"As I devoted more time and energy to the Filmmaker newsletter throughout the last decade-plus, I'd often find myself in some form of dialogue with producer, strategist and consultant Brian Newman. His invaluable Sub-genre newsletter arrives on Thursdays (now, biweekly), mine on Fridays, and, like me, he'll often comment on the production and distribution challenges facing independent filmmakers in an increasingly commercialized, politically cautious and algorithmically-driven media landscape."
"There is a general sense that we've left the golden age of independent and specialty film, and that there exists a bigger problem - either you can't fund artistic films, or you can't make a career producing them, or you can't get them picked up for distribution, or there are many good films that never get distributed at all, or audiences can't find them once they do get distribution because they aren't marketed correctly, or they get lost in the algorithm,"
Long-running newsletter exchanges between Brian Newman and Filmmaker reflect ongoing attention to production and distribution challenges for independent filmmakers. The newsletters operate on weekly or biweekly schedules and emphasize increasing commercialization, political caution, and algorithm-driven media dynamics that hinder visibility and viability. Conversations entertain whether existing gatekeeping mechanisms might be functioning as intended despite perceptions of decline. A widespread industry sentiment catalogs problems: diminished funding for artistic films, unstable producing careers, difficulties securing distribution, many films remaining undistributed, ineffective marketing, algorithmic obscurity, competition for attention from social platforms and gaming, and entrenched gatekeepers.
Read at Filmmaker Magazine
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