Indie films versus Mainstream Cinema - Frank Boylan

Independent Cinema versus Mainstream Cinema.

In this essay, I will compare and contrast the Codes & Conventions between Independent and Mainstream Cinema. To be classified as an ‘Indie’ film t needs to receive no finance from major film studios. This means it will be limited on its money and will have to restrict its budget accordingly. So Indie films tend to be restricted on things like; Locations/sets, Actors, Mise-en-scene and most importantly, Marketing. Films in Mainstream Cinema generally don’t have these budget restricts, so can splash out on things like Locations, Actors, Mise-en-scene and Marketing.

The film ‘Clerks’ cost the director, Kevin Smith, around £27,000. The gain this amount of money to spend on the production of the film, Kevin had to fund the film himself, to raise this amount of money he; Sold most of his valuable comic book collection, he took money from his personal college education fund, and used the Insurance pay-out from a Car owned by Smith and Jay Mewes (actors in the film). The film itself was shot in black and white (due to budget) and was restricted to shooting in a convenience store, were Kevin worked of a day, and of a night he would shoot the interior shots which make up most of the film. Also, as he was restricted on money, he had to rely on word of mouth to sell his film, he simply did not have the money to place adverts on TV and Newspapers. As for the cast, they were all Friends of Kevin, no big Hollywood actors with Star Appeal to generate hype.

On the other hand, ‘Iron Man 3’ was released in 2013, it cost around $200,000,000 to produce, and that doesn’t include marketing costs. As this is a Mainstream film, this funding came from a Film studio, which in this case was ‘Marvel Studios’. The lead-actor Robert Downey Jr. was paid $50,000,000 for the film purely because of the amount of Star Appeal he owned for the Iron Man franchise. That is a quarter of the film budget on one actor, but mainstream cinema can afford to do this because these films are popular, easy to watch and don’t challenge our expectations. We will watch this because as an audience we like repetition and in general, good looking movies, Iron Man 3 met this criteria. As well as various trailers and teasers for the film, it also had a front page on the ‘Empire’ magazine and big posters in cinemas to raise awareness of the film and generate more hype. The film has generated around $1,212,692,272, and the films franchise has generated $2,418,696,729. An ‘adaptation’ to this franchise gets spewed out every 2/3 years. (Source: The Numbers)

Something that I have noticed, Indie films tend to have a unique spin on them; this is generally an art style that the film has adopted. In ‘Clerks’ case, the Black and White was used due to the low budget the film had but it has become a unique feature of the film. Many Indie films aren’t used as a money grabbing scheme, but are used to Show the Skills of a Director or maybe to present their Ideologies. Indie films don’t seem to have a general target audience, they are either aimed towards everyone or a niche audience.