Author, director, cinematographer and editor Steven Soderberg Has many talents, but he attributes to the life of his career to a skill above all.
“I am someone trying to be adaptable,” Soderbergh said when he was a guest at Indieview tifolkit podcast earlier this year. “I feel like the industry’s cockroach, as if there is no version of this that I can’t work in, no matter how nuclear power it gets.”
During his 36 years of making films and television, Soderbergh has seen the business go through its part of rises, downturns, varying trends and technical revolutions. All the time Soderbergh remained productive, whether it meant restarting the once dead “Ocean’s 11” franchisphotograph movies on an iPhoneor trying the hand on Self -distribution. No matter how much how movies are watched or made, he has changed, he continued to make original and unexpected movies.
That is why considering How challenging things are for indie -fillers 2025We asked what his advice would be for the first time filmmakers who break into the industry.
“Right now, when it comes to what attracts people and what generates talk, if I started and I had any interest and procurement at all, I would look at the horror thriller genre to make my move,” Soderbergh said.
Soderberghs 1989 ”Sex, lies and videotapes“One of the most successful indie -debuts ever, is often credited as film It helped to start the 1990s American Indie Wave. The small movie was not only praised by critics and received festival awards, but it also found unexpected commercial success by knocking on American audience hunger after the adult-oriented films in the 1970s.
“‘Sex, lies’ was just my ripoff by (Mike Nichols’ 1971 movie)’ Carnal Knowledge ‘, Soderbergh said.” It was designed to be small because it would be cheap. If you start now, your best option is to work in a genre space if you want to get something funded. And some of the most interesting filmmaking hands specifically in the horror genre recently. ”
Since “Che: Part I & II” was released in 2008, Soderbergh said, he thinks of himself as an exclusively a genre filmmaker. He ran down the dozens of projects he has done over the past 17 years: “Infection“Is Horror,” Behind the Kandelabra “a Biopic,” The Knick “a Doctor Show, and so on. Soderbergh sees genre as a path to your work as seen; the structure it delivers is also liberating.
“I have said and think that the evidence is around us, (genre) is just such a good delivery system for all the ideas you are interested in,” Soderbergh said. “Everyone wins. For an audience who likes that genre, if you have respected the pillars in that genre, it works at this type of superficial level, they can read it there. And then there is all this other you can pack under it to prevent it from being disposable plastic.”
Soderbergh also sees signs that despite the death about the condition of the films, there is reason to believe that a new generation of indie-creator will also have a new generation of arthouse audiences to embrace their work.
“However, the good news is, from what I gather and talk to people at Neon, Focus and A24, are young people in the cinema, and the figures show this,” Soderbergh said.
“Black bag“The director said he believed that the use of outdated measurement values is one reason why traditional movement feels like it evaporates. He pointed to the success of Metrogent – The New York City Independent Theater who found a younger urban audience with adventurous programming and has moved to distribution – as an example of what is possible.
“Metrograph is a group that I have stayed very, very close contact with because it is a scalable model-a university city with 25,000 to 30,0000 people can support a metrogography,” Soderbergh said. “We have to change the metric for what a success is and stop using the studio model because in the end, metrogography is very successful. So the question now is: Can we make 20 of them? Because it is a real business.”
To hear Soderbergh’s full interview, subscribe to Filmmaker tolkit podcast on AppleThe SpotifyOr your favorite podcast platform.
