IPG Members Leading In Indie Film

NEW MARKETS

FilmPod Attracting Gaming Audience

I cannot say much more about it at this time. As you know, FilmPod continues to develop with its Digital Box Office structure - but integrating this new paradigm into this new film environment requires, or course, new ideas. You will recall we announced the Dark Veil Game Jam recently - this is the first foray into the grass-roots gaming audience, in terms of early marketing and audience connection - ever. Traditionally, the connection between film and the gaming audience has been confined to adaptation - ie. a game adapted from a film or vice vesa (going back all the way to 1975’s Death Race 2000 and 1982’s TRON). But no film that we can locate has ever reached out to grass roots gaming audience in a way that appeals to them. The Dark Veil Game Jam is the first to begin promotion to that community - which happens to be more than four times larger in terms of numbers and economic power than the traditional film audience. The Dark Veil Game Jam is set to stream live November 6, 2025.

Want to learn more about FilmPod and DBO? Contact Shadow Dragu-Mihai at [email protected]

Do You Talk or Act?

“It is not the critic who counts; not the person who points out where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena”

-Theodore Roosevelt (paraphrased)

I cite those quotes because I want to remind you all - talk is cheap, actions speak louder than words. These trite cliche’s are actually true.

This year has turned out to be very challenging for IPG, SSI myself, and I am sure, most of our members. For SSI, there are no grants available at this time - putting a severe strain on our ability to proceed with our work. For film investment - the industry is in free-fall, with all major streamers pulling back and cutting production numbers. The MPA members are positioning to buy each other out, and move from a cartel to a monopoly. People promise donations to SSI then renege with one excuse or another. Investors are distracted by the sudden “AI Boom” that seems the only game in the financial town. A corresponding decrease in independent film investment and even greater reluctance for distributors to pay for your product is resulting.

As filmmakers, we all reach out to people we hope will be colleagues. But the vast majority of people who come into our professional sphere are just around to talk, kick tires and make encouraging sounds. They say they want to be involved, or they make offers of collaboration or other arrangements. Regardless of the expressions, and even heart-sworn promises made to your face, easily 9 out of 10 don’t follow through with what they say they intend. They lose interest, often without even telling you they have moved on.

As an independent creator, trying to get something off the ground, you face this constantly. It can be tiring and it can be disheartening. You are often at a point where it feels that, once again, you have wasted your time depending on the assurances of someone else.

I am here to tell you that this is normal. This is not new.

Filmmakers are entrepreneurs. And every entrepreneur has faced this issue, many many times. Finding the right partner, the right funder, the right synergy. If it seems that no one you meet is serious or focused on results, you’re not alone. But you cannot let that stop you. The inertia of the rest of the world needn’t apply to you.

What is the answer?

PRINCIPLE 1: Act. Act now. Don’t wait for others to do what you should be doing. No one will ever do it for you. Face the fact that if you are waiting on others - you are actually waiting on yourself.

When someone doesn’t reach out to that investor they said they would contact, after weeks of follow up - recognize that you are the one who allowed yourself to wait. You could have reached out to them directly. You allowed the question to not be asked. When you don’t ask - the answer is always “no.”

So, choose who you wait on wisely. Relying on an outside contact is always choosing to wait for that party to get around to a task on a project that isn’t theirs in the first place. Ask yourself, is relying on this person reasonable in the circumstances?

PRINCIPLE 2: Control your own project. Relying on outside parties may be reasonable - if they have invested in you already. If not - you may be abdicating your responsibility to yourself and your creative partners. If someone has not put anything into your project, they have no incentive to help it become successful. Our hard and fast rule at Diamond Shadow Productions is that the only people we consider relying on, and the only people who’s opinions we care about, are those with skin in the game. An actual investor who paid something out. Talent who actually attached to the project. Someone who has actually put time into something on the project. Those people have a vested interest in the project moving forward. No one else does, so no one else’s opinion should have much weight.

This is not a bright and sunny article to warm everyone’s heart. But someone reading has to hear it. If it is you, know this is your industry, or it could be. Take control of your project, keep control, take all the steps you need to take. Cut out and cut off those who insist, even with apparent good intent, on wasting your time. Associate with others who actually do the work and who assert their control over their projects.

This industry belongs to you, if you take it.