Essays on Independent Film

Mean Streets (1973) Martin Scorsese

Introduction

A film is a story or an event that is a set of moving images or motion pictures and is shown in theater or on television. Films always portray different messages in them depending on the subject topic. The message they portray or carry mainly depend on the plot, setting of the movie and the role the different characters take up in the film or movie. The intent of the film is always in the main theme and this is always the beneficial part of the film to the viewers or the consumers (Merritt ...

Executive Summary

The modern film industry contributes significantly to the GDP growth of countries like United States, China, Japan, and India. This industry also employs tens of thousands of people worldwide. Despite the growing popularity of the film industry, film piracy (particularly the web-based film piracy) poses potential threats to the future growth this industry. The widespread use of internet worldwide increases the industry’s vulnerability to piracy issues because any person can upload/share videos on the internet from any part of the globe. It is not practical to prevent people from downloading/watching pirated movies on the internet due to the ...

The Movie

David Bowie portrays an alien from a planet dying from lack of water. He comes to earth, in human disguise, to bring some back to his home. Taking out patents on inventions using his advanced technology, he becomes wealthy and politically powerful. He is deterred from his plans, however, when he becomes involved with a woman (Fandango 2014).

Distribution for Independently Produced Films

The website “Free Online Film School: Learn Filmmaking” (2010) describes the effort necessary for independent filmmakers to obtain distribution. When screening the movie, it should be shown only once with all of the interested parties present. This prevents the rejection of one distributor ...

Introduction

John Hubley was an innovative American animator. He worked for Walt Disney and UPA, but his greatest work is seen as an independent filmmaker. He is one of the rare filmmakers who gave the audiences a glimpse into the lives of those that were often ignored by other animation studios. He was born in1914 in Wisconsin, and into an artistic family. His mother attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and his grandfather was a painter. Growing up, he knew that he would be a painter, and studied painting at the Art Center in Los Angeles, California for three years. Hubley's cartoons ...

John Cassavetes is the father of independent film industry and has, doubtlessly, influenced many independent and Hollywood filmmakers and actors. Many film critics and authors, actors, cinema producers and directors in both the independent film industry and Hollywood have referred to John Cassavetes as the father of the independent cinema. His style of film making, considered by many of his lovers and critics alike as simplistic yet influential, was exceptional in its own right. There is no doubt that John Cassavetes had a passion for acting and film production, and not even lack of professional actors or money would deter ...

Because of the content of some of the films that were made in the silent and early talking era, the Motion Picture Production Code was developed and implemented in 1930. Commonly known as the Hays Code, after Will Hays (Hollywood’s main censor at that time), it served as the rules of censorship for Hollywood until the development of the MPAA film rating system in 1968. This code dictated what filmmakers could and could not include in motion pictures (Doherty). There were some definite no-nos, such as profanity, licentious or lecherous notice, illegal drug trafficking, and miscegenation; there was ...

Ang Lee's 2007 political romantic drama Lust, Caution is a beautiful, contemplative and breathtakingly tragic story about an undercover resistance fighter in World War II-era China, who begins to form a relationship with the man she is meant to kill - a collaborator with the Japanese. By presenting a hauntingly beautiful and poetic tale of a woman torn between who she is and who she is pretending to be, with tremendous stakes in the balance, Lee's film explores the ideas of performance and identity as a means to demonstrate her nationalism. Wong's character is presented as an actor, first and foremost, from her humble beginnings ...