Guide to Indie Films and the Indie Channel

I've noticed the Indie channel has been pretty much unused, so we're going to make an effort to start using it properly from now on. I will be helping along the way reporting those stories I see that are mislabeled just to point y'all in the right direction. This will, however, mean at times contributors will need do a little "research" in order to deem whether a movie is an indie movie so that you can properly categorize it.

Granted there are movies that are obvious one way or the other, for instance we all know the new Spider-Man isn't indie and you know the movie that nobody has heard of with actors nobody has heard of that's only coming out in like 500 theaters is definitely an indie film. However, for the gray areas I know sometimes it can be hard to determine what's indie and what's not. For the sake of simplicity we're going with a generic definition. Basically indie films are just any movies that aren't produced/funded by one of the major studios. However, major studios do have subsidiaries which we will be lumping in with the "major studios".
Your major studios are as follows:
20th Century Fox
Sony Pictures
Universal Studios
Walt Disney
Paramount Pictures
Warner Bros.

These are you major six. Then they have subsidiaries which include the likes of:
Columbia
Touchstone
Screen Gems
Searchlight
Nickelodeon
MTV
Castle Rock
TriStar
Pixar
Marvel
New Regency
Focus Features
Illumination
Miramax

Then you have "Mini-Majors":
MGM
Summit
Lions Gate
The Weinstein Company
Dimension Films (which is actually part of Weinstein)
CBS Films
Dreamworks
Spyglass
Legendary Pictures

Now on to your independent film studios, while there are thousands of them out there, here are some of the most notable ones:
Overture
IFC
Magnolia
First Look
Palm Pictures
Image Entertainment
ThinkFilm
Samuel Goldwyn
Relativity Media
Rogue
Newmarket
Working Title
Imagine
Anchor Bay
among many others...pretty much everything not listed as a major/subsidiary/mini-major above.

The thing to note here also is that "indie" is determined by who produced and filmed the movie. I point this out because many movies are created by indie companies but are later picked up and distributed by one of the majors or their subsidiaries. However these movies still remain to be considered indie films as they were shot and produced solely by the independent studio. So while it may be distributed by a major studio, it can still be an indie movie, especially when it comes to the mini-majors or the subsidiaries (who were mostly created for this sole purpose of distributing indie films).

Let's take Screen Gems for example:
They recently released/distributed Resident Evil: Afterlife. Now this movie was created by Constantin and Impact. However, most of the funding for the film came from Sony/Screen Gems (Sony is the parent company of Screen Gems). Thus, this movie was produced by a major (Sony/Screen Gems) therefore it's not an indie film (which I think is obvious to all).

Now if we look at another Screen Gems movie, Dear John. That movie was actually created and produced by Relativity Media, just it was distributed by Sony through Screen Gems. Since the funding and production of this movie was from Relativity and they only brokered a deal with Screen Gems to distribute it, this remains an indie film.

Then, especially with these subsidiary and mini-major studios, you'll have movies that seem to fall in the crack. Sticking with Screen Gems we'll use the upcoming Easy A. This is a movie made by Screen Gems. And since Screen Gems headed this project and it was actually shot at Screen Gems' studios, this movie, while not a major release like RE or anything, is not an indie movie.

To give another example, let's look at one of the mini-majors: Lions Gate. SAW 3D, this movie is actually being co-produced (funded) by Lions Gate itself (along with Twisted Pictures), but since it's co-produced by a mini-major it is not an indie movie. They're recent release, The Winning Season, though was entirely produced by Plum Pictures. Lions Gate merely bought the distributing rights at Sundance. Thus The Winning Season remains an indie film. Then you look at Daybreakers, this was produced by Lionsgate itself (shot at Warner Bros studio). Thus being a Lions Gate film it isn't an indie film despite not being a major release either. It falls more into the "B-Movie" type slot same as Screen Gems' Easy A.

I think for the most part this should cover the issue for the time being. Granted there will be gray areas which we can work out as we come to. But for the time being just remember if it isn't produced by a major/mini-major studio (or one of their subsidiaries) then it is an indie film. We're keeping with this simple definition for now. And the important thing to watch out for is that the indie movies will be defined by who produces them, not by who distributes them as many times indie movies will be picked up for distribution by major/mini-major studios (or especially their subsidiaries for which those subsidiaries were created).