During the Great Depression, New York became the center of the art world. You know why? Because artists there realized they had no hope of making any money so they just did what they wanted. Unshackled by financial concern, their work blossomed.
Then there was the financial crisis. A vast number of people in the finance industry found themselves out of work and there was suddenly a glut of DJ's in New York. These unemployed banksters and stockbrokers were suddenly free to pursue their dream, and, not being the most creative people in the world, their dream was to play records.
Today, the economy stinks. How many decades has this dragged on? The only fields with any sign of job growth are bartending and waiting on tables.
So, go ahead! Movie-making costs nothing now. You're not going to learn anything in film school you can't learn listening to DVD commentaries and watching YouTube tutorials, so don't throw away money on that.
But we may be getting the worst of both worlds. Now you have people making a lot of horror movies either because they want to hedge their bets or they don't know any better.
The trouble with making a movie for a mass audience is that their tastes are, by definition, middle-of-the-road. The less it looks like a Hollywood movie, the more they'll complain, and they all think they're cineastes. I've seen zero budget movies I thought were brilliant, but then I read the outraged comments on Netflix or imdb.com. Angry customers stomped into video stores demanding their money back because The Blair Witch Project was part black & white and part videotape.
It's easier to publicize a niche audience.
A big fish is what you want to be. A great big fish.
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