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The Duplass Brothers define independence in filmmaking.

There once was a time when the term “independent film” was connected with something underground, something raw, edgy, and new. The shots weren’t always perfect, but they were real. The storyline and ending of the film was never formulaic. You could just as easily walk out of the theater with a pleasant smile as you might with a horrible grimace of disbelief. The simple truth is that independent film fans wouldn’t have it any other way. This is the true meaning of art imitating life. Things in the real world don’t always end well.

These are film festival films that bring thousands of fans into the top festivals around the country including Sundance, South by Southwest, Tribeca, the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival. In this space, anyone can submit a film and has just about the same chance as anyone else of getting it in. Make a five-minute short film and you could premiere at Sundance. Premiere at Sundance and the top distributors and film financiers from around the world get to see your work. Bag a top award at a festival like the Austin Film Festival and you are qualified to win an Academy Award for short films. Next thing you know, there is a bidding war. The big boys are throwing millions at you to make your first feature film. You sign on with the largest production company in the world and ink a deal with an international distributor, get a big fat signing bonus and top writing credits. You have been groomed to tap into the mainstream with a perfectly structured storyline sending everyone into the lobby pleasantly numb and ready to drop five bucks on 100 ounces of soda in a cup bearing the name of your precious little independent film.

Mark and Jay Duplass

So. There’s the rub. You want to hold your ground and tell the story that you need to tell, but you also find the need to keep the electricity on to power your editing suite. Much as the micro breweries of the '90s quickly became tiny little subsidiaries of the biggest brewmasters in the world, the “independent” production houses are often nothing more than a line item in the annual report of a Fortune 500 media giant. They brew your tasty, little independent film in a two-story copper vat connected to hundreds of feet of pipe, bottled and stocked onto the shelves of the local movie house.
 

Indie Means Indie

So how does the independent filmmaker stay independent? Just ask the Duplass Brothers. Just like anyone cutting their teeth in this business, they started with the obligatory bad short films suitable for no one but family and close friends. But these are the rights of passage for all independent filmmakers. Learning how not to do things is often better than getting a formal education on how things should be done. Turns out these guys got both. Coming to Austin to study film, they soon found themselves producing a short film called This is John, which was shot by Jay Duplass and featured brother Mark in front of the camera. It was a humble, nano budget production that, turns out, happened to get into Sundance in 2003. The following years brought them more festival joy with their shorts, Scrapple and The Intervention, both winning awards at Sundance and the Berlin International Film Festival. Not a bad deal when you consider their sum budget up to this point might have barely covered the catering costs for one day of a typically budgeted studio film.

The Puffy Chair

Staying true to their independence and the need for creative control, they produced Baghead. A horror/comedy about some out of work actors who are being harassed by a scary guy with a bag over his head (in not so many words). Shot in Bastrop and Smithville, they chose to debut the film right here in Austin. Not a traditional "premiere city," Austin is a place you open up a good film that good film fans can appreciate. "It's clear to say that audiences in Austin just tend to get our sense of humor, and potentially less conventional style of storytelling," says Brother Jay. "Beyond that, Austin is just a town full of film appreciators and you can't beat that." Populated with so many appreciators is always a major bennie for any city, but something that most in the business can also agree upon is that Austin is also full of so many collaborative and hard working filmmakers too.

Baghead premieres in Austin

On making a movie here in the Cap City, Jay Duplass also tips his hat to the core support of the industry's artists and technicians alike. "For us, it's the people. It's the friends and colleagues and enthusiasts that we can draw upon for help. People in Austin want to get behind a piece of art they believe in, and they're willing to come out and support, as opposed to maybe just blogging about it."

And that really does sum up what Austin is to filmmaking. Just about every director, DP, editor, or PA that you run into on sets here in town has put in their fair share of time helping out fellow filmmakers to realize their dreams. Many of them putting up their services for nothing more than a rolling credit at the end of the film.

Don't be a depie; shoot in Austin

This is Austin, and this is independent film. There are so many great shorts and features being shot here on just about any night of the week. Great films that you will probably never see. Sad, yes. But when you are on set with a passionate young writer director doing everything in their power to shoot the best possible scenes, you quickly realize exactly why the majority of people get into the craft of making movies in the first place. It is about telling the story and making a really, really great film.

To all of the up and coming filmamkers,  Jay offers up some final words of advice. Words which should probably be the credo etched into the the offical plaque of indepenedent filmmaking on a wall somewhere. " I would just say to stay true to your heart at every turn. Everyone's path will be different. If there's any one thing to say, it's that you can't control the world and audiences and investors, etcetera. So your best option is to make things cheap and keep them in the realm of your control. And most importantly, just do whatever it takes to make the best film possible."

Amen Brother. Amen.

Steve Muccini is president of SpotEdge Media, an award winning video production company producing content for TV and the web, and also HomeSaleVideo.com . He is also a writer, producer and actor in Austin, Texas.