Mainstream and Independent Films

Mainstream and Independent Films

What are mainstream and independent films?

Mainstream movies are movies that have a big budget and are made for profit. They usually are made by large production companies and in big studios. After the cinematic run-time of the movie, it is released on tape or DVD for popular stores. Hollywood movies tend to be the most known mainstream movie industry.

Independent films are films that are not produced in big movie studios and instead are made from a small team where the genre is recognised by the style and artistic way the director portrays the film. It is very unlikely that indie films are released to stores. They are also unlikely to be shown in many theatres.

Messages of the movie

The difference also narrows down to the difference between movies and films where a movie gives the audience what they want through the plot and are seen as escapist movies so that the movie leaves the audience happy or satisfied with the movie but usually are unchanged by the moral of the movie. A film tries to explore deep into a topic by emphasising the topic and tend to change and inspire the audience to take a different look on the topic compared to before they watched the film. The audience are likely to be fazed by how the message is conveyed and remember the film for that message.

Production and marketing

Indie films raise money from collaborating with different companies and are usually funded by many art agencies such as the British Film Council. Since the introduction of the internet, it is deemed that making these Indie films are slightly easier than before since filmmakers can seek donations or use viral marketing strategies via social media. 

Mainstream movies tend to easily release movies as they do not normally need heavy promotion or marketing, especially if it is a film in a franchise since fans are likely to watch it if they enjoyed the previous movies in the film series. Mainstream films also tend to have high production values and a big budget and so because of this they can include special effects such as CGI. Famous celebrity actors also tend to appear in these films and singers also contribute by recording songs for the soundtrack which helps further market the film. The marketing in general will be much bigger than an indie film. Mainstream movie examples include: Avatar, The Terminator, Titanic, Jurassic Park and the 'Avengers' film series.