In 2011, Vincent Grashaw scored. With his friends in the Coatwolf filmmaking collective, he produced the ultra-low-budget “Bellflower.” It was a breakout hit in Sundance’s NEXT section and Oscilloscope Laboratories snapped up the gritty, handmade portrait of toxic love and self-destruction less than a week after its premiere.
“That was when [Oscilloscope co-founder] Adam Yauch was still alive and [A24 co-founder] David Fenkel was still there,” Grashaw said. “The year we were at Sundance, I want to say 30 films sold. It was crazy.”
Being a festival breakout kicked off his career, providing access to a network of agents, managers, and general meetings.
It didn’t do a damn thing to get a movie made.
He laughed. “I don’t think I ever had somebody say yes to a pitch. I feel like in a weird way, I’m outside of the business compared to what I was back then.”
However, at a time when so many filmmakers struggle, he’s directed four features in the last 14 years; two more are in post.
Between movies and other filmmaking side gigs, he hasn’t had a straight job since 2010. “You hit rough times and good times,” he texted me. “Gone from being in debt to having a lot in the bank account. But I’ve been able to travel and see a lot of the world because of this job so I’m grateful.”
The secret to his success? Instead of begging for development deals, he decided to chase something more practical: money.
“I found it way easier to find people with money than it is to get a company to say ‘Yes,’” Grashaw said. “You’d be surprised how many rich people are out there.”
He didn’t have an agent. A chance connection through a girlfriend funded his feature directorial debut, “Coldwater.” (That journey involved a music mogul, the Elvis Suite with a bullet hole in the wall, and driving back from Vegas with $300K from the thousand-dollar slots.)
More prosaically, he got “What Josiah Saw” off the ground after six years thanks to Randomix Productions, whose principal Ran Namerode also chairs Redworth Capital Group.
Private investors’ motivations haven’t changed: They want to break into Hollywood, see a family member on screen, or park money for tax reasons. So far, Grashaw’s films have budgets between $750,000 and $1.2 million.
At this point, you future filmmakers might roll your eyes. Oh, you can make movies with a rich guy? Hey, me too! But Grashaw’s success goes beyond an open checkbook.
“So many investors get burned and people steal their money,” he said. “The producers take huge fees and I don’t mess with that. When you deal with other people’s millions, there’s a responsibility.”
Grashaw’s probably too practical to be an auteur. He responds to “grounded human stories,” but they could be his script or someone else’s and genre’s unimportant. And he doesn’t make films without thinking about the audience: Who’s going to pay to see it?
Or, as Grashaw put it, “You can’t be a selfish artist who’s just not open to shit.”
That’s a tradeoff some filmmakers can’t stomach. Grashaw gets it; he couldn’t stand endless pitch meetings and their slow-rolled “no.” He’s not the type to hustle at cocktail parties.
“The only time I really feel ‘in the business’ is when you’re making offers to actors, because you’re dealing with their reps, and then during any festival or distribution part of the experience,” he said. “Other than that, you’re just creating a family, making a movie somewhere in Kentucky or Oklahoma. I don’t necessarily feel like I’m involved in that side of the world.”
Grashaw didn’t go to film school. An early version of “Coldwater” landed in the top 30 scripts for HBO’s first season of “Project Greenlight” when he was 18, sparking industry interest.
“In my twenties I learned more about contract law and getting fucked over and weasels and who to trust,” he said. “That was my school.”
It also taught him that “if you find people who want to make your shit, you’re all of a sudden doing it. I felt like there was a way you could cut through.”
Working outside the Hollywood funnel doesn’t mean total freedom. If a backer wanted a role for their partner, he’d figure it out. If they wanted their kid to learn the ropes on set, fine. Dana Namerode had a small part in “What Josiah Saw” and is the female lead in his upcoming “Keep Quiet,” starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Nick Stahl.
“Casting her in the movie was a condition, and sometimes that can blow up in your face, but in this case she was exceptional,” Grashaw said. “It made it a lot easier to go, ‘Holy shit, okay, let me find projects that fit the mold for the actor. They want to make good movies.’”
That balancing act between artistic ambition and commercial viability allowed him final cut. More importantly, it kept him working.
“What Josiah Saw” drew solid reviews and distribution through Shudder in 2021, finally giving Grashaw a reason to sign with representation.
“There’s no reason to have an agent or manager without some heat on you to then parlay that into something,” he said. “You’re just on a roster and if you don’t have anything, they’re not going to do anything for you. And I don’t blame ’em. There’s plenty of people they’ve got to focus on. I do want to level up. I want to direct TV and I want to do some bigger studio-type films.”
His reps recently brokered a deal for him to direct his biggest-budget project yet, a $10 million action film for Millennium Media. (That connection came via Tim Blake Nelson, star of Grashaw’s 2024 drama “Bang Bang.”)
He’s also developing a TV series, “Loss Prevention,” inspired by his pre-“Bellflower” years working undercover to arrest shoplifters at JC Penney and Saks Fifth Avenue. (A buddy made the 2001 Winona Ryder bust.) “The only job-job I ever had. We were as dysfunctional as the people we were arresting,” he said.
He’s never felt confident pitching TV; with a network, you’re so squarely inside the funnel. “I think independently produced TV is the next thing that could come,” he said. “That makes a lot of sense. Inexpensive TV shows that you can make eight episodes, and whether it’s a Tubi or finding an AVOD. I think that’s somehow going to happen.”
If there’s a way to stay on the outside, he’ll take it.
“It’s definitely the one I’m going to do independently,” he said. “It’s not too expensive either, I don’t think.”
✉️ Have an idea, compliment, or complaint?
dana@indiewire.com; (323) 435-7690.
Weekly recommendations for your career mindset, curated by IndieWire Senior Editor Christian Zilko.
A deep dive into a seldom-discussed filmmaking task that only gets more important by the day: selling product placement. In “F1,” advertising served as both a key revenue stream and a vital element of production design, largely due to the work of one man.
Making a film is an all-consuming process for anyone, and doubly so for independent filmmakers who wear multiple hats to stretch their resources. In his Little Scraps of Filmmaking Substack, Tomas Leach offers his thoughts on the artistic value of remaining human while making your film and resisting the temptation to sacrifice everything for your work.
For his Next in Media Substack, Mike Shields explains how changes in television ad sales could make legacy media even look more like the internet. As networks relax their once-sacred sales processes and allow tech giants to play a larger role, smaller brands that primarily work with online creators could become bigger players in the industry.
This newsletter frequently discusses the new pipelines Hollywood has to mine for intellectual property, from video games to YouTube series. Another major category: podcasts. For his Brands to Fans Substack, Harrison outlines the methods the new monetization strategies that the world’s largest podcasts are utilizing, including expansion into film and television.
The entertainment industry is changing at a breakneck pace, but advice for newcomers is slow to evolve. The old adage that making YouTube shows is a great way to break in has given way to the new reality that financing successful online content often requires a budget that rivals independent films. For his Open Gardens Substack, Odell offers a detailed breakdown of the financial realities of succeeding in online spaces.