Film, Radio and TV - 6 |
|
"Indies" andFilm Ratings
Today's Independent Producers Originally, independent producers and production companies were out-of-the-mainstream operations that resisted — some might even say have rebelled against — the perceived content and business-minded limitations of mainstream production companies. This type of independent production is important to filmmaking because:
However, by 2007, the majority of the films that won Oscars were technicality "independent," in that they did not originate with major studios. It was only later that they were picked up for major studio distribution. This low-budget, high-budget line was first blurred with such films as Chariots of Fire, The Blair Witch Project, Leaving Las Vegas, and Sex, Lies and Videotape.
The comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, released in 2002, has been the second most successful independent film. The film first appeared in very limited distribution.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding costs about $5-million to make, less than $20-million to market, and within the first few weeks it had made $100-million. Whereas most new releases stay in the top-10 listings for only a week or two, My Big Fat Greek Wedding stayed in the top-10 for months. In 2003, CBS launched an unsuccessful TV series based on the film. Like some other highly successful films, it was first turned down by the major film distributors on the basis of (they thought) limited profit potential. Fortunately, the film had been produced by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, who had the contacts to eventually guide it into the mainstream. A documentary film released (after much controversy) in June, 2004, set a new record for its genre. This was Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, an unabashed attack on the the Bush administration. As of this writing the Oacar award-winning independent film, An Inconvenient Truth, a film about global warming, was in second place. However, we're leaving it out of the chart below on the most popular documentaries in the last ten years until the final tabulations are in.
|
Today, the term "independents" (or "indies") has a different meaning that it did in the 1940s. 
The most successful independent film to date has been Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, released in 2004, which was the number one film for several weeks. Boosting its popularity were the many fundamentalist churches across the U.S. that promoted it in their pulpits, ran ads for it, and rented theaters and took busloads of people to see it.
Once it became successful, it was quickly picked up by mainstream film distributors.|
Shooting 40 minutes of film costs about $10,000, while shooting 40-minutes of videotape costs only $70. A video production team working on location is shown on the left. Today, most audiences can't see a difference in quality between good video projectors used in theaters (referred to as electronic cinema, or E-cinema) and traditional 35mm film projection systems. Although the initial cost of E-cinema is much greater than film, the industry could save billions of dollars each year by switching to e-cinema. This chart indicates the excepted growth of theaters moving to some form of digital "film" projection.
A number of well-known mainstream film people actively support the independent film cause. One of the best-known is Robert Redford and his Sundance Institute, which is devoted to training new talent. Today's Movie Ratings Even though films had First Amendment freedom after 1952, the Hays' Production Code Administration (PCA) seal of approval was still used to determine what was acceptable and not acceptable in film content. (You will recall from a previous module that once Hollywood got on more secure financial footing after the depression, the code once again became important.) Hand-in-hand with the production code was the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency that banned such films as Ingmar Bergman's classic film The Silence and Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up. At the same time they endorsed films such as Godzilla vs. the Thing. Imprudent judgments such as these set the stage for rebellion — even when producers were faced with a $25,000 fine for disregarding the code. The well-known director Otto Premminger challenged the code when United Artists agreed to release his film, The Moon Is Blue, in 1953, without the Production Code Administration (PCA) seal of approval. The film had been denied approval because it contained such words as virgin and mistress, which were seen as being unacceptable, even for adult ears. Three years later, Premminger directed Man with the Golden Arm, a film about drug addition. It was also released without the PCA seal of approval. Since both films were highly successful, the power of the PCA code was essentially broken at that point. Once again, things seemed to be moving a bit too fast for much of the public, and so Valenti instituted a rating system patterned after the one used in Great Britain.
Although Valenti saw this rating system as being advisory only, many feel that the code ends up having economic control over film content. It's easy to see why. Films that are rated R, and especially NC-17, lose a significant percentage of their potential box office audience. Many newspapers refuse to run ads for NC-17 (and especially X-rated) films. Not being able to advertise a film in a local newspaper is obviously a major handicap. So why not avoid problems and make all films either G or PG-13? First, there's a bit of a bias against them. Films that are given G, or PG ratings are stereotyped as being bland, "kids stuff." Some people, including much of youth market they are designed to protect, tend to shun them. Second, G and PG ratings greatly reduce the chance of including provocative, edgy, and thought-provoking content — the very things that attract younger and more educated audiences. The committee members are kept secret, and individual members The committee's primary criteria for judging films centers on parental responsibility, as they see it. Studios that get a more restricted rating than they want on a film will generally trim down or eliminate scenes that they think the committee may have objected to, and then resubmit the film. At the same time, the studios are never quite sure what the committee has objected to. Specific changes are neither dictated nor suggested by the committee. That, in their mind, would constitute censorship. There's obviously a lot of tension in this process — especially between the studios, who want the widest audience, and writers and directors, who want to keep the film cutting-edge, realistic, and maybe even disturbingly controversial. Yes, to a degree. For example, some films have many double-entendres, or statements and even situations that have two meanings. The James Bond films are an example (action for the kids; pretty women, handsome men, and sexual situations for adults). Many animated films represent even better examples. In Aladdin, Shrek, and Finding Nemo, for example, children can enjoy the action and spectacle while adults pick up on the adult humor that children (it is assumed) don't catch. Films that appeal to different age groups are called crossover films.
MPAA and Independent Films Since the rating system is rather subjective and each film is different, this charge is difficult to prove. However, many independent films have initially been rated "NC-17" — the kiss of death, since they can't be advertised in most newspapers. In some cases independent films have had to be repeatedly reedited — much to the consternation of the directors and writers involved — before the MPAA board brought the rating down to "R." This "dual-standard criticism" isn't helped by the fact that the MPAA board is controlled by the major studios and appeals are handled by representatives of the major film studios and their distributors.
|
Traditional "Hollywood" thinking has long opposed production with video equipment for "serious, professional work." 
are rotated out and replaced at regular intervals. As far as education, film background, etc., Valenti would only say that the members are "neither gods nor fools."
