The Creative Class Endures (always has and always will)
For as long as I’ve been making films (2010), I’ve heard the same refrain: the industry is collapsing, nobody’s buying movies, the market is impossible, independent film is dead.
I don’t buy it and I'm tired of hearing the same things.
Independent film is thriving. The problem isn’t the artists. The problem is a set of outdated, arcane systems that have devalued creative voices while conditioning audiences to consume “content” instead of connect with art.
The future of film won’t come from endlessly explaining what no longer works. It will come from paying attention to what does.
And what continues to endure is the creative class. The people who keep creating despite every cycle of panic and every institutional “no.”
The creative class has already survived the collapse of the studio era, the VHS revolution, the rise and fall of DVD, piracy, the collapse of mid-budget cinema, the 2008 financial crash, the streaming gold rush, algorithmic curation, the fragmentation of audiences, social media, the pandemic, Wall Street consolidation, vertical video, the endless content boom, and now AI anxiety.
Somehow the thing that remains is the creative class finding a way forward anyway. Because without the creative class, there is no industry. No platforms. No streamers. No conventions. No trades. No ecosystem. None of this exists without people willing to make something from nothing.
And right now, the creative class wants something very simple: a better living from the work that built this entire business in the first place. I’m just one filmmaker rowing upstream but I’m going to try to do something about this.
Yours, humbly (and tiredly), all the way from Nashville,
Rod Blackhurst