The Hollywood studio system brings to mind big production budgets, blockbuster mainstream hits and star-studded premieres. But the six major companies that produce the vast majority of Hollywood’s films – Fox, Paramount, Sony, NBC Universal, Time Warner and Disney – are now scrambling to compete in a rapidly changing movie business.
Last summer, studios laid off hundreds of employees, canceled films with big-name stars (and their big paychecks), and consumers continued to drift from theaters to iPods, DVDs and other on-demand programming. What does this mean for lesbian films? As Hollywood tries to accommodate this shift in consumer behavior, it is creating more niche productions, which could mean, ultimately, more queer-themed movies. And as filmmaking technology becomes more affordable and distribution methods move beyond traditional theaters, there are more opportunities than ever before to make lesbian films and get them seen by lesbian viewers.
Find Your Niche
The increasing popularity of documentaries and independent films has helped pave the way for more indie titles to be made. Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 set the stage as the first documentary to gross $21.8 million in its first three days, topping all the other Hollywood flicks that weekend.
That same year, Sony Pictures Classics – a subsidiary of Sony that distributes niche-oriented titles – released Saving Face, out writer-director Alice Wu’s first feature-length film. Saving Face tells the story of 28-year-old Chinese-American Wil Pang (Michelle Krusiec), a young doctor who falls for Vivian (Lynn Chen). The film, which was produced by Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment, was shot on a tight budget in 27 days, and was released theatrically about six months after it opened at the Toronto Film Festival. It ultimately grossed a little over $1 million theatrically – not a blockbuster by any means, but a supreme success for a bilingual film (Saving Face is in both English and Mandarin Chinese) about a lesbian romance from an unknown director.
For every lesbian film that finds its own niche success at the box office, there is one that did not. In 2005, Fox Searchlight, a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox, released the lesbian-themed romantic comedy Imagine Me & You. Written and directed by Ol Parker and starring Piper Perabo and Lena Headey, the film grossed $672,000 in the United States with an additional $1.7 million overseas, totaling approximately $2.4 million overall.
Originally intended to be a heterosexual tale, the film was still positioned as a mainstream film even after the story took a lesbian turn – on the day of her wedding to a man, Piper Perabo’s character falls in love with Lena Headey’s character. “I really wanted to write the script in such a way that, although there’s a same-sex love story involved, an audience of my parents and their friends would enjoy it,” stated director and writer Ol Parker in the film’s production notes.Angela Robinson’s 2004 film, D.E.B.S., which had a $3.5 million production budget, only grossed approximately $96,800 theatrically. In a panel discussion titled “Celluloid Sisters: Why Queer Women Need to Make More Movies” at the Queer Media and Entertainment Conference (Q-Me Con) in Los Angeles on April 15, Lisa Thrasher, POWER UP’s President of Film Production and Distribution, noted that D.E.B.S. was never marketed to a gay audience – despite the fact that a lesbian romance is at the heart of the film.
“They had a big advertising budget; the problem is they put it all on internet advertising on teen websites,” said Thrasher at the panel. “They were thinking it was going to be a teen film like Mean Girls or something like that; they did not market at all to the gay audience.” [Editor’s note: Screen Gems did heavily market the theatrical release of D.E.B.S. on AfterEllen.com.]
D.E.B.S., which was originally produced as a short film through POWER UP, was picked up by Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Sony Pictures entertainment, to be made into a feature film and was released by Samuel Goldwyn Films, a major distributor. The film, however, opened on March 25, 2005 — that was Dinah Shore Weekend — opposite the Bernie Mac comedy Guess Who and Sandra Bullock’s Miss Congeniality 2.
Thrasher believes that the film’s distributor didn’t understand how to properly position the film. “They just didn’t get it,” she said. “They really, I think, were afraid to have anybody know it was a gay film. They were really dancing around the issue; they were really trying to push it for a teen audience.”
Ultimately, Thrasher, along with POWER UP’s founder Stacy Codikow and director Angela Robinson, went out to the gay community in Los Angeles and attempted to raise awareness of the film on their own. But though D.E.B.S. has since become a cult hit, it never succeeded in theaters. “This is a perfect example of how you can spend a lot of money making a great film that could be a huge audience-pleaser,” Thrasher said, “and if you don’t know how to market it properly and you’re stupid about things, you can really tank a film.”
Go Independent
Some queer filmmakers have opted to skip the studio system — niche or otherwise — altogether and produce and market their films entirely independently. An example of someone who chose this path is director Katherine Brooks, whose 2006 film Loving Annabelle screened on the festival circuit before being released on DVD by Wolfe Video last December. “They are passionate about getting the film out there,” Brooks said of Wolfe’s efforts behind the film.
Loving Annabelle is about a boarding-school girl, Annabelle (played by Erin Kelly), who falls in love with her female teacher, Simone (Diane Gaidry). Though the subject matter could have set off a firestorm of controversy, the vast majority of responses to the film have been positive, and the controversial love story has been embraced by lesbian and bisexual viewers.
“Ninety-five percent of the feedback has been very positive and very supportive,” Brooks said to AfterEllen.com. “I do not see the film as being controversial, but I am also able to step outside myself and form a different perspective. We have a 40-year-old woman; a 17-year-old girl; a teacher and a student; a Catholic school. Two women on top of that. I can see how it can be viewed as controversial, but most people root for them to be together because their love defies all boundaries and reason.”
Out lesbian filmmaker J.D. Disalvatore (Eating Out 2, Shelter) credits much of Loving Annabelle‘s success to Brooks’ efforts in spreading the word about her film. “Katherine Brooks was doing so much of her own marketing on MySpace; she’s going out there,” Disalvatore said at Q-Me Con, pointing out that not all lesbians know who Wolfe Video is or read the same queer publications or websites. “How do we reach these people? The internet and radio. And Katherine Brooks has really gone out there and done that.”
According to Disalvatore, DVD releases of lesbian films such as Loving Annabelle, Girl Play or The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love typically bring in three times the amount of a theatrical release. “Theatrical is the ad for DVD right now,” Disalvatore said. “The DVD release is generally three times the box office release.”
Direct-to-video is one option for lesbian films to reach their intended market. Samantha Sprecher, head of feature film development with Billy Crystal’s Face Productions, explained at Q-Me Con, “All of the studios have started direct-to-video lines where they want to make movies for a certain price, usually like under $5 million. … Those films … will just go straight to DVD.”
Unfortunately, the studios are not necessarily interested in queer content. “What I see happening in those big studios,” Sprecher said, “[is that] they won’t touch queer content, whether it’s lesbian or gay. It seems like … that’s the territory of here! and Wolfe and TLA.”
Use New Technologies
The growth of companies such as Wolfe, TLA and here!, which focus on LGBT-themed productions, is one part of a changing landscape of distribution options in Hollywood — a change has been driven by new technology. As director Angela Robinson explained in her column “Fringe Theory: Why We Don’t Need the Man,” movies are now much more affordable to make. “Everybody’s got a DV camera lying around, get yourself Final Cut Pro and Pro Tools, and make a movie on your desktop,” she wrote.
The internet is also beginning to offer more alternatives for distributing films. Though it is still difficult to stream a feature-length film online, it is relatively affordable to create shorter segments. “I think that’s really a great way to start,” Sprecher suggested, “to think about taking some of your material and breaking your scenes down into 90-second or 2-minute chunks, shooting it yourself, editing it on your computer and putting it up on the web.”
Another major force in changing the way that consumers watch movies is Netflix, which launched in 1998 to offer DVD rentals by mail. For the first time, Netflix gave consumers all over the country access to obscure titles that previously had little or no distribution. The company carries 75,000 titles, roughly 700 of which are LGBT-themed, shipping 1.6 million DVDs daily from 42 different distribution centers across the United States. “We have titles that have not seen the light of day,” said Steve Swasey, Director of Corporate Communications at Netflix.
“Netflix is the great equalizer,” he added. “You can select rather than settle on what’s available.” Independent lesbian filmmakers who could not get major distribution deals can now solicit deals with Netflix directly. Netflix even has a form on their site where filmmakers can submit their films by clicking on a link that reads, “I am self-distributing my film and would like to make my film available for rent on DVD at Netflix.”
Just Do It
So now that lesbian and bisexual filmmakers have the technological capability to make films themselves as well as more options for getting those films in front of viewers, what’s next? “Now is the time to jump on making lesbian film,” said Disalvatore, but there are some things to keep in mind before rushing off to invest in the latest DV camera.
“For a women’s film to do well money-wise, there needs to be an additional issue at stake in the script,” advised Thrasher. “It can’t just be a lesbian love story.” Films such as Go Fish and the upcoming Itty Bitty Titty Committee offer political issues in addition to a queer tale.
All the women on the Q-Me Con panel emphasized the importance of storytelling. “We need to write good scripts,” Thrasher said. “If you’re not a writer, hire a writer.”
And what makes a good script? Disalvatore quipped: “I need my plot points; I need my conflict; I need a little comedy and a little skin.”
Though all of the women on the panel acknowledged that many first films are less than polished, Sprecher also noted that “the only way you get better as a filmmaker or a screenwriter is by doing it.” Even though there is a minefield of business details to get through — from acquiring the talent that will help raise funding for the film, to foreign rights, to distribution and marketing — “you just have to do it,” said Sprecher.
Out screenwriter and actor Guinevere Turner, who launched her film career in 1994 with Go Fish, cautioned the panel to keep in mind what is truly important. “Let us not forget about art,” she said at Q-Me Con. “We need to make the movies that come from our hearts, that come from passion.”
Katherine Brooks said, “With DV and the internet, everything has changed, but the core and heart of filmmaking remains the same.”
Malinda Lo contributed to this article.
