ABSTRACT
Let me write the following from a purely small business point of view — from the perspective of an independent film producer working out of New York who makes 'specialized' films intended for upscale art house theatrical release. And let us assume for the purposes of this chapter that my motivations in pursuing a producing career are purely economic, and that I and my partners are rational economic agents attempting to extract maximum value from the efforts of ourselves, our collaborators and our employees. From this perspective, and with those assumptions, let me add one more assumption — that you, my reader, would not mind turning your academic and critical interest in cinema into something of a money-making sideline, and that I am here to help steer you and your investment pounds, dollars or ecus in the right direction, in the direction of one of those fabulously successful independent films we have all read about these past few years. We have heard that a film's mode of production bears some relation to its mode of representation. Perhaps the many modes of financing independent films bear some relation to their meaning. So let us scan the money trail that leads towards and away from these films, with an ear for discerning what we might call independent cinema's own particular 'poetics of late capitalism'.
