Transcript
BEN ROBERTS
The ongoing challenges are where's the money coming from? Where is the private investment coming from? Audiences have lots of claims on their time. So audiences for film can now stay at home and watch lots of box set TV. They can play games to their heart's content. They can actually spend the two hours they would have done watching a film on Facebook. So there are lots of challenges for eyeballs, which was previously reserved for film. So that's the challenge. But I think the responsibility of the film industry is to respond to what audiences are doing, and recognise that there's a certain amount of evolution that needs to happen to stay healthy.
CHARLES MOORE
I think when Netflix, and then Amazon, first came on the scene, I would have thought that the independent production community would have maybe suspected that they were going to just be another studio, effectively. And that they were just going to join the ranks of the Foxes and Paramounts, and it wouldn't be of great interest to them on a day to day basis, unless they happen to have a big project like a studio-type project. But as time has- not a lot of time, but as time has gone on over the last couple of years, I suppose two things. One is that Netflix and Amazon are a disruptive force.
And I mean that in a good way, because it's shaken up the industry in a way that I think needed to be shaken up. There are all sorts of, I think, problems in the industry related to windowing, which restricts the ability of films, I think, to maximise revenues, because exhibitors insist on certain time periods before DVD release, et cetera, et cetera. So audiences who potentially would want to see a DVD on the back of certain marketing that's gone on have to wait four months before the DVD comes out. Netflix and Amazon are shaking that world up in a big way and making, in Netfix's case, high-budget productions with a very limited theatrical release and then going straight to their platform.
It will be very interesting to see how that pans out. They're not just making the big budget, but they're making very interesting independent-type projects.
OLLIE MADDEN
Predicting the future of independent film is one of those things that I believe will go on forever and ever, because I believe there is a long and healthy future for independent film. I think audiences are always going to want to experience films communally, to go out and have that movie experience that you can't generate at home. And I think there are stories that genuinely benefit from being told in a closed-ended way. We're in an era where serialised television is stronger and more creatively exciting than it's ever been. And you're seeing films replicating that, particularly the big-budget studio franchises that are starting to have serialised elements, in terms of what Marvel is doing or DC are doing.
But I still think there's a huge market and appetite- and always will be- for often adult-oriented dramas and genre films that are more closed-ended stories. And I believe that if the quality of the films are high enough, if they're innovative enough, if they provoke thought and provoke a cultural discussion in the way that really only film can, in that very specific way, I think that those kinds of films will always be around. There will always be a market for them. We may have to adjust the way they're made, the price they're made at, the way you reach audiences and market to audiences. But I don't think film and the cinematic experience is going away.
In fact, I think it's going to continue to thrive.