TL: Do you think it is possible to make a career as a micro-budget filmmaker?
PB: As a micro-budget filmmaker if you are working at making a film for under $50,000 or under $30,000, you do not have to make a lot of money to be breaking even.
I think that a sort of fundamental requirement is that not only do you need to be generating revenue from different streams, but you also need to be building up a core personal audience that you can take with you from film to film.
There are more sources now where people are contributing to films and filmmakers. Kickstarter www.kickstarter.com/ and IndieGoGo www.indiegogo.com/ are two examples of that, but there are also individual films that have raised money directly from their own websites.
I think that any micro-budget filmmaker who is serious about continuing to make movies needs to be determined to build their database of their core personal audience, and be in touch with those people periodically. Not every day telling them about the next new short film festival their movie got into, but maybe once every three months, and try to build a relationship with the members of the filmmaker's audience. I think that building your core personal audience is crucial, (instead of) having to be lucky every time.
When you begin to think about producing a film, think also about how to distribute the film. The distribution model has to work, or your film will just sit on a shelf and gather dust.
The budget for the film must be small enough—and realistic enough—to be recouped and then some. If you make films on negative cash flow, you will never build up a business or find investors.
This whole process really begins when you design your film. Think about how the distribution is really going to work. It is a good idea to model the whole distribution process out on paper so you do not fool yourself.
Distribution is not something that happens at the end of a project. You should be thinking about it at the very inception of your project. you make a programming decision (i.e. what you are going to produce) you are automatically making a marketing (i.e. distribution) decision because your project either will (or will not) have promotable elements that will get your project through the distribution chains.
The good news is that as a micro-budget filmmaker you now have more options and more power than ever before. If you use hybrid distribution strategies, carefully control your costs, and define your core audiences, you just might earn back the money it cost you to make your film, and then some.
On his website, in his Distribution Bulletin #12, Broderick says of the distribution strategy for Lioness: "The Lioness distribution strategy grew organically from the film itself. Determined not to preach to the choir or alienate large segments of the potential audience, the filmmakers presented the problem without prescribing solutions or taking a position on the war. This enabled an Inside-Outside approach in which government institutions (including the VA and the Department of Defense), members of Congress, and veteran's service organizations could all use the film.
"Lioness is a model of hybrid distribution. Operating with a real sense of urgency and determined to maximize impact, Meg and Daria combined a short festival window with a national television broadcast and a major nontheatrical screening campaign. Their U.S. festival premiere was at Full Frame in April 2008, followed by Tribeca. They launched their nontheatrical screening blitz two months later at the National Summit of Women Veterans' Issues in Washington, D.C. Following ITVS community screenings in fifty cities, Lioness aired on public television's Independent Lens http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/lioness/ in honor of Veterans Day."
