While she now has studio backing, she still has a healthy respect for the independent sector.

Seven years ago he tried to make an auto racing movie about a legendary Brazilian driver, but he couldn't find studio backing.

Sher, Stiller and Childress managed to convince the Film Commission of Texas to fund a location scouting trip to Houston despite no studio backing, no budget and no cast.

Given the commercial success of The Evil Dead, studio financial backing for the new project came quickly.

At the same time, the Spirit awards live up to their name, having honored Alexander Payne's adventurous 1999 comedy "Election" even though it had studio backing.

But film making with an independent spirit, even when blessed with widespread acceptance as well as studio backing, remained largely subsidiary to Hollywood's main events, which were sinking ocean liners and torching office towers.

At first, films were deemed independent based on their sources of financing and had to prove, essentially, that they were free from the taint of studio backing.

Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed.

What producers do is find material, hire a screenwriter, look for studio backing, get a director and oversee, to various extents, the entire movie-making process.

Far from being a labor of love, it says, the picture was a "movie laundering" scheme that "in reality, had studio backing and would be exploited using traditional studio marketing and distribution techniques."