Independent filmmakers have been around since the early days of Hollywood. Legendary figures like Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks come to mind. In deed, in order to gain more control over film production and retain more artistic control over their film “vision”, many within the film industry have formed their own production companies over the years. During the 1970s, Barbra Streisand, Sidney Portier and Paul Newman formed First Artists and many major stars, directors and producers retain their own production companies today. True, many of these companies are funded by major studios, but there are still many independents who do not rely on major Hollywood studios to fund their production. Robert Redford, founder of the Sundance Institute, describes the classic hallmarks of the independent film, “The usual traits of independent film are that it tends to be lower budget, without stars and it tends to be auteur driven: a lot of writer/directors” (Troy 4). However, today’s independents are on the rise because of two main reasons. First, independent films are typically more “artistic” and garner Oscar nominations, a former stronghold of major studio releases. For instance, four of the five films nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in 1997 were for independently produced films (The English Patient, Fargo, Secrets & Lies and Shine). The fifth film, Jerry McGuire, was produced by Tri-Star, a subsidiary of Sony and the only film of the five to be created at a major Hollywood studio. This kind of “artistic” success (not to mention all the financial success that Oscar recognition earns) has actually made many of the major studios gobble up independent film companies because their typically big-budgeted “event” films are a huge financial risk and have been traditionally ignored by Oscar.
The second reason the independents are on the rise is because there are many more ...