At the start of the month, we posted that we would be attending Marché du Film virtually. Now that Marché is done, it’s a good time to reflect on what we learned while we were there.
Everyone agreed that it was a rough patch for the industry, and there seemed to be consensus on how much longer it would last. A panellist said that it felt like the hardest time for the industry since the Second World War. But they were optimistic that as it did then, the film industry would recover and get back to making wonderful art, which is favourable to independent film producers. That’s always nice to hear since we want to make movies that fall more on the art than the commercial side of the industry.
An important takeaway from this year’s Marché was that we need to approach production a little bit like the venture capital industry approaches startups. That model goes something like this: you invest in 100 companies, of which you expect that:
- about 90 will fail,
- 8 will return the money that you put in, and
- just 1 or 2 will take off like rockets.
Those one or two companies will make you your money. That’s what you’re looking for. You can’t know in advance which companies those will be, and so, you need to spread your bets a little.
With films, especially art films, the trick is to figure out how to partner with like-minded collaborators and stretch our budgets to make as many films as possible. We can’t know in advance which films will strike a chord with audiences. All we can do is make as much of the best art as we can afford to make and hope that it resonates with audiences.
Everyone said that it’s possible to do everything ourselves. What we need to decide is what resource we want to spend – time or money. If we do everything ourselves, we spend time, time which could be used to make new films. Or we could spend money (or give up percentages of the eventual revenue) and work with sales agents and distributors. We wouldn’t have to learn the nitty gritty of these parts of the industry that our collaborators would already know about.
It was very interesting to see that many distributors and sales agents saying that they prefer getting involved with a film much earlier than we would have expected. Some want to be contacted during scripting, while others are comfortable waiting until filming has wrapped.
All of this is really helpful to know and will definitely play into how we approach our future productions.
It was absolutely fantastic to meet people whom we had met at other markets and film festivals, as well as those whom we met for the first time. The excitement we felt from everyone has us raring to make more films!