Can you actually make money making indie movies? And do people actually watch indie movies??

Jan 24, 2022

Let me start off very quickly by giving you a bit of back story about my situation and I would be very interested to hear what others have to say.

I've made a number of movies (shorts and 3 features) as well as various promo videos, etc.

I have had distribution for my features, I basically gave them away hoping to see some kind of a return but understanding I will probably never see a penny, so I decided to stop investing my own money into features, move away from film making for a while and start up my own businesses in other industries - to make money!!

But I have recently got the bug to make another feature and this is where I have these questions...

The problem is, I don't know anyone who watches b-movies or indie movies, they don't even know where to look even if they wanted to watch them, and this makes me nervous as to how I could gain from this!

I am guessing you guys on here do watch indie films, as I sometimes do, it is after all our common interest, but I am talking about the general public who mainly go to the multiplex's or watch box-sets on Netflix, etc.

Can a person like Roger Corman survive nowadays the way he made movies back in the day and made money doing it? The b-movie scene has disappeared over there, hasn't it? They used to have 'drive ins' screening two movies back to back, showing a b-movie first then the Main Attraction, as we did apparently in the UK, from what my parents tell me anyway.

Now, I know we have the internet now, but I kind of see this as a double sided coin, yes it means we can have our films shown, but because we have so much content to sieve through, we barely watch a minute of footage before we are bored and switch over.

We are giving our movies away for free so at least people will see them, probably. The guys at TROMA have put all there films on YouTube for free!

Also, do the general public PAY to watch an indie movie to download or stream? I'm guessing not many do as I know many film makers who have never seen a penny from distributors?? I'm not saying distributors aren't paying out as from what I can see the public just ain't watching!

I want to stress to you that I am not wanting to make films to further my career to work on other people films, I want to make films like Roger Corman did who was making films for his own company and selling through his own channels. Realistically can this be done in the UK or abroad?

I want to make movies and make a bit of money on the side, no one wants to be a starving artist :)

I am really intrigued to hear what others have to say on these issues and have any pointers. Thanks for reading and all the best in your ventures.

Original post: https://shootingpeople.org/discuss/view/d2c44544d76543b2a717502f