Elementary' will also be joining IndieWire at Vidiots on May 20 for another installment of 'Pass the Remote.'
Check out USG University: Consider This, starting May 19.Register to attend 'Pass the Remote' at Vidiots on May 20.
5. by Charles Bastille
Pretty self-explanatory from the title and we wish it was more helpful, but this list published on Medium draws a troubling portrait of Trump's effect on American arts programming even before he started bringing up tariffs. From theaters to city parks funding, a huge bite has been taken out of cultural curation in this country and it's time we started recognizing it as an injustice in the same way this piece does.
4. by Dhar Mann
Ignoring the eye-catching lead-in, Mann's post on Linkedin this week acknowledges a very important conversation happening in many spaces around Hollywood: Is the creator economy taking over? People tend to balk at the idea of new money and that's what Mann represents with his newly formed YouTube content creation studio in Burbank, but every pipeline we now consider traditional had to start somewhere.
3. by Jon Reiss*
With his substack 8 Above, Reiss digs into the fluctuating nuances of global film distribution. For his most recent write-up, he breaks down modern strategies for getting your project seen, with emphasis on eventizing the work for theatrical, as well as building a digital following.
2. by That Final Scene
As much as we're intrigued by the creator economy and the opportunities it may bring, we still have an overall appreciation for what some may call 'traditional cinema' and trying to get others to as well is kind of our bag. This seems to be the case with Sophie from That Final Scene as well, who's framework of 'cinema as cultural gyms' might be the most genius marketing tool we've heard in a while. No surprise, considering Sophie was at one point in film marketing herself.
1. by Ted Hope*
There's a lot of meat to this breakdown from American film producer Ted Hope via his substack Hope for Film. Some of it is positive, but it mostly serves as a necessary wake-up call. The system that allowed independent filmmaking to thrive has been broken and we deserve better. In an industry that has become all about factoring risk against reward, Hope suggests it's time to be bold in new ways just for the hell of it.
*paid subscription
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