Indie Filmmaker Advice: “Fortune favors the bold.” —Virgil

“Is the film industry dying?” “Is cinema dead?” “Is Hollywood over?”I don’t think so. What I think is that, when we need to sell tickets to everybody and use algorithms to shape movie-making, we end up with a flood of movies that are all very much the same. And when experiences are more or less the same, they lose not just their appeal but their attractiveness. When it’s all the same, they all fade.

When we focus only on the bottom line at the end of each quarter, we get not black or white, but 18 percent grey, attracting nobody, because there isn’t the promise of a lasting experience.

“Are you feeling lucky, punk?”

“ET phone home.”

“Bond, James Bond.”

“Rosebud.”

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

You get the idea.

The Paradox of Safe Choices

The iconic car chase in Bullitt is still gripping for me, and as every car chase that came after imitated it rather than innovated, we diluted the experience until it lost its attraction—until, that is, Luke Skywalker was racing close to the surface of the Death Star.

Yes, there are only five stories, or seven stories. Star Wars became Harry Potter, and they are both the story of King Arthur—each to its own generation, but each new and inventive, not imitative.

Who wants to shell out $15 to go to a movie and then $30 for the DVD to own something that has been watered down by an algorithm or the CYA philosophy of some businesspeople in the film industry, when we can stay home and watch something very similar on some streaming service?

Within the streaming service universe, the same issues apply. The businesspeople have a fiduciary responsibility to give the greatest possible return to their investors. The ‘safest’ way to do that is to try and sell more of what just sold, which means: more of the same.

How do you choose one service over another, and does it ever matter, even if any one service is so low-cost?

So what is a filmmaker to do? It’s easy to throw your hands up and complain or ask if the industry is dying. My suggestion? Listen to Virgil.

Virgil's ancient wisdom echoes through the corridors of contemporary cinema with renewed urgency, as independent filmmakers stand at a crossroads where safety has become the most dangerous path of all.

The Architecture of Opportunity

In Christopher Booker’s influential book “The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories,” Booker outlines seven universal story types and their importance:

• Overcoming the Monster

• Rags to Riches

• The Quest

• Voyage and Return

• Comedy

• Tragedy

• Rebirth

  
  

These plot types, whether alone or in combination, seem to be the stories our minds need to hear—want to hear. “The Quest” isn’t a new theme, but I know people who read J.R.R. Tolkien’s versions (The Hobbit, there and back again, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy) over and over again. It is a bold retelling of the story of The Quest, and it's something that so many need.

So many indie films (features and shorts) I’ve seen over the years seem to me to be filmmakers trying to make their films an “audition film” to get the big-budget Hollywood films. So many filmmakers seem to be very afraid to take risks for fear of the negative blowback. If you fail at making money in a big-budget film, you may diminish your chances of making another. However, this is not the case in the world of indie films.

The Alchemy of Authentic Expression

The wonder of independent features and shorts is their ability to be bold and out-

there while telling a good story—boldly—without diminishing their chances of making another film. That is the marker of success.

In case you feel the fear of rejection is keeping you from getting your story out there, I offer this encouragement.

Here are some real examples of negative reviews from the original publication era of The Lord of the Rings:

• Edmund Wilson, in The Nation (1956), famously called it “juvenile trash” and went on:

  
  

  “Dr. Tolkien has little skill at narrative and no instinct for literary form. Many of his descriptions are bad writing and his adventures are not worth telling.”

• Maurice Richardson in The Observer:

  
  

  “The Lord of the Rings is an overgrown fairy story … appealing mainly to hobbit-minded teenagers of all ages.”

• Philip Toynbee (1961):

  
  

  “The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of the Rings and those who are going to read it, but … it will soon be universally recognized as a children’s book.”

• Michael Moorcock:

  
  

  “…a pernicious confirmation of the values of a morally bankrupt middle class…”

Yep, and now … you mean you never heard of these critics? But you have heard of J.R.R. Tolkien and the world he created; just checking. This is why originality matters, especially in movies.

The Renaissance of Risk-Taking

So if you're asking, “how do I get my indie film noticed,” the best advice is to make it important to you and make it true. Then it will be original.

We are all living through a moment of unsettling irony—one that would not have escaped the notice of ancient dramatists who understood the tragic consequences of hubris, complacency, and playing it safe. The very strategies once designed to ensure survival now threaten our extinction. The very formulaic content, which was crafted to appeal to the broadest possible audience, is rendering the opposite effect: our creations of art and spectacle disappear into the white noise of an oversaturated, algorithmic, and homogenous marketplace.

So, pick one and tell it in a way that resonates now. Sketch it out on paper or test it out on your smartphone. Address our desires, our fears of our time. Be bold. Don’t edit yourself. Don’t ask, “what’s commercial? What will sell?” A true story, told honestly and boldly, will attract and satisfy an audience. It will spread through word of mouth; it will find its success and bring you along with it.

The Eternal Return to Truth

We are always standing on a new threshold in independent filmmaking. Every creation opens the need for something new and original. Remember the words of Joseph Campbell: "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." Or in Episode V, when Luke asks what is in the cave, Yoda tells him: “Only what you take with you.” So your retelling of this old plot is new and original because it comes from you. The life you have lived, warts and all, contains the elements that will distinguish your work from the endless stream of content competing for attention.

This is not a call to recklessness, but to courage. Not to abandon craft and preparation, but to trust in the unique perspective that only you can bring to the ancient art of storytelling. Your film is calling out into the darkness to ears that are listening for your message. In a world increasingly hungry for authentic human connection, the filmmaker who dares to be genuinely themselves offers audiences something no algorithm can generate: the irreplaceable gift of a singular vision.

The future belongs to those who understand that playing it safe has become the most dangerous game of all. In embracing risk and originality, independent filmmakers don't just ensure their own survival—they help preserve cinema's capacity to surprise, challenge, and transform the hearts and minds of audiences worldwide.

As the sun rises on this new chapter of independent filmmaking, may we remember that the stories worth telling have always been the ones that required courage to share. The time for bold choices is not coming: it is here, patient as morning light, waiting for those brave enough to step into its embrace.

Tell your story the best you can with the resources you already have. Get it out there to the whole world. Let your audience find you. Repeat.