Hi Scott, I might be wrong but i'd like to believe that the opposite to “The sky is falling” is "Earth is rising" and if that's the feeling that independent filmmakers can provide to their audience, I see a beautiful future for the indie film industry. As you said, there are many more opportunities to distribute films these days thanks to VOD, IPTV and internet in general. Independent filmmakers don't need 200 millions dollars to make a film. The lower the budget, the greater chances to make profit and therefore to make another film after that.

Aurélien, couldn't agree more. Budget is one reason why story concept is so critical. Just by limiting locations and keeping cast and crew small, you start off smart. So make those considerations part of your calculations when it comes to what indie story concept to write.

The world changes. That might be a wicked observation for most people, but it really is the nature of things. Why should we trust Spielberg and Lucas who invented the blockbuster in the first place? Didn't they bury their own legend with INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL in 2008? And wasn't it Lucas who sold his rights for Star Wars just recently to Disney for a Billion Dollars? The world isn't ending just because some prophets every now and then proclaim the Apocalypse. The only thing we can do is work on our craft, invest in our future with hard work and be prepared for every opportunity we get.

A few thoughts: 1. Black and white is dead. One or fewer movies a year doesn't mean it's alive. It's dead. Deader than westerns. 2. We don't have great years for movies any more. We have great 4 months for movies. All the decent films come out Sep-Dec and rest of the year is super heroes and crappy horror. I know you'll point out all the exceptions, but a person can seriously avoid the cinema for 8 months out of the year and not really miss anything worthwhile. 3. Why isn't Julie Andrews playing P.L. Travers? That's a casting no-brainer. Hooray it got made, but I predict the movie will do about as well at Hitchcock did last year ($23 million). If it had Julie Andrews you could easily double that, because the press would go ga-ga.

I did this a few weeks ago as a thought experiment... take any 10 years in film history and compare the films being made at one end of that decade films made at the other end of the decade. The industry is in a constant state of flux. True this is a challenging time, but not worse than rise of the television when movie attendance dropped 50% over the course of 10 years. Things are changing, a storm is coming... but what's new ;)

Whoever answers that question always seems to become filthy rich. What I expect to happen (and maybe it's just wishful thinking) is for the final obstacle to the U.S. finally having a truly independent film business will finally be overcome - distribution. That's the one thing the big studios have always had because it cost so much to distribute a film. With internet delivery that cost will shrink to nothing - you'll be able to deliver your film all over the world at almost no cost. We're almost to that point where streaming (user choice viewing) takes over from cable (middle-man choice viewing) That's a very big change from the past.