Join a Revolution & go broke?

I just came across an article in the NY Times entitled "Join the revolution. Make movies. Go Broke". It's written by Charles Lyons, and it uses two examples on how some young filmmakers are making their film, yet not breaking through. I've always said that for every success story there are a hundred unsuccessful stories about making films. It is interesting what these filmmakers are doing to attract an audience. Several have gone through the festival route, but both have yet to pick up distribution. This only confirms my belief in the narrowing of the markets for select films. Horror movies, romance films, sci-fi films, and even fantasy films all have a special niche audience, and though their are markets to sell your product to those who are interested the competition for that audience is fierce. Make no mistake you have a BETTER chance of selling your movie to an audience that will appreciate your film, but it is getting harder and harder to attract that interest with all the other films out there competing for the same dollar. So if you get a chance check out http://www.foureyedmonsters.com.

Personally I am still in the process of acquiring an audience that cares. In today's world a filmmaker must be part artist, but also part marketers. I even feel that there is a market for short films here. With a promise of extras, and commentaries a short film can find it's audience if it knows where to look, and that after production the filmmaker has some capital to spend on marketing the product. The digital market is wide open, and I kind of look at it as the "wild west". Anything goes as long as you draw a audience & you can profit from that audience. I see niche filmmaking getting more and more selective as more and more product enters the market arena, but I guess only the strong will survive or should I say the shrudest will. One thing is for sure. They didn't cover this in filmmaking school when I was there!