Since the late 2010s, streaming services have slowly eaten away at classic cable television. Services such as Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ are the most popular and most-watched services on television today. Having the luxury of watching whatever show or movie at any point of the day, all in one place, is objectively more convenient than waiting for it to appear on cable. Of course, while the price of these services has always been up for debate, their impact on independent filmmakers is only now being widely discussed.
With how many streaming services are tied to what brands and names have and how they present them (such as Netflix being heavily tied to DreamWorks). It’s not hard to imagine that many independent filmmakers either struggle to get their hard work onto the platform, to have the platform market their work, or, at the very least, to ensure easy access. As mentioned before, Netflix does have more profitable partnerships with larger movie-making companies, like DreamWorks. However, recently they have begun locking further content behind a paywall, which only adds to the subscription that your average everyday person would pay for Netflix.
If independent projects are not profitable on their own, at least in the view of streaming service managers, then what’s stopping them from implementing a paywall to access independent media? It doesn’t stop there at Netflix, however. YouTube, for what’s supposed to be a creative outlet for small creators (and ‘small’ doesn’t mean a large, often problematic animation YouTube channel like Vivziepop or MeatCanyon, which have their animations on streaming services), has become infamously more and more difficult for creators to make a real profit from their works.
Despite the systematic disadvantage most independent filmmakers have against larger streaming platforms, the future of independent filmmaking isn’t all doom and gloom. While Netflix has added further paywalls to its content in recent years, Disney+ has made multiple attempts to increase its library of content by introducing new services, such as National Geographic and ESPN.
With Disney+ consistently adding new content, independent, quality content on their platform can be seen with “Summer of Soul,” “Fire of Love,” “Walking Life,” and “The Prestige.” Outside Disney+, independent filmmakers are able to find refuge on smaller streaming sites such as Tubi, Mubi, Kanopy and IndieFlix in order to upload their content to be easily accessible and viewed adequately by anyone willing to watch. The trade-off for creators reaching these platforms is that their general viewership is much lower compared to more widely successful platforms like Disney+. While the world of streaming services isn’t always kind to small creators, not all hope is lost, and there are outlets for creators to truly express their creative freedom.
