The independent film scene's development in the 1990s and 2000s has been stimulated by a range of factors, including the development of affordable digital cinematography cameras that can rival 35 mm film quality and easy-to-use computer editing software.
Until the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was a major obstacle to independent filmmakers who wanted to make their own films. The cost of 35 mm film is steadily rising: in 2002 alone, film negative costs were up 23%, according to Variety.[12] Studio-quality filming typically required expensive lighting and post-production facilities.
But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-definition digital video in the early 1990s, have since lowered the technology barrier to movie production considerably. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVD, FireWire connections and professional-level non-linear editing system software make movie-making relatively inexpensive.
Director Francis Ford Coppola, long an advocate of new technologies like non-linear editing and digital cameras, said in 2007 that "cinema is escaping being controlled by the financier, and that's a wonderful thing. You don't have to go hat-in-hand to some film distributor and say, 'Please will you let me make a movie?'"[13]
The first independent film released on HD DVD was One Six Right on November 1, 2006.[14][15][16]
Flatland, the first all computer-animated feature film to be created (directed and animated) by one person (Ladd Ehlinger Jr.) was released in 2007.[17]
Popular software (including commercial, consumer level and open source) includes:
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Outside of Hollywood
Though many of the thematic changes which would resound through the American cinema of the 1970s would prominently feature heightened depictions of realistic sex and violence, those directors who wished to reach the audience which the old Hollywood once had quickly learned to stylize these actions in a way that made them appealing and attractive, rather than repulsive or obscene. However, at the same time that the maverick film students who would become the American new wave were developing the skills they would use to take over Hollywood, many of their classmates had begun to develop in a different direction. Influenced by foreign "art house" directors, (such as Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini) exploitation shockers (including Joseph P. Mawra, Michael Findlay, and Henri Pachard) and those who walked the line between, (Kenneth Anger, et al.) a number of young film makers began to experiment with transgression not as a box-office draw, but as an artistic act. Directors such as John Waters and David Lynch would make a name for themselves by the early 70s for the bizarre and often disturbing imagery which characterized their films.
When Lynch's first feature film, 1977's Eraserhead, brought Lynch to the attention of producer Mel Brooks, he soon found himself in charge of the $5 million film The Elephant Man for Paramount. Though Eraserhead was strictly an out-of-pocket, no-budget, independent film, Lynch made the transition with unprecedented grace. The film was a huge commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nods for Lynch. It also established his place as a commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional, Hollywood director. Seeing Lynch as a fellow studio convert, George Lucas, a fan of Eraserhead and now the darling of the studios, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct his next Star Wars sequel, Return of the Jedi. However, Lynch had seen what had happened to Lucas and his comrades in arms after their failed attempt to do away with the studio system. He refused the opportunity, stating that he would rather work on his own projects.[8]
Lynch instead chose to direct a big budget adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune for Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis's De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that the company release a second Lynch project, over which the director would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be the next Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud, costing $45 million to make, and grossing a mere $27.4 million domestically. The producer was furious that he would now be forced to allow Lynch to make any kind of film he wanted. He offered Lynch only $6 million, reasoning that it would be best to let it be a small flop and be rid of the director. However, the film, Blue Velvet was a resounding success. Lynch subsequently returned to his independent roots, and did not work with another major studio for over a decade.
John Waters, on the other hand, proved too hot to handle for the major studios. Distributing his films locally though a production company of his own creation known as Dreamland Productions, Waters defied the mainstream completely until the early 80s, when the fledgling New Line Cinema agreed to work with him on Polyester. During the 80s, Waters would become a pillar of the New York based independent film movement known as the "Cinema of Transgression," a term coined by Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded New York artists using shock value and humor in their super 8mm films and video art. Other key players in this movement included Kembra Pfahler, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch. Rallying around such institutions as the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Anthology Film Archives, this new generation of independents devoted themselves to the defiance of the now-establishment New Hollywood, proposing that "all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again."[9]
[edit] The Sundance Institute
Main article: Sundance Institute
In 1978, Sterling Van Wagenen and Charles Gary Allison, with Chairperson Robert Redford, (veteran of New Hollywood and star of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) founded the Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah and showcase what the potential of independent film could be. At the time, the main focus of the event was to present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel discussions; however it also included a small program of new independent films. The jury of the 1978 festival was headed by Gary Allison, and included Verna Fields, Linwood Gale Dunn, Katherine Ross, Charles E. Sellier Jr., Mark Rydell, and Anthea Sylbert.
In 1981, the same year that United Artists, bought out by MGM, ceased to exist as a venue for independent filmmakers, Sterling Van Wagenen left the film festival to help found the Sundance Institute with Robert Redford. In 1985, the now well-established Sundance Institute, headed by Sterling Van Wagenen, took over management of the US Film Festival, which was experiencing financial difficulties. Gary Beer and Sterling Van Wagenen spearheaded production of the inaugural Sundance Film Festival which included Program Director Tony Safford and Administrative Director Jenny Walz Selby.
In 1991, the festival was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival, after Redford's famous role as The Sundance Kid.[10] Through this festival, such notable figures as Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, James Wan and Jim Jarmusch garnered resounding critical acclaim and unprecedented box office sales. In 2005, about 15% of the U.S. domestic box office revenue was from independent studios
When Lynch's first feature film, 1977's Eraserhead, brought Lynch to the attention of producer Mel Brooks, he soon found himself in charge of the $5 million film The Elephant Man for Paramount. Though Eraserhead was strictly an out-of-pocket, no-budget, independent film, Lynch made the transition with unprecedented grace. The film was a huge commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nods for Lynch. It also established his place as a commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional, Hollywood director. Seeing Lynch as a fellow studio convert, George Lucas, a fan of Eraserhead and now the darling of the studios, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct his next Star Wars sequel, Return of the Jedi. However, Lynch had seen what had happened to Lucas and his comrades in arms after their failed attempt to do away with the studio system. He refused the opportunity, stating that he would rather work on his own projects.[8]
Lynch instead chose to direct a big budget adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune for Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis's De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that the company release a second Lynch project, over which the director would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be the next Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud, costing $45 million to make, and grossing a mere $27.4 million domestically. The producer was furious that he would now be forced to allow Lynch to make any kind of film he wanted. He offered Lynch only $6 million, reasoning that it would be best to let it be a small flop and be rid of the director. However, the film, Blue Velvet was a resounding success. Lynch subsequently returned to his independent roots, and did not work with another major studio for over a decade.
John Waters, on the other hand, proved too hot to handle for the major studios. Distributing his films locally though a production company of his own creation known as Dreamland Productions, Waters defied the mainstream completely until the early 80s, when the fledgling New Line Cinema agreed to work with him on Polyester. During the 80s, Waters would become a pillar of the New York based independent film movement known as the "Cinema of Transgression," a term coined by Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded New York artists using shock value and humor in their super 8mm films and video art. Other key players in this movement included Kembra Pfahler, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch. Rallying around such institutions as the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Anthology Film Archives, this new generation of independents devoted themselves to the defiance of the now-establishment New Hollywood, proposing that "all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again."[9]
[edit] The Sundance Institute
Main article: Sundance Institute
In 1978, Sterling Van Wagenen and Charles Gary Allison, with Chairperson Robert Redford, (veteran of New Hollywood and star of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) founded the Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah and showcase what the potential of independent film could be. At the time, the main focus of the event was to present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel discussions; however it also included a small program of new independent films. The jury of the 1978 festival was headed by Gary Allison, and included Verna Fields, Linwood Gale Dunn, Katherine Ross, Charles E. Sellier Jr., Mark Rydell, and Anthea Sylbert.
In 1981, the same year that United Artists, bought out by MGM, ceased to exist as a venue for independent filmmakers, Sterling Van Wagenen left the film festival to help found the Sundance Institute with Robert Redford. In 1985, the now well-established Sundance Institute, headed by Sterling Van Wagenen, took over management of the US Film Festival, which was experiencing financial difficulties. Gary Beer and Sterling Van Wagenen spearheaded production of the inaugural Sundance Film Festival which included Program Director Tony Safford and Administrative Director Jenny Walz Selby.
In 1991, the festival was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival, after Redford's famous role as The Sundance Kid.[10] Through this festival, such notable figures as Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, James Wan and Jim Jarmusch garnered resounding critical acclaim and unprecedented box office sales. In 2005, about 15% of the U.S. domestic box office revenue was from independent studios
Outside of Hollywood
Though many of the thematic changes which would resound through the American cinema of the 1970s would prominently feature heightened depictions of realistic sex and violence, those directors who wished to reach the audience which the old Hollywood once had quickly learned to stylize these actions in a way that made them appealing and attractive, rather than repulsive or obscene. However, at the same time that the maverick film students who would become the American new wave were developing the skills they would use to take over Hollywood, many of their classmates had begun to develop in a different direction. Influenced by foreign "art house" directors, (such as Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini) exploitation shockers (including Joseph P. Mawra, Michael Findlay, and Henri Pachard) and those who walked the line between, (Kenneth Anger, et al.) a number of young film makers began to experiment with transgression not as a box-office draw, but as an artistic act. Directors such as John Waters and David Lynch would make a name for themselves by the early 70s for the bizarre and often disturbing imagery which characterized their films.
When Lynch's first feature film, 1977's Eraserhead, brought Lynch to the attention of producer Mel Brooks, he soon found himself in charge of the $5 million film The Elephant Man for Paramount. Though Eraserhead was strictly an out-of-pocket, no-budget, independent film, Lynch made the transition with unprecedented grace. The film was a huge commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nods for Lynch. It also established his place as a commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional, Hollywood director. Seeing Lynch as a fellow studio convert, George Lucas, a fan of Eraserhead and now the darling of the studios, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct his next Star Wars sequel, Return of the Jedi. However, Lynch had seen what had happened to Lucas and his comrades in arms after their failed attempt to do away with the studio system. He refused the opportunity, stating that he would rather work on his own projects.[8]
Lynch instead chose to direct a big budget adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune for Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis's De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that the company release a second Lynch project, over which the director would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be the next Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud, costing $45 million to make, and grossing a mere $27.4 million domestically. The producer was furious that he would now be forced to allow Lynch to make any kind of film he wanted. He offered Lynch only $6 million, reasoning that it would be best to let it be a small flop and be rid of the director. However, the film, Blue Velvet was a resounding success. Lynch subsequently returned to his independent roots, and did not work with another major studio for over a decade.
John Waters, on the other hand, proved too hot to handle for the major studios. Distributing his films locally though a production company of his own creation known as Dreamland Productions, Waters defied the mainstream completely until the early 80s, when the fledgling New Line Cinema agreed to work with him on Polyester. During the 80s, Waters would become a pillar of the New York based independent film movement known as the "Cinema of Transgression," a term coined by Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded New York artists using shock value and humor in their super 8mm films and video art. Other key players in this movement included Kembra Pfahler, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch. Rallying around such institutions as the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Anthology Film Archives, this new generation of independents devoted themselves to the defiance of the now-establishment New Hollywood, proposing that "all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again."[9]
When Lynch's first feature film, 1977's Eraserhead, brought Lynch to the attention of producer Mel Brooks, he soon found himself in charge of the $5 million film The Elephant Man for Paramount. Though Eraserhead was strictly an out-of-pocket, no-budget, independent film, Lynch made the transition with unprecedented grace. The film was a huge commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay nods for Lynch. It also established his place as a commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional, Hollywood director. Seeing Lynch as a fellow studio convert, George Lucas, a fan of Eraserhead and now the darling of the studios, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct his next Star Wars sequel, Return of the Jedi. However, Lynch had seen what had happened to Lucas and his comrades in arms after their failed attempt to do away with the studio system. He refused the opportunity, stating that he would rather work on his own projects.[8]
Lynch instead chose to direct a big budget adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune for Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis's De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that the company release a second Lynch project, over which the director would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be the next Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud, costing $45 million to make, and grossing a mere $27.4 million domestically. The producer was furious that he would now be forced to allow Lynch to make any kind of film he wanted. He offered Lynch only $6 million, reasoning that it would be best to let it be a small flop and be rid of the director. However, the film, Blue Velvet was a resounding success. Lynch subsequently returned to his independent roots, and did not work with another major studio for over a decade.
John Waters, on the other hand, proved too hot to handle for the major studios. Distributing his films locally though a production company of his own creation known as Dreamland Productions, Waters defied the mainstream completely until the early 80s, when the fledgling New Line Cinema agreed to work with him on Polyester. During the 80s, Waters would become a pillar of the New York based independent film movement known as the "Cinema of Transgression," a term coined by Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded New York artists using shock value and humor in their super 8mm films and video art. Other key players in this movement included Kembra Pfahler, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch. Rallying around such institutions as the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Anthology Film Archives, this new generation of independents devoted themselves to the defiance of the now-establishment New Hollywood, proposing that "all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again."[9]
New Hollywood and independent filmmaking
Following the advent of television and the Paramount Case, the major studios attempted to lure audiences with spectacle. Screen gimmicks, Widescreen processes and technical improvements, such as Cinemascope, stereo sound, 3-D and others, were invented in order to retain the dwindling audience by giving them a larger-than-life experience.
The 1950s and early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films which benefited from these advances. This proved commercially viable during most of the 1950s. However, by the late 1960s, audience share was dwindling at an alarming rate. Several costly flops, including Cleopatra and Hello, Dolly! put severe strain on the studios. Meanwhile, in 1951, lawyers-turned-producers Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin had made a deal with the remaining stockholders of United Artists which would allow them to make an attempt to revive the company and, if the attempt was successful, buy it after five years. The attempt was a success, and in 1955 United Artists became the first "studio" without an actual studio. UA leased space at the Pickford/Fairbanks Studio, but did not own a studio lot as such. Because of this, many of their films would be shot on location. Primarily acting as bankers, they offered money to independent producers. Thus UA did not have the overhead, the maintenance or the expensive production staff which ran up costs at other studios. UA went public in 1956, and as the other mainstream studios fell into decline, UA prospered, adding relationships with the Mirisch brothers, Billy Wilder, Joseph E. Levine and others.
By the mid 1960s, RKO had collapsed completely, and the remaining four of big five had recognized that they did not know how to reach the youth audience. Foreign films, especially European and Japanese cinema, were experiencing a major boom in popularity with young people, who were interested in seeing films with non-traditional subjects and narrative structures. An added draw for such films was that they, like the American independents, were unencumbered by the production code. In an attempt to capture this audience, the Studios hired a host of young filmmakers (many of whom were mentored by Roger Corman) and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control.
In 1967, Warner Brothers offered first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross on his film Bonnie & Clyde instead of a minimal fee. The movie proceeded to gross over $70 million worldwide by 1973. This initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to the film school generation and began what the media dubbed "New Hollywood."
On May 16, 1969, Dennis Hopper, a young American filmmaker, wrote, directed, and acted in his first film, Easy Rider. Along with his producer/star/co-writer Peter Fonda, Hopper was responsible for the first completely independent film of New Hollywood. Easy Rider debuted at Cannes and garnered the "First Film Award," ("Prix de la premiere oeuvre") after which it received two Oscar nominations, one for best original screenplay and one for Corman-alum Jack Nicholson's breakthrough performance in the supporting role of George Hanson, an alcoholic lawyer for the ACLU.
Following on the heels of Easy Rider just over a week later, the revived United Artists' Midnight Cowboy, which, like Easy Rider, took numerous cues from Ken Anger and his influences in the French New Wave, became the first and only X rated film to win the Academy Award for best picture. Midnight Cowboy also held the distinction of featuring cameo roles by many of the top Warhol superstars, who had already become symbols of the militantly anti-Hollywood climate of NYC's independent film community.
Within a month, another young Corman trainee, Francis Ford Coppola, made his debut in Spain at the Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival with The Rain People, a film he had founded his own studio, American Zoetrope, to make a reality. Though The Rain People was largely overlooked by American audiences, Zoetrope would became a powerful force in New Hollywood. Through Zoetrope, Coppola formed a distribution agreement with studio giant, Warner Bros., which he would exploit to achieve wide releases for his films without making himself subject to the controlling forces of Hollywood.
These three films provided the major Hollywood studios with both an example to follow and a new crop of talent to draw from. In 1971, Zoetrope co-founder George Lucas made his feature film debut with THX 1138, also released by Zoetrope through their deal with Warner Bros., announcing himself as another major talent of New Hollywood. By the following year, the leaders of the New Hollywood revolution had made enough of a name for themselves that Coppola was able to convince Paramount to fund his multi-generational gangster epic, The Godfather. Meanwhile Lucas had obtained studio funding for American Graffiti from Universal. In the mid-1970s, the major Hollywood studios continued to tap these new filmmakers for both ideas and personnel, producing idiosyncratic, startling original films such as Paper Moon, Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver, all of which were met with enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.
It can often seem that all members of the New Hollywood generation were independent filmmakers. Though those mentioned above began with a considerable claim on the title, almost all of the major films commonly associated with the movement were studio projects. The New Hollywood generation soon became firmly entrenched in a revived incarnation of the studio system, which financed the development, production and distribution of their films. Very few of these filmmakers ever independently financed or independently released a film of their own, or ever worked on an independently financed production during the height of the generation's influence. Seemingly independent films such as Taxi Driver, The Last Picture Show and others were studio films: the scripts were based on studio pitches and subsequently paid for by the studios, the production financing was from the studio, and the marketing and distribution of the films were designed and controlled by the studio. Though Coppola made considerable efforts to resist the influence of the studios, opting to finance his risky 1979 film Apocalypse Now himself rather than compromise with skeptical studio executives, he, and filmmakers like him, had saved the old studios from financial ruin by providing them with a new formula for success.
Indeed, it was during this period that the very definition of an independent film became blurred. Though Midnight Cowboy was financed by United Artists, the company was certainly a studio. Likewise, Zoetrope was another "independent studio" which worked within the system to make a space for independent directors who needed funding. George Lucas would leave Zoetrope in 1971 to create his own independent studio, Lucasfilm, which would produce the blockbuster Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies. In fact, the only two movies of the movement which can be described as uncompromisingly independent are Easy Rider at the beginning, and Peter Bogdanovich's They All Laughed, at the end. Peter Bogdanovich bought back the rights from the studio to his 1980 film and paid for its distribution out of his own pocket, convinced that the picture was better than what the studio believed — he eventually went bankrupt because of this.
In retrospect, it can be seen that Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and George Lucas's Star Wars (1977) marked the beginning of the end for the New Hollywood. With their unprecedented box-office successes, these movies jump-started Hollywood's blockbuster mentality, giving studios a new paradigm as to how to make money in this changing commercial landscape. The focus on high-concept premises, with greater concentration on tie-in merchandise (such as toys), spin-offs into other media (such as soundtracks), and the use of sequels (which had been made more respectable by Coppola's The Godfather Part II), all showed the studios how to make money in the new environment.
On realizing how much money could potentially be made in films, major corporations started buying up the remaining Hollywood studios, saving them from the oblivion which befell RKO in the 50s. Eventually, even RKO was revived. The corporate mentality these companies brought to the filmmaking business would slowly squeeze out the more idiosyncratic of these young filmmakers, while ensconcing the more malleable and commercially successful of them. Like the original independents who fled the Edison Trust to form old Hollywood, the young film school graduates who had fled the studios to explore on-location shooting and dynamic, neo-realist styles and structures ended up replacing the tyrants they had sought to dislodge with a more stable and all-pervasive base of power.
The 1950s and early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films which benefited from these advances. This proved commercially viable during most of the 1950s. However, by the late 1960s, audience share was dwindling at an alarming rate. Several costly flops, including Cleopatra and Hello, Dolly! put severe strain on the studios. Meanwhile, in 1951, lawyers-turned-producers Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin had made a deal with the remaining stockholders of United Artists which would allow them to make an attempt to revive the company and, if the attempt was successful, buy it after five years. The attempt was a success, and in 1955 United Artists became the first "studio" without an actual studio. UA leased space at the Pickford/Fairbanks Studio, but did not own a studio lot as such. Because of this, many of their films would be shot on location. Primarily acting as bankers, they offered money to independent producers. Thus UA did not have the overhead, the maintenance or the expensive production staff which ran up costs at other studios. UA went public in 1956, and as the other mainstream studios fell into decline, UA prospered, adding relationships with the Mirisch brothers, Billy Wilder, Joseph E. Levine and others.
By the mid 1960s, RKO had collapsed completely, and the remaining four of big five had recognized that they did not know how to reach the youth audience. Foreign films, especially European and Japanese cinema, were experiencing a major boom in popularity with young people, who were interested in seeing films with non-traditional subjects and narrative structures. An added draw for such films was that they, like the American independents, were unencumbered by the production code. In an attempt to capture this audience, the Studios hired a host of young filmmakers (many of whom were mentored by Roger Corman) and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control.
In 1967, Warner Brothers offered first-time producer Warren Beatty 40% of the gross on his film Bonnie & Clyde instead of a minimal fee. The movie proceeded to gross over $70 million worldwide by 1973. This initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to the film school generation and began what the media dubbed "New Hollywood."
On May 16, 1969, Dennis Hopper, a young American filmmaker, wrote, directed, and acted in his first film, Easy Rider. Along with his producer/star/co-writer Peter Fonda, Hopper was responsible for the first completely independent film of New Hollywood. Easy Rider debuted at Cannes and garnered the "First Film Award," ("Prix de la premiere oeuvre") after which it received two Oscar nominations, one for best original screenplay and one for Corman-alum Jack Nicholson's breakthrough performance in the supporting role of George Hanson, an alcoholic lawyer for the ACLU.
Following on the heels of Easy Rider just over a week later, the revived United Artists' Midnight Cowboy, which, like Easy Rider, took numerous cues from Ken Anger and his influences in the French New Wave, became the first and only X rated film to win the Academy Award for best picture. Midnight Cowboy also held the distinction of featuring cameo roles by many of the top Warhol superstars, who had already become symbols of the militantly anti-Hollywood climate of NYC's independent film community.
Within a month, another young Corman trainee, Francis Ford Coppola, made his debut in Spain at the Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival with The Rain People, a film he had founded his own studio, American Zoetrope, to make a reality. Though The Rain People was largely overlooked by American audiences, Zoetrope would became a powerful force in New Hollywood. Through Zoetrope, Coppola formed a distribution agreement with studio giant, Warner Bros., which he would exploit to achieve wide releases for his films without making himself subject to the controlling forces of Hollywood.
These three films provided the major Hollywood studios with both an example to follow and a new crop of talent to draw from. In 1971, Zoetrope co-founder George Lucas made his feature film debut with THX 1138, also released by Zoetrope through their deal with Warner Bros., announcing himself as another major talent of New Hollywood. By the following year, the leaders of the New Hollywood revolution had made enough of a name for themselves that Coppola was able to convince Paramount to fund his multi-generational gangster epic, The Godfather. Meanwhile Lucas had obtained studio funding for American Graffiti from Universal. In the mid-1970s, the major Hollywood studios continued to tap these new filmmakers for both ideas and personnel, producing idiosyncratic, startling original films such as Paper Moon, Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver, all of which were met with enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.
It can often seem that all members of the New Hollywood generation were independent filmmakers. Though those mentioned above began with a considerable claim on the title, almost all of the major films commonly associated with the movement were studio projects. The New Hollywood generation soon became firmly entrenched in a revived incarnation of the studio system, which financed the development, production and distribution of their films. Very few of these filmmakers ever independently financed or independently released a film of their own, or ever worked on an independently financed production during the height of the generation's influence. Seemingly independent films such as Taxi Driver, The Last Picture Show and others were studio films: the scripts were based on studio pitches and subsequently paid for by the studios, the production financing was from the studio, and the marketing and distribution of the films were designed and controlled by the studio. Though Coppola made considerable efforts to resist the influence of the studios, opting to finance his risky 1979 film Apocalypse Now himself rather than compromise with skeptical studio executives, he, and filmmakers like him, had saved the old studios from financial ruin by providing them with a new formula for success.
Indeed, it was during this period that the very definition of an independent film became blurred. Though Midnight Cowboy was financed by United Artists, the company was certainly a studio. Likewise, Zoetrope was another "independent studio" which worked within the system to make a space for independent directors who needed funding. George Lucas would leave Zoetrope in 1971 to create his own independent studio, Lucasfilm, which would produce the blockbuster Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies. In fact, the only two movies of the movement which can be described as uncompromisingly independent are Easy Rider at the beginning, and Peter Bogdanovich's They All Laughed, at the end. Peter Bogdanovich bought back the rights from the studio to his 1980 film and paid for its distribution out of his own pocket, convinced that the picture was better than what the studio believed — he eventually went bankrupt because of this.
In retrospect, it can be seen that Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and George Lucas's Star Wars (1977) marked the beginning of the end for the New Hollywood. With their unprecedented box-office successes, these movies jump-started Hollywood's blockbuster mentality, giving studios a new paradigm as to how to make money in this changing commercial landscape. The focus on high-concept premises, with greater concentration on tie-in merchandise (such as toys), spin-offs into other media (such as soundtracks), and the use of sequels (which had been made more respectable by Coppola's The Godfather Part II), all showed the studios how to make money in the new environment.
On realizing how much money could potentially be made in films, major corporations started buying up the remaining Hollywood studios, saving them from the oblivion which befell RKO in the 50s. Eventually, even RKO was revived. The corporate mentality these companies brought to the filmmaking business would slowly squeeze out the more idiosyncratic of these young filmmakers, while ensconcing the more malleable and commercially successful of them. Like the original independents who fled the Edison Trust to form old Hollywood, the young film school graduates who had fled the studios to explore on-location shooting and dynamic, neo-realist styles and structures ended up replacing the tyrants they had sought to dislodge with a more stable and all-pervasive base of power.
Independent film
In the United States the term "independent film" may also be used interchangeably with the term Art film.
The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.
An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced outside of any major film studio. Originally, this term denoted independence from Paramount Pictures, MGM, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., RKO, Universal Pictures, United Artists, and Columbia Pictures, the 8 major studio entities which controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of films in the US from the late 1920s through 1950s. Though its oligopolistic practices were officially ended by the Paramount Decision in 1948, all eight Golden Age Majors continue to exist in one form or another as major Hollywood studio entities through 2009. (Although some have been combined, absorbed, or partnered with others through the decades.) Independent films today are generally defined as American films financed and distributed by sources outside today's Big Six and its subsidiaries.
Though film production companies in other countries have at times achieved and maintained full integration in a manner similar to Hollywood's Big Five, the Hollywood system and style remain uniquely American in character and origin. As such, films produced outside the United States are generally qualified as foreign rather than independent.
The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.
An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced outside of any major film studio. Originally, this term denoted independence from Paramount Pictures, MGM, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., RKO, Universal Pictures, United Artists, and Columbia Pictures, the 8 major studio entities which controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of films in the US from the late 1920s through 1950s. Though its oligopolistic practices were officially ended by the Paramount Decision in 1948, all eight Golden Age Majors continue to exist in one form or another as major Hollywood studio entities through 2009. (Although some have been combined, absorbed, or partnered with others through the decades.) Independent films today are generally defined as American films financed and distributed by sources outside today's Big Six and its subsidiaries.
Though film production companies in other countries have at times achieved and maintained full integration in a manner similar to Hollywood's Big Five, the Hollywood system and style remain uniquely American in character and origin. As such, films produced outside the United States are generally qualified as foreign rather than independent.
Foreign Exchange (TV series)
Foreign Exchange is an Australian children's television programme broadcast by Southern Star Entertainment in Australia and RTE in Ireland. It told the story of Hannah O'Flaherty, a feisty Irish girl, and Brett Miller, and a sun-drenched Australian boy, who are brought together from opposite sides of the world, due to a portal which allows them to step across the world. The series lasted just one series in 2004.
Foreign Exchange (US TV series)
Foreign Exchange (previously Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria) is a weekly, half-hour international affairs series on the PBS network. The series premiered in April 2005, and for three seasons was hosted by author and journalist Fareed Zakaria. Beginning in January 2008, journalist Daljit Dhaliwal became the new host and the title of the show was changed accordingly. The series explores current international issues in conversations with journalists, politicians, and other newsmakers, and examines America's role in an increasingly globalized world.
The show is a production of Azimuth Media and Oregon Public Broadcasting, and is distributed by American Public Television. Major funding is provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Additional support from the Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Through a partnership with the citizen journalism website Helium.com the show offers viewers an opportunity to get their voices heard on the most pressing global issues. The issues are chosen by Foreign Exchange and range from Kosovo as an inspiration to other independence movements in the world to the future of socialism in Latin America. Essays are written and rated on Helium.com, and the best essays get featured on the show.[1]
The show is a production of Azimuth Media and Oregon Public Broadcasting, and is distributed by American Public Television. Major funding is provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Additional support from the Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Through a partnership with the citizen journalism website Helium.com the show offers viewers an opportunity to get their voices heard on the most pressing global issues. The issues are chosen by Foreign Exchange and range from Kosovo as an inspiration to other independence movements in the world to the future of socialism in Latin America. Essays are written and rated on Helium.com, and the best essays get featured on the show.[1]
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