Independent Filmmakers Quotes

when you educate yourself about clitoredectomies, infibulation, forced prostitution, rape as a war tactic, patriarchal religions, women painters, filmmakers, poets, writers, activists, politicians, sex-industry workers, historians, archelogoists and musicians, that’s self-protection.

To make a real independent film where the filmmaker is in charge creatively, one must sacrifice personal, financial, and physical well-being.

A filmmaker named Robert Goldstein was imprisoned for showing the British in a bad light in a movie about the American War of Independence.

The best documentaries are independent. They don’t exist to serve interests, philanthropic or otherwise.

Because I don't make the mistake that high-culture mongers do of assuming that because people like cheap art, their feelings are cheap, too,” the late filmmaker Dennis Potter once said, explaining why pop songs were so important in his work, from Pennies from Heaven to The Singing Detective to Lipstick on Your Collar, his paean to the 1950s, the time he shared with the Independent Group—and Potter was also defining a pop ethos, defining what I think is happening in Paolizzi's collage. "When people say, 'Oh listen, they're playing our song,' they don't mean 'Our song, this little cheap, tinkling, syncopated piece of rubbish, is what we felt when we met.' What they're saying is, 'That song reminds us of that tremendous feeling we had when we met.' Some of the songs I use are great anyway, but the cheaper songs are still in the direct line of descent from David's Psalms. They're saying, 'Listen, the world isn't quite like this, the world is better than this, there is love in it,' 'There's you and me in it,' or 'The sun is shining in it.' So-called dumb people, simple people, uneducated people, have as authentic and profound depth of feeling as the most educated on earth. Anyone who says different is a fascist.

Traditionally, the needs of ethnically diverse consumers had been met by smaller companies—the equivalent, in movie terms, of independent filmmakers. In the seventies, Shindana introduced two Barbie-like fashion dolls: Malaika, taller and stouter than Barbie; and Career Girl Wanda, about three-quarters as tall as Barbie and as proportionately svelte. But in 1991, when Mattel brought out its "Shani" line—three Barbie-sized African-American dolls available with mahogany, tawny, or beige complexions— there could be no doubt that "politically correct" was profitable. "For six years, I had been preaching these demographics—showing pie charts of black kids under ten representing eighteen percent of the under-ten population and Hispanic kids representing sixteen percent—and nobody was interested," said Yla Eason, an African-American graduate of Harvard Business School who in 1985 founded Olmec Corporation, which makes dolls and action figures of color. "But when Mattel came out with those same demographics and said, 'Ethnically correct is the way,' it legitimatized our business." Some say that the toy industry's idea of "ethnically correct" doesn't go far enough, however. Ann duCille, chairman of the African-American Studies Program and an associate professor of English at Wesleyan University, is a severe critic. After studying representations of race in fashion dolls for over a year, she feels that the dolls reflect a sort of "easy pluralism." "I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say I'd rather see no black dolls than see something like Shani or Black Barbie," she told me, "but I would hope for something more—which is not about to happen." Nor is she wholly enamored of Imani and Melenik, Olmec's equivalent of Barbie and Ken. "Supposedly these are dolls for black kids to play with that look like them, when in fact they don't look like them. That's a problematic statement, of course, because there's no 'generic black kid.' But those dolls look too like Barbie for me. They have the same body type, the same long, straight hair—and I think it sends a problematic message to kids. It's about marketing, about business—so don't try to pass it off as being about the welfare of black children." Lisa Jones, an African-American writer who chronicled the introduction of Mattel's Shani dolls for the Village Voice, is less harsh. Too old to have played with Christie—Barbie's black friend, born in 1968—Jones recalls as a child having expressed annoyance with her white classmates by ripping the heads and arms off her two white Barbie dolls. Any fashion doll of color, she thinks, would have been better for her than those blondes. "Having been a little girl who grew up without the images," she told me, "I realize that however they fail to reach the Utopian mark, they're still useful.

In the hierarchy of Hollywood, reality TV vies for last position with low-budget independent films. The pay may be better, but because no one is really acting and there are no real lines, it’s the other red-headed stepchild of filmmaking.

When witnessing the emotional response of another person, the INTP intensely resists any similar emotion of his own. An example of this is when watching a ‘weepy’ cinema film in which some heart-wrenching scene is being shown. The INTP despises the attempt by the filmmaker to influence his emotions and is more likely to sneer than cry. This response has nothing to do with arrogance, however. Rather it is the INTP defensively avoiding exposing what he knows to be his weak point. Where an INTP may experience his own emotional response during a film is when he has had the chance to consider consequences of a element of the film. Hence, emotional response to media input usually occurs with a certain independence of will, which could appear enigmatic to others.

Large scale goal setting works best at an organizational level but not an individual level. It's because the more resources you have the more you can ensure that you take all the steps necessary to lead to a predictable outcome. Even if one or more resources fail, as long as you have the muscle power you still have higher chances of a predictable outcome. This is the reason why the chances of a major Hollywood studio that hires famous stars and putting in loads of money striking box office gold and making hundreds of millions of dollars are much higher than an independent filmmaker’s chances, which could pretty much be one in a million no matter how well he/she plans.

Harvey Weinstein took pride in not paying bills,” recounted Miramax’s former chief financial officer John Schmidt. “But when you stiff a filmmaker you are stiffing the very lifeblood of what your business is. The whole independent film business is based on championing the small guy.

But as they say, beggars can't be choosers; I was a young father of two children with a third on the way, and I was already in debt due to my dream of being an independent filmmaker of small art films. George Lucas, my young protégé and cofounder of our struggling company, American Zoetrope, emphatically told me: 'You have to accept this job; we have no money and the sheriff is coming to chain up the front door.' And so I accepted the offer to direct The Godfsther, which surprisingly had been turned down by the best directors of the time, including Elia Kazan- probably the best director of acting in the entire history of cinema.

The number of theatres that regularly played art films (defined as foreign language films and English language films produced abroad without American financing) increased from around one hundred in 1950 to close to 700 by the 1960s. Foreign film distribution in the United States was originally handled by dozens of small independent outfits, but when Brigitte Bardot's And God Created...Woman broke box-office records in 1956, Hollywood took over. In search of foreign pictures with commercial ingredients, the majors absorbed the most talented foreign film-makers with offers of total financing and promises of distribution in the lucrative US market.

Our film had also received rave reviews and many “pull quotes” that could be used for marketing. Nick Digilio of WGN Radio, who also happened to be a longtime Phantasm fan, gave us a sensational quote in which he called Bubba Ho-tep “an important piece of American cinema.” And in David Hunter’s review of our film in the Hollywood Reporter, he celebrated our star’s work by writing, “Bruce Campbell in a performance for the ages.” It all looked quite promising, and then Shultz mentioned just one more item—we would need some money to launch this endeavor. The roughed-up budget for this independent Bubba Ho-tep theatrical release came in at about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Yikes! But Dave Shultz firmly believed that if luck was with us, we could easily gross multiples of that number and actually turn a profit. For me it was an extremely tough decision. I had made a huge investment from my savings to pay for the production costs of Bubba Ho-tep. My dad in loyal fashion had also kicked in a chunk of change. With his background in financial planning he had always taught me that the best investments are when you invest in yourself and the principles you believe in.

If we think that these women filmmakers have worked 'in the margins,' it is we who have kept them there.

A platform is a raised, level surface on which people or things can stand. A platform business works in just that way: it allows users—producers and consumers of goods, services, and content— to create, communicate, and consume value through the platform. Amazon, Apple’s App Store, eBay, Airbnb, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pay- Pal, YouTube, Uber, Wikipedia, Instagram, etsy, Twitter, Snapchat, Hotel Tonight, Salesforce, Kickstarter, and Alibaba are all platform businesses. While these businesses have done many impressive things, the most relevant to us is that they have created an oppor- tunity for anyone, even those with limited means, to share their thoughts, ideas, creativity, and creations with millions of people at a low cost. Today, if you create a product or have an idea, you can sell that product or share that idea with a substantial audience quickly and cost-effectively through these platforms. Not only that, but the platforms arguably give more power to individuals than corporations since they’re so efficient at identifying ulterior motives or lack of authenticity. The communities on these platforms, many of whom are millennials, know when they’re being sold to rather than shared with, and quickly eliminate those users from their con- sciousness (a/k/a their social media feeds). Now, smaller organizations and less prosperous individuals are able to sell to or share their products, services, or content with more targeted demographics of people. That’s exactly what the modern consumer desires: a more personalized, connected experience. For example, a Brooklyn handbag designer can sell her handbags to a select group of customers through one of the multitude of fashion or shopping platforms and create an ongoing dialogue with her audience through a communication platform such as Instagram. Or an independent filmmaker from Los Angeles can create a short film using a GoPro and the editing software on their Mac and then instantly share it with countless people through one of a dozen video platforms and get direct feedback. Or an author can write a book and sell it directly from his or her website and social channels to anyone who’s excited about it. The reaction to standardization and globalization has been enabled by these platforms. Customers can get what they want, from whomever they want, whenever they want it. It’s a revised and personalized version of globalization that allows us to maintain and enhance the cultural connections that create the meaning we crave in our lives.

This is your life and you're so deep in it that you can't unmake it, you can't unbirth your baby because she wishes to be alive, you can't remake your career, there's no way you'll be a professional dancer anymore or join the philharmonic, don't even fantasize about one day becoming that avant-garde independent filmmaker because you're here, feeling like you did when your mother died but now wondering who around you thinks it's of importance to know how difficult it is to nurse? Or how often you are covered— down to your elbows-in feces when changing diapers? What difference does it make if anyone knows the quantity of laundry that is created between these four walls? Or the hanging of the laundry, the folding of the laundry. Who wants to recognize the repetition? Who cares about what domesticity is made of? The very thing that brought us into this world and its conditions are spat upon.