Linkapalooza - The Winds of Change in the Indie Horror Film World

You smell that? I think the winds of change are finally starting to blow over the film world... well, the indie film world, anyhow. Just take a broad look at the business right now, all the studios and the conglomerates that own them are losing money and market share. Their stock prices are plummeting, they're laying people off and selling assets. As far as films are concerned, they green light fewer films and the ones they do, have to fit a certain criteria. They know that they have to dump tens of millions of dollars into just marketing a film and that's outside of the hundreds of millions it costs to actually make the fucking thing... and all that in the time when we're in a global economic meltdown and everyone's trying to save money. Couple that with the fact that you can buy an HD, broadcast quality, camera for around $1,000 and get all the software you need online, for nothing (a few hundred bucks if you're not into pirating). Then, the internet provides almost every networking and marketing tool you could need. So, what do I think this all means? Well, I was just reading about how there's a new term in New York called "Frugal Chic", or something like that. Basically, how it's "in" to be cheap now. And I think you're going to see a rise in the low - no budget film world, as people turn to other sources for entertainment and embrace the fact that there's very little wastage in true indie filmmaking. Where it's starting to be "in" to wear cheap clothes, drive a fuel efficient car and find deals, it's going to be "in" to support micro budget film. Think about it, it makes sense to me...

Honestly, I have a ton of thoughts rattling around in my head on this, but I'll stop there... and share a few wicked and FREE resources that I've found online that you need to read or bookmark. Actually, the first two are good resources that you should check out, the third thing is just some cool news that you need to know about.

Filmmaker IQ: Okay, so this is a site that you really need to bookmark... and it's not because Dead Harvey gets mentioned in their post, Horror Filmmaking, From Script to Scream. In fact, that Horror Filmmaking article, alone, is a must read. There are so many DIY tricks on props, make-up, special effects... I don't know what else I can say about it. If you're like me, you'll bookmark it and start going through all their links, one by one, trying out all the shit that they're talking about. Very cool site.

While I'm mentioning Filmmaker IQ, I should mention another site that I came across called Film Festival Secrets. It's from Chris Holland, who's been writing about movies, film festivals and indie film since 1991. He actually has a downloadable pdf version of his book, Film Festival Secrets, available for free, on the site. You just have to join his newsletter. He's worked with the Austin Film Festival as their director of marketing and still screens films for them. He's now the director of festival operations for B-Side, which you may recognize, as they have that film fest community software. Anyhow, he put together a book on getting your film into festivals and it's probably worth checking out, especially if it's free. I'm going to join up and get it now, so if there's some catch or something, I'll be sure to come back and edit this post. (Ted's note: Yeah, it's free... just downloaded it)

Here's the last sign that the indie horror apocalypse is upon us... a movie about monkeys with guns gets green lit. Here's a a link to the article, 'War Monkeys' feature in works on THR.com. It's the biggest budget film that Dark Horse Indie has ever done and it's apparently filled with monkeys, guns and explosions. The plot revolves around two janitors who, during a Christmas holiday, get trapped in an underground research facility after accidentally unleashing military-trained Rhesus monkeys. Now, is it me or does it seem that there's more and more films like this coming out these days? Seriously, I think indie horror is starting to get more and more mainstream. So, when you're writing, get crazy, think way out there... it's starting to catch on!