The Top Indie Films of 2018
September 24, 2018
24th September 2018 by CH
What’s the lure of the indie film?
Put simply, they tend to break convention and provide watchers with a different type of cinematic experience. These movies can be experimental, brave and bold in ways that your typical Hollywood blockbuster isn’t.
So, if you’re interested in some of the latest indies that have captured our minds and hearts, this list is for you.
- Isle of Dogs
This is a typically kooky and creative offering from acclaimed director Wes Anderson. Made using stop motion animation, the film follows a young boy searching for his dog after the entire canine species is banished to an island. It also features voices from Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson and Frances McDormand to name a few.
- Unsane
Of a slightly different ilk is Unsane – the latest film from director Steven Soderbergh and filmed entirely on an iPhone 7 Plus (yep, you read that right).
Claire Foy stars as a woman who moves to a new city to escape a stalker but remains haunted by visions of her pursuer. She finds herself unknowingly confining to a mental institution. This film isn’t for the faint-hearted, but fans of psychological horror films should check this out.
- Madeline’s Madeline
Going down a storm at Sundance Film Festival, this film is an experimental indie number from director Josephine Decker.
The plot follows a theatre director whose latest project starts to unravel in unexpected ways when a young performer gets too involved.
- Sorry to Bother You
This absurdist comedy is the story of an African-American telemarketer who adopts a ‘white accent’ and sees his career take off in a big way.
Directed by Boots Riley, this film throws convention out the window and is as daring as it is entertaining. With Lakeith Stanfield taking the lead role and star turns from Danny Glover and Terry Crews, this makes for an entertaining and provocative comedy.
- Hereditary
This modern horror movie from Ari Aster stars Toni Collette as the mother of a family recovering from the death of a secretive grandmother. As things within the family start to spiral out of control, there are plenty of jumps and questions asked in Hereditary.
- How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Based on a Neil Gaimon short story, How to Talk to Girls at Parties
stars Alex Sharp as Enn, a punk-obsessed teenager who encounters Zan, a rebel from literally another planet, played by Elle Fanning.
But this modern tale of star-crossed, interplanetary lovers will ultimately lead to a battle between punks and aliens. Fun-filled from start to finish, this an exciting indie film to get the pulses racing.
What you think of our suggestions? Let us know on Facebook , Twitter or Instagram.
Share this post:
Recent posts
We're #23 in the UK Top 50 Big news from us! CH Video have climbed 7 places in the EVCOM (Event & Visual Communication Association) + Moving Image UK Top 50.
When Euronics came to us with a brief, it was a good one: take a true story about an extraordinary delivery and turn it into something worth watching. The Brief Joe, a Euronics delivery agent, had been tasked with getting a chest freezer to a customer in rural Wales. The road ran out. He carried on anyway, on foot, through fields, across rivers and over hills. The customer was delighted. The story deserved to be told. Euronics asked us to produce a short comedic video retelling that journey. The challenge was finding the right visual language to match the scale of the tale. The Concept We pitched several approaches centred on a comic-book aesthetic, bold, energetic and a little tongue-in-cheek. It felt like the right fit: a story that was equal parts heroic and absurd, told in a style that leaned into both. The concept paired real interview footage of Joe with AI-generated visuals to bring his journey to life. Where a traditional shoot would have required location days across Welsh countryside, generative AI gave us the tools to illustrate the story scene by scene. Creative Wrangling We filmed Joe against a studio blue backdrop, letting him tell the story in his own words. His delivery did a lot of the heavy lifting (puns intended!), dry, matter-of-fact and quietly brilliant. The AI-generated visuals were built around detailed multi-angle reference sheets for Joe, the Euronics van and the chest freezer.
Generative AI can easily open doors to help create bespoke, crafted content to elevate a video beyond the usual approaches. Recently we tested the latest AI tools to create vast scenic landscapes, humorous underwater worlds and visual effects shots for several campaigns. The tools have advanced a long way over the last few years and the barriers to creating believable or imaginative worlds are fading away all the time. Need an underwater disco full of dancing fish? Got it. A speaking anthropomorphic clown fish? Absolutely. The Key is Consistency It was key to ensure a good amount of consistency across each video. We created multi-angle reference sheets of characters and key objects and use node-based tools to link these, and additional brand references, to ensure the look was maintained throughout. The tools are now in a place where you can also direct and control the results much more closely. Camera moves, lens choices and lighting can be defined and adjusted to get closer to the image or video that you’re looking for and as the creative options expand, options for creativity within each shot expand infinitely.
