David Lowery wrote an articulate post about how independent filmmakers can learn about building an audience from touring folk musicians. I couldn't agree more. The article makes me want to write even more on this subject.
When there's frustration with Hollywood, I think it's misplaced to accuse Hollywood of holding down the independent filmmaker. I think it's totally appropriate to be frustrated that Hollywood makes a lot of really expensive, awful films.

There is a story I've heard a hundred times that goes something like this: a young filmmaker drops out of school, she shoots a film on borrowed loose change, gets that film into Sundance and, shortly after the premier, over a hotel coffee table she's handed a check for millions of dollars by a larger-than-life executive of a distribution company. The rags to riches little filmmaker's next film is funded by a studio with a budget 20 times larger than her first.

I see filmmakers get frustrated when their film goes to festival after festival and no executive invites them back to the hotel. The ball ended and Cinderella went home with a swan shaped wad of tin foil filled with leftovers. This is where a lot of bitterness can set in around the thought "I can't get my film distributed." But, as David Lowery points out, you can get your film distributed. You just don't get the option to have the Cinderella, overnight success distribution deal. But distribution is always an option.

Anybody who reads this blog knows I get frustrated with what's showing at my local movie theaters. I often don't get to see those films that went home unplucked by Hollywood. In Grand Rapids I get Hollywood schlock in heavy doses. Which is where the folk musicians can teach us all a lesson, preferably in ballad form.

Folkies know their odds of becoming Sony Records' next little darling and touring with Kanye West are about a million to one. They have no delusions of grandeur. What they do have is precedent to build a community of followers themselves. When you look at the film world, it starts to look a little silly. The scenario of birthing your baby, selling it off, saying your good byes and putting it on a plane to LA with five million bucks in your back pocket is just so bizarre. Especially when the audience for that film (people like me) is dotted all over the US. What will the movie theater experience look like in the future? I hope it looks more like the music industry. I hope we get our mega-blockbusters playing to a huge audience on Friday night, and on Saturday night David Lowery is packing out the house at my local college auditorium. Maybe I'll get through the the line afterward to shake his hand and tell him how much his film moved me.