One of the interesting views is the difference between studio and indie productions. Every producer here at my TV show is amazed at how many people 'the studio show' needs to do the job. It's true that you can accomplish great things on a small scale, but there's also the whole studio star system to take care of, unions, etc. You can argue that it's not necessary, and you might be right.

One thing that has developed is the 'price=quality' mentality. If you buy a BMW, you figure that the car, for 30-50K+ has 'got to be good, for that price'. I've seen the same with distributors. Even if your film cost $300,000 to produce, it's at least 'Under a million' in parlance, and 'under 2 million' if you have name talent attached. Some distrib's won't touch it if it's less than that, equating the total price spent with the level of quality of the film. While a total price tag is often reflected in the look of a picture (let's face it, miniDV does not compare with Panavision Super35mm Kodak), the cheapest and most vital part is the screenplay. How many 60 million + movies we've seen where we wish they spent a little more $$ on the story and not the screen!