The buzz has it that Nashville’s independent film industry is currently on the cusp of greatness. This is probably true. After all, it’s been on the cusp of greatness many times before, just barely missing the Big Kahuna. Great white hopes like Armanda Costanza’s Blood, Friends, and Money and David Heavener’s Hollywood Film Studios compound have quietly melted into the background. And when was the last time you heard anybody mention Lunker Lake? Like Lamar Alexander in his perpetual run for the White House, local indie filmmakers have developed a reputation for being always almost successful.

Optimism may be in order, however. Some homegrown low-budget movie may soon actually make the quantum leap—get purchased by a distributor for a substantial sum of money and be released to theaters across the country. Lots of people have their fingers crossed.

According to 1997 figures supplied by the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission, the state’s media production industry has grown into a healthy force, generating $190.5 million in annual revenues through feature films, television productions, and commercial endeavors. Locally, the largest chunk of revenues— almost half of Nashville’s $30 million contribution—is derived from music-video projects.

In addition to growth in numbers, the music-video marketplace has now matured artistically, and many of CMT’s top producers and directors are firing up to try feature-length movies. Some have already embarked on the indie pilgrimage: Studio Productions’ Coke Sams and Clarke Gallivan with Existo; the AV Squad’s John Lloyd Miller with I Still Miss Someone; The Collective’s Thom Oliphant and Steven Goldmann with Dear Darwin and The Rassler, respectively; Deaton Flanigen’s Robert Deaton and George Flanigen with White Trash in a Trailer Park; and Pecos Films’ David Abbott with a work in progress. All of these professionals have formed solid relationships with Hollywood types, who trust them to bring the short form to celluloid. They’re now campaigning for some feature-length trust—and financing—as well.

Ironically, the prevalence of music-video work has been both a blessing and a curse for the more ambitious of these budding filmmakers. ”Obviously, people get pigeonholed away,“ says Michael Catalano, executive director of the Nashville Independent Film Festival. ”You’ve got to make a living and so you do what’s in front of you, and what’s in front of you here is music videos. But if you peel back any music-video producer or director, there’s a film in his heart.“

Observes The Collective’s Steve Goldmann, ”I don’t think [the Nashville indie market] is really an industry yet. It’s in the embryonic stage and it’s trying to break out of the placenta. The incubation period is going to take a while, and we won’t progress past it until this town realizes that some of the most important players in the independent film community are the music-video producers getting national attention. I stand a better chance of creating an atmosphere that is conducive to investors than some young director.“

If the music-video monopoly is a drawback to indie aspirants, the infrastructure it spawned is certainly an asset. Local freelance film crews—producers, directors, grips, gaffers, photographers, cinematographers, etc.—are now 600 people strong, and many are considered among the best in the business.

The city also boasts an acting pool that’s talented and well-trained, although not deep in terms of age and racial diversity. According to local Screen Actors Guild president Stevan Pippin, 750 performers belong to SAG, but, because they have access to so few productions, only a fraction of them are making a living as full-time actors. Experienced writers are in short supply, as are experienced investors. Nashville has outstanding production and post-production facilities, but no soundstage or film-transfer shop.

Another critical element Nashville lacks, says attorney Don Zachary, who chairs the advisory board of the Mayor’s Film Office, is a direct entree into the day-to-day thought processes of Hollywood businesses.

”Movies and television go through cycles,“ Zachary says. ”By the time you’re seeing them in your theater, they’re already two years old.“ So even if local filmmakers make a quality movie here, if its themes don’t meet Hollywood trends, national distributors will ignore it.

With 1,000 indie flicks being made in America each year, Nashville filmmakers are smack in the belly of the beast. According to New York Times reporter Graham Fuller, the outlets for distribution—cable and network television, foreign markets, online screenings and the film festival circuit—are swelling to record numbers. But, he adds, documentaries aside, the products now springing forth from indie writers and directors are astoundingly mediocre.

”It’s virtually impossible to find a distributor or producer who is enthusiastic about the fictional movies that were shown at Sundance ’99,“ Fuller writes. ”First-time directors in this country now seem driven less by the need to make an artistic statement than by a desire to expedite their Hollywood careers.“

Director John Lloyd Miller, who arrived in Nashville as an experienced Hollywood script doctor and screenwriter, claims that a film’s Achilles’ heel can usually be found on the page. ”If you don’t know how to write, and you don’t understand dramatic structure, then you’re in trouble,“ he says. ”I tell people that if they haven’t read Aristotle they aren’t prepared to make a movie. Dramatic structure is dramatic structure, and Aristotle got it right the first time—drama is conflict.“

Which puts Nashville’s huge coterie of tunesmiths in a novel position. Songwriters are calling the office of the state film commission for advice on making the jump to screenwriting and writing scores for films. ”As the lines get blurrier and blurrier between the music and the film industry, a bridge between the two is only going to help this state,“ comments Ann Pope, executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission.

Certainly, with Nashville’s creative populace and the businesses in place to support it, the city is primed to strong-arm its way into becoming a center for film, as well as music. But the filmmaking business is arduous and fickle, and the only legitimate reason to pursue it is for the thrill and passion of the birthing process. Says Miller, ”When you have no money and a tremendous amount of restrictions, you either make total crap or you make fabulous movies.“

The truth is, in the past, Nashville filmmakers have generated a lot of crap. But now, given that so many reputable artisans of the short-form are risking their careers for a shot at the silver screen, it seems likely that at least one of them will score that long-awaited indigenous hit. Then finally, like a glacier in July, the local film industry will start sliding forward with a little more speed..