Conclusion to TheWrap's series on how the economic crisis is affecting the Industry.
Think the recession was bad? Just wait until Hollywood finishes going digital.
The industry’s rapid transition away from physical products such as film prints and DVDs and toward digital distribution is allowing studios to get by with leaner workforces -- a shift that has been both exacerbated and exposed by the recession.
Experts say that the thousands of jobs that have disappeared as the result of the digital revolution and the economic crisis are unlikely to completely return.
"Five years from now, there will not be as much pressure on studios to have as many titles as possible. That will mean fewer people employed in Hollywood, more of whom work in CGI or who are employed on the technical side," Edward Jay Epstein, author of "The Hollywood Economist," told TheWrap.
Also read: Hollywood & the Job Crisis: Just How Bad Is It?
As more and more filmmakers make the transition to digital and away from film, it’s also eliminating the need for the post-production industry of old.
An old way of doing business is vanishing just as rapidly as Hollywood is moving its films and television shows into the digital cloud and streaming.
"Everybody is revising their business model right now ... film, TV, advertising," Chris McGurk, CEO and chairman of the digital cinema company Cinedigm told TheWrap.
Even if the economy had continued humming along, some of the carnage was unavoidable.
Also read: The Jobs Crisis: Poor Folk Are Making a TV Comeback
“It’s funny, because the producers and studio executives I talk to don’t bring up the recession,” Patrick Goldstein, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, told TheWrap. “I think technology is the thing that’s having the huge and disruptive effect. It’s the number one thing impacting all forms of entertainment.”
Indeed, despite sturdy box office performance -- especially internationally -- and robust television ads sales, the economic downturn of the past three years has caused real economic pain throughout the industry. From the executive suite to the makeup tent, thousands of people lost their jobs. Some have found new positions (frequently for less pay); others have left the business entirely.
Also read: The Jobs Crisis: TV Is Booming -- Unless You Work in L.A.
Throughout the past week, TheWrap has documented the stories of the screenwriters, post-production workers, actors and unit production managers displaced by the economic tumult. Some cited the recession as the reason for their current troubles, others mentioned the rise of new ways of doing business as the cause.
All are grappling with a radically altered industry -- fewer films are being produced, movies and miniseries on the broadcast networks are something of an endangered species, and studios are slashing their production budgets. Generous back-end deals and multi-year production pacts are rapidly disappearing.
