In the last issue of Filmmaker Magazine, there's a section (print edition only) called "Letters To A Young Producer." I'm not a producer, exactly, nor do I want to specialize in that, but there are lots of good bits of advice and stories by several working "indie" producers. The last one, Noah Harlan, says an interesting thing:  basically, if you're producing films with budgets of at least 2 million dollars, that's enough to make a living as a producer, from your fees.  But, in today's funding/investing climate in the filmmaking world, he's unable to pull himself into that bracket.  There are no films being made in that bracket. "The mid-budgeted indie is gone."

Wow.

Is that true? If so it's probably true of directors as well. Possibly it's not true of other roles that are less involved, because they can work on several films a year - grips, camera operators, actors, etc. But producers and directors are kind of sucked into one film at a time for a year or more.