Box Office Records: Can They Help Indie Film?

I love hearing that Hollywood is breaking box office records this year. Supposedly, the domestic box office is going to reach $10 billion for the first time and Hollywood just had the biggest three-day weekend ever at $263 million -- thanks to an impressive showing by Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and It's Complicated. A seven-day record is expected to be broken this week as well. 

Can this help indie film? I think so. If anything, it should help potential investors feel positive about how the film industry is faring at the moment. Making investors feel comfortable about the state of the industry goes a long way in getting them to take an interest in investing in film. 

If investors hear that box office records are being broken then they may want to get in on the action. They may get excited about a possible trickle down effect that may happen from this success. It is possible that this success at the box office will increase the demand for films and lead to increased buying. It may also make theatrical releases less scary for the distributors. 

However, I wouldn't get excited just yet. Hollywood loves to blame success on anomalies so it's most likely going to take a lot more than one year's success during a recession to get them excited about buying more and doing more costly theatrical releases. 

Will this success also make film investments safer? In my opinion, no. Film investments are high-risk investments no matter how you slice them. They strongly depend on the quality of the creative team and the script. 

In addition, theatricals tend to be loss leaders, meaning the film loses money playing in the theater but the exposure leads the film nicely into strong DVD, TV and foreign performances. So though theatricals are breaking records, they aren't known for being major money-makers. The big revenue has been made more in the DVD and TV and foreign markets. 

And right now, there is a real downturn in DVD sales (though rentals are up) and we still haven't figured out how to monetize digital downloads well yet and TV advertising dollars have dried up. Blu-ray has yet to prove it has the muscle to help the DVD industry. 

What these box-office records do show is that people are making the trek to the movie theaters and that is exciting. Even with movie ticket prices being high, people are still enjoying gathering together in a dark room and being caught up in a story with no interruptions for an hour and a half or more. And that has to bolster the entertainment industry. 

The moral of the story is that good news helps everyone -- even if you aren't quite sure how it will help you or your project specifically. Just an overall feeling of success can do a great deal in building confidence and positive buzz for an industry. So yes, I do believe these box-office records can be used to help indie film. They show that people do still love movies and they will spend the money at the box office to see them -- if we offer them a reason to do so. What is that reason? Good, enjoyable, satisfying entertainment. That should be our goal.

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The Biz of Running an Independent Film Production Company

I have been running my production company now for about five years. It has been quite a learning experience. Luckily I had owned a book packaging company in NYC for a while so I had some knowledge of setting up a business. Thank goodness for that because otherwise I would have really been lost. Learning how to start a business at the same time as figuring out how to produce films would have blown my mind, I think.

I don't know of any go-to resources out there that tell you how to start your own film production company. You basically have to talk to colleagues and figure out how they did it. Or you can consult with your accountant or entertainment lawyer, if you even have them on your team yet. 

When we started our company, we began as a DBA (or Doing Business As). It allowed us to secure a name for the company and open a business account under that name. We thought, why spend the yearly fee on owning an LLC in California until we felt we really needed to?  In California it comes out to about $820 per year at a minimum to have an LLC. California is one of the most expensive states in which to have an LLC. Lucky us!

One of the main reasons LLCs are formed are to provide you with liability protection. Since we were primarily doing development the first year or so and I was working on projects under other companies, we thought let's wait a bit on the costly LLC.

Once we started putting together projects for production, it was now time to start our production company's LLC. We wanted our company, not us as individuals, managing our projects. So Wonder Entertainment is typically a managing member of the companies we create for each individual film that we make. 

What's that you ask? We have companies for each film too? Yes! You need to offer your investors an investment vehicle in which to invest, i.e. an LLC, for each film. Otherwise, they would be taking stakes in your production company. 

So that $820 really adds up when you are talking about having the LLC for your own production company that mainly does development and then $820 per year for all the LLC's that are created once you are ready to make a film. 

So let's say you have made 10 films under California LLCs and you have your LLC for your production company then that's over $9k per year just to have the privilege of operating a company in California. I feel privileged every time I write the checks. 

So when you go to make a film in California, make sure you are really going to be making it before you open the LLC. 

And once you form the LLCs, you will need an attorney or a legal service like LegalZoom to draft the operating agreement and an accountant to do the taxes for each company. You may even need to hire a bookkeeper to keep your books up to date on each company. 

Then you need to worry about keeping track of all your expenses so you can write them off at tax time. This is very important as you can receive a sizable tax break if your expenses are high. You will probably have to purchase Quickbooks so you have software that can track your expenses and allow your accountant to have an easier time doing your taxes.

If you are hiring employees then that's a whole other scenario. Employees? Wouldn't that be nice? .... Sorry, I was dreaming there for a second about actually having an employee to help me do what I do. It was a lovely dream. 

There's also the question of opening an office or not. We started out with an office in Hollywood and after a year and a horrible experience with a money-grubbing landlord (that is a whole other story I should discuss sometime), we decided we didn't need the overhead and we all started working out of our home offices. Perhaps someday an office will make sense again but right now, working in my PJs with my cat in my lap suits me just fine.

Now that you have the business of your production company settled, you can focus on the fun stuff: making movies!

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Not Since You Plans for Theatrical!

We are in talks with the Georgia Theatre Co. about having a limited theatrical for our feature Not Since You. This is super exciting for us and our film because we had worried a theatrical would be out of the question. 

Many independent films never have a theatrical release. Instead they go straight to DVD or TV or the Internet. This is due to economics. Theatrical releases are often loss leaders, meaning they lose money but they lead the film toward strong DVD and TV releases (which helps to make up for the loss at the theaters). 

Thankfully the Georgia Theatre Co. agrees with us that the film deserves to be in the theaters! They have been super helpful thus far and we are shipping posters off to their Athens, Georgia theater today for some promotion of the film during the holiday film rush. 

We chose to work with the Georgia Theatre Co. because we shot the film in Athens, Georgia and we believe we can build strong support for this release in that region. If any of you reading are from that area, please go see the film! I'll post the dates as soon as we have them.

I'm off to have 4 posters printed this morning and shipped to the Athens theater for some holiday promotion of the film. Still pinching myself!

Here's the trailer: 

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Brittany Murphy RIP

My condolences go out to Brittany Murphy's family. I didn't know Ms. Murphy but she was considered an indie-friendly actor and could be found on everyone's wish list for actors. She was approachable and even produced her own film Ramen Girl. She will be missed.

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Indie Filmmakers Should Lean on Each Other More

The key to fixing indie film is working together. We all have a common goal of making movies, right? So why not come together and support one another? Your success is my success and vice versa.

Too often we indie filmmakers work in vacuums. We find our projects and build our teams by ourselves. I've done that many times. And I look back and think, I should have leaned on my colleagues more. In those times, I was alone trying to figure out a solution to my problems, I should have reached out more to my producer/director friends. Perhaps they would have had a quick, simple solution.

I know I am reinventing the wheel too often. I'm sure you often feel the same.

This is why networking is so important and helping others counts. In those times you hit an issue that you have never dealt with before, why not reach out and see how your colleagues have handled the problem? Hopefully they have experienced the same thing and can offer a quick solution based on their own experience and research.

If any of you run into issues, feel free to reach out to me. I may have ideas to offer because I've been there before. Consider me a colleague you can lean on! Hopefully I can do the same with you.

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The Runaways -- Joan Jett Rocks

Let's hope the film rocks too! Here's a trailer:

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Women Filmmakers, Our Discussion

We're having a great discussion over at Women and Hollywood today. The blog I wrote about women needing to make more movies and network more got everyone talking. Check out the comments on my blog post and then see the cross posting of my blog entry and comments at Women and Hollywood. 

As you can tell, I'm a big proponent of not portraying women as victims of Hollywood. I don't think having women be portrayed as victims helps in any situation. We need to be thought of as equals. So instead I'd rather focus on how we can have a greater presence in Hollywood both as creators and as an audience. What can we do to effect change?

Bottomline, Hollywood is going to do what it wants, when it wants, how it wants. All Hollywood cares about is the bottomline. And they don't think women really help their bottomline. Any box office successes are considered anomalies. 

So we really need to put our energies toward figuring out how to get Hollywood to realize that the female audience is powerful and that female creatives can bring the box office just as their male counterparts do.

How do we do that? Work together on initiatives to help prove to Hollywood that we are a viable audience and creators. The key is being proactive and actually doing something about this issue and not just throw out a few blog comments here or there. 

It's going to take real action. Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood is absolutely taking action. She highlights the issues that women have in Hollywood every day. We need more Melissas and we need more organizations that really help female filmmakers. I'll be honest that I receive no help or support from any female film organization. I'm certain there are others out there like me in that regard. And that really needs to change. If I started a woman's organization for female filmmakers, would others join?

We also need to figure out how to reach the female audience through our work. How about a film series highlighting female directors? I'm sure there have been some. But let's do some more. 

Why don't we throw out ideas of what we think would help? And perhaps we can all come together and work on some of them?

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