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Filmmaking StuffCinemaAmerican Film Market: Why Indie Filmmakers Should Go The American Film Market is coming up, and if you’re an indie filmmaker, I think it deserves your attention. You might have a finished movie you’re trying to sell.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaThe Five Pillars of Independent Film: Getting Your Movie Out Into the World You can make the best film you possibly can. But if you haven’t figured out how to finance it, sell it, and get it in front of an audience, you’re missing a big part of the process.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaThe Mexican Fisherman Story: What Are You Really Working Toward? Normally, I talk about film financing, film distribution, and film production. But today, I want to share something a little different.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaHow Much Is Your Indie Film Really Worth? How much is your indie film really worth? Could your million-dollar movie actually be worth $100,000?

Filmmaking StuffCinemaBox Office Profit: How Much Does a Movie Really Make? You hear this all the time: “The movie cost $20 million and made $30 million at the box office, so it made a $10 million profit.” Not even close.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaThe Ant Theory: Why Filmmaking Persistence Matters If you want to make movies, you need filmmaking persistence. There’s really no way around it. Things are going to go wrong. Financing will fall through. An actor might drop out.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaHow to Know If Your Indie Film Will Sell If you've ever wondered how to know if your indie film will sell, I've got some good news. You don't have to wait until your movie is finished to find out.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaHow Film Distribution Companies Decide Whether to Pick Up Your Movie If you're trying to get film distribution for your movie, you might think the first thing a distributor does is sit down and watch it. That's actually not how it usually works.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaMovie Economics: How the Money Really Works in Filmmaking If you want to make movies, you have to understand movie economics. I meet a lot of filmmakers who spend years learning cameras, directing actors, and writing scripts, but they never learn how the…

Filmmaking StuffCinemaWhy Some Movie Stars Sell Films and Others Don’t If you're making an indie film, you've probably asked yourself this question: Which movie stars sell films?

Filmmaking StuffCinemaCan a $100,000 Indie Film Make Money? If you've ever asked yourself, can a $100,000 indie film make money, you're asking the right question. I get asked this all the time. Years ago, a $100,000 movie was looked at as a student film.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaFilm Financing Myths That Are Costing You Investors If you're trying to figure out how to raise money for a movie, you've probably heard a lot of advice over the years.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaThe New Rules of Indie Film Financing If you're trying to raise money for a movie today, you need to understand that indie film financing has changed.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaFilm Distribution Trends: Why Filmmakers Need to Pay Attention Film distribution trends are always changing. If you've been in this business long enough, you've seen it happen over and over again. Years ago, filmmakers were focused on VHS rentals.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaWhy Most Indie Films Fail to Find an Audience One of the biggest challenges in indie film distribution isn't making the movie. It's getting people to watch it.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaDo Film Festival Laurels Actually Matter for Selling Your Movie? Let me say something that may sound harsh: nobody cares about your film festival laurels. At least, not in the way most filmmakers think.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaWhy AVOD Is Where Indie Films Make Money Now If you’re making independent films today, you need to understand one thing: AVOD is where indie films make money now. When we talk about AVOD, we mean ad-based video on demand.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaWhy Your Movie Trailer Matters More Than Your Movie If you take nothing else from this, understand this: your movie trailer matters more than your movie when it comes to getting people to actually watch it. I know that sounds crazy.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaWhy Most Indie Films Don’t Make Money (And How to Fix It) Most indie films don’t make money. That’s just the truth. And it’s not because the filmmakers aren’t talented. It’s because they’re not thinking about indie film distribution and sales early enough.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaThe Mid-Budget Indie Film Problem No One Wants to Talk About For years, there was a clear range in independent film budgets. Under $2 million was low budget. $3 to $8 million was mid-range. $8 million and up was bigger indie. That made sense at the time.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaWhat Sales Agents Do at Film Markets If you’ve ever wondered what sales agents do at film markets, you’re not alone. A lot of filmmakers imagine deals happening instantly at markets like Cannes, AFM, or EFM.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaAI Video Creation: Turning Old Photos Into Video with Google Gemini I recently started playing around with Google Gemini's AI video generation tools. If you haven't experimented with AI video generation yet, it's both amazing and a little terrifying.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaWhat Is an Option Agreement? The Smart Way to Control a Screenplay Without Buying It If you’re producing indie films, understanding an option agreement can save you thousands of dollars — and a lot of stress.

Filmmaking StuffCinemaFilm Distribution Windowing Is Changing (And That’s Good News for Indie Filmmakers) If you’re planning your release strategy right now, you need to understand film distribution windowing — because the old rules don’t really apply anymore.

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About

The small bracket on top of every camera, from a phone rig to an ARRI.

The hot shoe is where the flash goes, and the microphone, and the monitor, and whatever the next decade bolts on. Every camera has one and nobody photographs it. This magazine is named after it because that is where the whole business meets: the body, the glass, the light, the sound, and the person holding it.

I shot news in Gothenburg for nine years and documentary for hire after that, then stopped taking assignments to write about the tools. Since 2021 I live in Tokyo, ten minutes from the used-camera shops of Shinjuku, which is not an accident: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Ricoh and Sigma make almost everything worth pointing at a subject, and their own press writes about it first, in Japanese. So this magazine reads it there, and in German, French, Italian and Spanish, and in English from the reviewers who actually put a card in the slot — around eighty sources and thirty channels, counted and plotted so you can see what is moving.

Bodies and lenses, cinema cameras and drones, film and the darkroom, firmware and the software that finishes the picture, the rumours before the launch and the reviews after it, and the photographers and shows the rest of it is for. I test what I write about on a job before a word goes down. I shoot film on Sundays and do not think that makes me interesting.

A story here is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link to whoever reported it. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the photographer or the maker. A story written in Japanese appears in Japanese, as its author set it down; the link goes to the original.

— Mara Lindqvist, Tokyo