At the Glasgow Film Festival, Joe Simpson (Ashland Hill Media Finance), Kirsty Bell (Goldfinch), and Jonathan Gorner (Media Finance Capital) discussed the current state of indie financing. Bell described streamers as a "hangover" for the sector, as they bought up content en masse between 2013 and 2015 and then built their own production machinery, putting the independent industry in a difficult position. Simpson sees a recovery once AI facilitates micropayments for films, while he cited virtual staging as a cost-saving solution. Bell argues that $1 million is the optimal budget for elevated genre films, and Gorner emphasizes that sales agents should alert producers when presales don't support a budget.