 |
| David Mirvish, filmmaker and Slamdance Co-Founder |
By Terry Keefe
As the Sundance Film Festival gets underway this week, the neighboring Slamdance Film Festival also kicks off its 18th edition in Park City as well. This writer was there for the first Slamdance Film Festival in 1995, where a small group of the festival’s founding filmmakers were screening their films in whatever venues were available, including restaurants, and soliciting whatever audiences they could find in the snowy streets, via fliers and posters. Since those early days, Slamdance has grown into a powerful force of the independent film world with its spotlight on first-time filmmakers and has screened first features from the likes of Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight), whose feature Following screened at Slamdance in 1999. Films are now regularly picked up for distribution at Slamdance, including the debut installment of the Paranormal Activity series, which was purchased by Dreamworks Pictures after its Slamdance screening in 2008.
Dan Mirvish
was one of the co-founders of Slamdance in 1995 and has remained one of its
guiding forces, while also sustaining a directing career which began in 1994 with
his first ultra low-budget feature Omaha (the Movie), and continues today with
his just-completed feature Between Us, starring Julia Stiles, Taye Diggs,
Melissa George, and David Harbour. Although
the recession certainly cut back on the acquisitions budgets of independent film
distributors, Mirvish believes that Park City will see a lot of film-buying
activity this year. “I think it’s going
to be a good year, judging from what I know of the films that are going to be
there, at both Sundance and Slamdance,” says Mirvish. “The word on the street
is that distributors are going to be buying films. There’s a couple of big
filmmakers, like Spike Lee, who are coming to Park City, without distribution
(with Red Hook Summer), with films which 10 years ago would have been made by a
studio.”
The digital
revolution in filmmaking has made it possible for anyone with access to a
camera and computer to make a feature film now. While that has unquestionably
increased the numbers of other filmmakers that a first-time director has to
compete with today, the lower costs of shooting on digital, as opposed to film,
have sometimes freed up budgets for directors to hire better-known actors on a
small project. Eli Perle, Mirvish’s manager at Provocation Entertainment, who
also represents a number of other indie filmmakers, including previous
Slamdance Grand Jury winners Daniel J. Harris (The Bible and Gun Club) and
Kevin DiNovis (Surrender Dorothy), elaborates, “With the whole digital aspect
of getting films made, you can make a really good-looking movie for a lot less
money than you used to. But more importantly, actors, and, even more
importantly than that, their agents, have realized that the big studios are not
making adult dramas.” Mirvish nods, adding, “Studios don’t really make Oscar
movies, independent films become Oscar movies. Because of that, the agents and
the actors are realizing that they need to pay a lot more attention to indie
and low-budget filmmakers in a way that they hadn’t so much before. Which is
great for the filmmakers, because it means that you don’t have to necessarily
raise millions and millions of dollars to get A-list actors. You can raise a
few hundred thousand dollars, get great actors, great cameras, and make a
really amazing movie.”
Another
trend that has dovetailed with the ascent of digital filmmaking has been the
use of “crowd-funding” via sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo to raise
budget financing. Mirvish says, “This year, I think Kickstarter was involved
with around 20 films at Sundance. And
probably half the films at Slamdance did some type of crowdfunding. I think
it’s become a lot more acceptable, and mainstream, to just ask friends for
money to help make your movie.”
At the same
time, Mirvish, whose Between Us received some of its initial funding via a
successful Kickstarter campaign, points out that there is a reason the site is
called Kickstarter and not KickFINISHER. He elaborates, “You don’t raise all
your money through Kickstarter, and one shouldn’t expect to. A lot of people
really emphasize the money aspect of these crowd-funding campaigns, but also
important is the emotional aspect. You know, the hardest part is convincing
yourself that you’re making the film. The second hardest part is convincing
others. What Kickstarter and these other
campaigns do is convince you that you’re doing this thing. And even though you
don’t necessarily owe those people back the money, you sort of emotionally do.
In a very real sense, it sort of forces you to put together business plans and
trailer reels and get your act together.”
The 18th
Slamdance Film Festival runs January 20-26 in Park City, Utah.
No comments:
Post a Comment