Independent filmmakers feel slowdown's sting
LOS ANGELES - Neil Schulman is in a bind.
The 55-year-old filmmaker borrowed $170,000 to complete "Lady Magdalene's," a comedy about an Internal Revenue Service agent assigned to manage a legal Nevada brothel in tax default, he says. He hasn't found a distributor, and the home in Pahrump, Nev., he planned to sell isn't worth enough to cover the debt.
"Our backup was going to be the equity we had in real estate, and that equity has been wiped out," Schulman said in an interview. Given the film's potential commercial appeal, "You'd think distributors would be coming to us."
All the major studios have turned Schulman down, testament to the shrinking number of indy-film slots that have limited paydays for independent producers. At the same time, the credit crunch, falling real estate prices, and the slump in stocks are choking access to funding, whether it's from traditional friends-and-family investors or the filmmakers' own resources.
"People are having a harder time getting money at the $500,000, $1 million level than they were a year ago," said Jeff Dowd, a movie consultant who has arranged buyers for films including "The Blair Witch Project."
Box office leader Time Warner Inc. led the contraction this year, merging New Line Cinema into the larger-budget Warner Bros. label, and closing Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures.
Number two Paramount Pictures, owned by Viacom Inc., said last month it will reduce releases by one-third to 16 a year. Titles from its Vantage unit, devoted to independent films, were cut to four next year from eight in 2007. Walt Disney Co. cut production to 21 films last year from 28 in 2006, according to researcher Box Office Mojo LLC in Burbank, Calif.
With studios buying fewer small-budget films and funding to make them drying up, the number of independent movies is likely to drop next year after more than a decade of growth, Dowd said.
Submissions to Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival, the largest US celebration of independent movies, surpassed 8,700 this year, from about 2,600 in 1998.
That's left filmmakers shouldering a bigger share of the risk. Lance Hammer, who won the best director prize at Sundance, ultimately decided to distribute "Ballast," his tale about a family coping in the aftermath of a suicide, himself.
Since April, Hammer has pitched the critically praised movie to small theaters, church groups, and universities.
"I wanted there to be another choice, but there wasn't," said Hammer, who made "Ballast" with less than $1 million of his own money and investments from two friends. "There's a pall over the whole industry."
Filmmakers saw the market begin to contract at Sundance in January, when "Ballast" and other small-budget dramas were overlooked by the specialty divisions of the major studios.
After the festival, Hammer struck a tentative deal with IFC Films, a New York distributor. Hammer said he backed out of the pact because he didn't want to give up control of the film. Hammer plans to use the do-it-yourself theatrical run to build awareness for "Ballast," so he can try to recoup his investment from DVD sales and television. 