How Dan Mirvish Built an Indie Filmmaking Career Beyond the Traditional System

So going, I'm curious, so then since you started in the indie world so long ago to where we're at today, can you talk about a little bit about just the evolution of what you've seen? So when you said you started, it was something along the lines of, you know, it's a little renegade, you know, obviously now it's an established festival, a huge one.

Evolution of indie world just in general, what do you see?

So the short version is nothing's changed.

Oh.

That's the short version.

So everyone would be like, well, that's crazy talk, Dan.

You just talked about how there was no internet.

You know, how old are you? But.

In reality, yeah, the medium that you used to shoot on, you had two choices before, 35mm or 16mm.

And now anyone can shoot on an iPhone or you can shoot digitally or a lot of people are going back to shooting Super 16.

I just shot a movie on Super 16 or at least part of it two weeks ago.

Yeah.

Things really, in that sense, yeah, the medium has changed, the barriers to entry have changed.

You can shoot a feature for literally eight bucks now, on your phone if you wanted to, or if you had to.

So, so that the barrier to entries changed and also the barrier to getting a film scene has changed.

I mean, lawyer John Sloss once put it this way.

Like it used to be like, you know, 5% of films got distribution.

Now a hundred percent of films get distribution.

It's just that the definition of distribution has changed.

So yeah, anyone can put a film on YouTube, but that doesn't mean that anyone is going to watch that film.

Once it's on YouTube, you know, so, so I think the percentage of independent films that get a culturally meaningful distribution, which means they somehow pierce the culture, like obsession or backrooms or, you know, That was this year's.

It was what next year's or last year or the year before was.

I think that number is still really small.

Or the percentage of indie films that wind up getting Oscars buzz is still very small.

And it still comes down to a handful of gatekeepers and a handful of festivals.

So going, I'm curious, so then since you started in the indie world so long ago to where we're at today, can you talk about a little bit about just the evolution of what you've seen? So when you said you started, it was something along the lines of, you know, it's a little renegade, you know, obviously now it's an established festival, a huge one.

Evolution of indie world just in general, what do you see?

So the short version is nothing's changed.

Oh.

That's the short version.

So everyone would be like, well, that's crazy talk, Dan.

You just talked about how there was no internet.

You know, how old are you? But.

In reality, yeah, the medium that you used to shoot on, you had two choices before, 35mm or 16mm.

And now anyone can shoot on an iPhone or you can shoot digitally or a lot of people are going back to shooting Super 16.

I just shot a movie on Super 16 or at least part of it two weeks ago.

Yeah.

Things really, in that sense, yeah, the medium has changed, the barriers to entry have changed.

You can shoot a feature for literally eight bucks now, on your phone if you wanted to, or if you had to.

So, so that the barrier to entries changed and also the barrier to getting a film scene has changed.

I mean, lawyer John Sloss once put it this way.

Like it used to be like, you know, 5% of films got distribution.

Now a hundred percent of films get distribution.

It's just that the definition of distribution has changed.

So yeah, anyone can put a film on YouTube, but that doesn't mean that anyone is going to watch that film.

Once it's on YouTube, you know, so, so I think the percentage of independent films that get a culturally meaningful distribution, which means they somehow pierce the culture, like obsession or backrooms or, you know, That was this year's.

It was what next year's or last year or the year before was.

I think that number is still really small.

Or the percentage of indie films that wind up getting Oscars buzz is still very small.

And it still comes down to a handful of gatekeepers and a handful of festivals.