As the gap widens between the hundreds of features that play the festival circuit every year and the ever smaller handful of films bought and sold by the studio-dependent indie arms, certain overlaps become readily apparent between the inevitable day-todays of the young indie filmmakers who might have been inspired by a book like John Pierson’s Spike Mike Slackers and Dykes, and the indie rock kids who might have been inspired by a book like Michael Azzerad’s This Band Could Be Your Life. For one thing, both the record business and the film business (particularly as it concerns small films, mid-size non-genre films, and virtually anything without franchise potential) have, in the past few years, entered into periods of reckoning which has made it ever more important for emerging artists to take charge of their own marches towards destiny. Last night AFI Dallas assembled a varied panel to answer the question, WHAT LESSONS CAN INDIE FILMMAKERS LEARN FROM INDIE BANDS? To hear the panelists tell it, those lessons break down into two categories: taking advantage of the inroads made by bands to sell themelves (in ways easily monetized and otherwise) online; and taking the old school model of the DIY band on the run and using it to take advantage of brick-and-mortar institutions in financial crisis.

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