D. A. Pennebaker Quotes

Everyone who makes a film is at the major distributors' mercy.

Independent filmmakers already have their heads around people on their couches watching their movies.

I think we are at the very beginning of high changes, not only in terms of digital film, but in the way the movies will be screened, whether they'll be screened on phones, on computers - on everything.

The current distribution model for movies, in the U.S. particularly, but also around the world, is pretty antiquated relative to the on-demand generation that we're trying to serve.

If you think of movie studio executives, say, as society, then I root for the independent producers.

We need Netflix. We in the independent sector more than anybody need Netflix, because they care about what we do.

I guess in Australia every film is sort of an indie film because there are no studios.

Foreign distribution is a major aspect of financing films. If you're flooding an entire country with cam rips DVDs before the movie is released, that will affect the bottom line eventually.

With piracy, people think it's about getting stuff for free. It's not - it's about getting rid of the middleman that stands between you and your enjoyment of the film or music.

I always admired Netflix's business model; they are really good at what they do.

There's S-VOD, which is 3 1/2 months after the theatrical release. The windows are going to get closer and closer, and the sooner they collapse in my mind the better it'll be for everybody. It's coming, but change is hard. It will be more profitable for everybody, including exhibitors.

The feature film has changed a lot. Art houses are gone and people show a certain type of cinema in the big theaters now that, you know, it's not quite really good for me, and if I made a feature film, I was think I'd play in LA and New York for a week, and then go right to television.

Obviously there's Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon and all these other outlets. Fake It So Real is now on Fandor, and I think people have actually seen it there, which is fine.

'Hellboy 1' was such a huge, huge overperformer on Blu-ray and ancillary markets. It was one of the first movies on Blu-ray; it has multiple editions. All the ancillary markets overperformed everywhere. And the second one did good on all ancillary markets, which now do not exist.

The majority of people are straight, and movies, with their bigger budgets and burdensome marketing costs, will try to appeal to as many people as they can. As the means of production and distribution become more democratized with advances in technology, more gay stories will make their way to the mainstream.

'Okja' I don't think would have been made if Netflix hadn't made it. That, to me, is a much bigger thing than whether someone watches it on a big screen or a phone. Because it simply wouldn't have existed otherwise.

We make a lot of movies that I don't think merit a wide release. We have this label called Tilt, and we have the movies come out on that, and that's fine. But it shocks me when, having done this a few times, when I really believe a movie should get a wide release, and I struggle to get it released. That does surprise me.

Indie movies got co-opted by the studio system. The studios insisted that only stars could make movies successful.

So many movies get made, and so many go to VOD, which is a market I admire.

I remember when I made 'A Scanner Darkly,' going, 'I hope people see it in theater - but I think it's going to be seen in someone's room at two in the morning.' It's that kind of movie. And I would have loved if it had been available on multiple formats at the moment it opened.

There's a big difference between the independent film world and the Hollywood film world, and I don't know that I understood that until I got into certain rooms, and people's faces go blank when you talk about Sundance.

I think I should have made 'Dead Silence' as an independent movie.

It kind of irks me that the studio films still have to be so safe even though they don't really cost as much to make.

The film division at Amazon is made up of true cineastes who love movies and really want to try and provide opportunity for independent film visions to find their footing in a vastly shifting market. They love cinema.

Content financing is a difficult beast no matter what era of Hollywood we're talking about.