We are the Independent Industry. Join Us.
The Independent Producers Guild is dedicated to advancing the business and professional interests of the independent producing community, including every person who works to create their vision and get it to screen or stage.
The Independent Producers Guild (IPG) is a true professional Guild, not a trade union. The IPG provides guidance on best practices and standards for independent film production. We work for a better legal and cultural environment for independent film creators. We provide career guidance and are developing pension, health and insurance programs for the independent film producing community. We provide a growing set or resources for the independent producer. The IPG also oversees the development of several important initiatives for the independent creative community. These include FilmPods - the outgrowth of the IPG's Direct To Audience Initiative, the Producing Unique New Creators (PUNC) career development program, and the Virtual Theatrical initiative.
Our goal is to create a strong, vital and empowered generation of independent, creative producers and filmmakers, who command the market power and audience recognition they deserve.
The IPG has ongoing initiatives that benefit the independent film-making community. Two of the most important of these are the Producing Unique New Creators (PUNC) program and the Virtual Theatrical initiative, both operated and administered by 501(c)(3) Stage And Screen Innovations (SSI)
The IPG board and senior membership have decades in the film, television and theatre industries. Their hands-on and in-the-trenches experience, gives them a depth of knowledge and skills which is rare in this fast growing, global industry.
The film, television and theatre industries are changing daily. The legacy studios and networks are lagging far behind in their understanding of a new audience. The market, which used to be wide only for large studios, is now about reaching global audiences, no matter the size, genre or format of a production. As economies are in flux, brilliant new opportunities for independent creative and original voices are emerging.
The disruption in the industry, and the rapid rise in the number of creatives has given rise to a serious problem: there has never been a set career path for producers (include producer-directors and writer-producers). There have never been industry standard production methods and best practices established. The formerly small and closed industry, now broken wide open, has always been about learning hands-on, within close relationships. The informal method of passing on producing skills worked in the early days of film, and has been visibly less helpful in the last decade or so as the old guard has disappeared and the legacy studios have become mega-corporations manned by employee producers who are, essentially, unskilled at most parts of production.
This leaves the aspiring independent creator out in the cold and trying to figure a path to success. But despite the rapid technological advances and opportunities to more easily create motion picture media, the professional industry remains an exquisitely complex set of artistic, legal, economic and technical challenges. Practically speaking, the film industry has been born anew. What used to be good advice, isn't any longer. What used to be the "right" method of marketing, or finance, or development, is now impractical or out-dated. The new age, requires the independent producer to wear multiple hats, and to be good at all of them. In many ways, we are back to the early days of film. Then, a creator would write, produce and direct their work, then market it direct to audiences themselves. Film was an entrepreneurial process. Today, in 2025 and for the next century at least, it has become, again, an entrepreneurial process.
The Independent Producers Guild is here to tell you that you can be one of us, if you have the mindset. We are here for those who insist on getting their expression to screen. If you are one of us, join the IPG. It's our industry, make it your industry.