is there a truly independent/DIY film scene these days?

it seems like with iphones/the internet it should be easier than ever to make and distribute movies on the cheap. so it seems like there would be a plethora of homemade films out there, from crazy slapdash genre movies to post-mumblecore talk dramas. but i don't hear anything about this kind of thing happening.

my assumption is that it IS happening but a) i just don't know where to look for it and/because b) it's not getting the kind of publicity that independent movies got during my youth (i.e. there isn't the same pipeline of independent talent to the big studios).

so tell me: are people out there making DIY movies? are there sites that review them or make them available to watch? are there "scenes" or aesthetics or trends?

Yes, but it's hard to find anything on YouTube or God help you, Vimeo.

theres a ton of stuff out there. no idea how you sift through it all though.

well this is depressing

Was thinking about this recently. Like how Kevin Smith maxed out 4 credit cards to make Clerks or whatever and how these days the costs to make a film of similar or higher quality would be significantly less.

if i had intelligence and drive and any programming skill at all, i would make the "bandcamp for film" (do not steal this idea)

There's a startlingly robust community of Germans making Star Trek fan films...

isn't bandcamp for film just...vimeo?

Don't get me started...

First of all, one of the biggest problems putting together a small film these days is that even though it is theoretically easier and cheaper than ever to make a film (thanks to everything digital), there's still of staffing up, scheduling etc. with only so much time in the day.

I mean, you can do everything yourself, but someone doing everything well is rare. Somebody who can write and direct can't always shoot. Someone who can edit can't always schedule. A sound person can't always handle continuity. You have get a lot of ducks in a row just to get out the door in the morning.

yeah the need for committed & available human capital is always the bottleneck for DIY film stuff ime

Maybe look at a bunch of local/state film festival catalogs? I'm only familiar with the one here, but there are always a bunch of local indie films: https://watch.eventive.org/wifilmfest

I think I ran across a subreddit for sharing microbudget films when I was looking to buy a decent video capable camera.

I mean, you can do everything yourself, but someone doing everything well is rare. Somebody who can write and direct can't always shoot. Someone who can edit can't always schedule. A sound person can't always handle continuity. You have get a lot of ducks in a row just to get out the door in the morning.

― blue whales on ambient (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, May 10, 2021 1:57 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

but this has always been an obstacle ... this is not something that's different about this era

isn't bandcamp for film just...vimeo?

― intern at pepe le pew research (Simon H.), Monday, May 10, 2021 1:45 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i was being glib but also imagining a site that isn't just "upload your video here" but does more to curate and promote its content, and is focused on creative filmmaking

b) it's not getting the kind of publicity that independent movies got during my youth (i.e. there isn't the same pipeline of independent talent to the big studios).

I think the publicity angle is a big part of it, but I'm not sure it's connected to the relationship between indies and studios. (In fact, I feel like there's more of an indie-to-studio pipeline these days, or maybe I'm just thinking of Chloe Zhao's career.)

I would say in the 1980s/90s, there was more of a well-defined "indie" culture: set in opposition to the mainstream but unified enough to be championed by a specific set of journalists, artists, and tastemakers. This almost certainly elevated some filmmakers and styles to the exclusion of others, but it created an understanding of what indie film was (which had natural affinities with indie music of the time, too).

For various reasons, I don't think there's been as much of an imperative to maintain and prop up this culture, and perhaps those who did don't even have the same kind of cultural power as they once did. (Although you'd think that there might be enough backlash to franchise movies at this point that a new scene could develop in spite of it.)

talking out of my ass, but my ass' first thoughts are:

- there is so, so much pretty good homemade DIY material that it is overwhelming. even if someone makes something amazing it will require an enormous PR effort, endless self-marketing, and a ton of luck in order to breakthrough to anyone, anywhere. because competing with it are tens of thousands OTHER pretty good, free things, complete with people who are still energetic enough to mount a major PR/marketing effort to try to convince people to take a few seconds of their precious lives and watch yet another free, pretty good thing

i guess the optimistic vision is that this will lead to filmmakers/artists giving up on the idea of their work being seen by "the film world" or whatever they think they're doing, and instead will be happy just in the experience of making the thing and showing it to their 4 close friends, who will watch all 8 minutes of it, and hopefully to another couple dozen acquaintances, who may watch 30-40 seconds of it before getting texted the link to another really good free thing that "someone" (was it "the internet" who made it?) just made, somewhere

i don't think it's much different than DIY music or anything else. some of my friends (including you NA!) have made absolutely beautiful, lovely music - why aren't people emailing and begging them to make more? i'd guess because they know they can get as much beautiful music as they ever want, for free

but i am a person who would like to watch the small cool DIY movies people made, but i have no idea where to find them (aside from just randomly trolling around vimeo, i guess?)

Try to look into online film festivals; both geographically local and internet submissions. They're going on all the time. The problem, as said, is finding the people who a) will volunteer their time and labor into publicizing it and b) finding the audience that is ALSO willing to give their time to find and watch this stuff, when so many other easier consumption options available.

probably a bad idea, but you could try searching for "mfa film" and then sorting by most recently uploaded

i will do the favor of granting some unknown MFA film the gift of exposure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PuieabJPHQ

alright, maybe that's not an efficient way of finding the good stuff, haha. but i'm sure there are a 1000 thesis films with 100 views or less that are better than the average thing you'd find on netflix

"- there is so, so much pretty good homemade DIY material that it is overwhelming. even if someone makes something amazing it will require an enormous PR effort, endless self-marketing, and a ton of luck in order to breakthrough to anyone, anywhere. because competing with it are tens of thousands OTHER pretty good, free things, complete with people who are still energetic enough to mount a major PR/marketing effort to try to convince people to take a few seconds of their precious lives and watch yet another free, pretty good thing"

pretty much