So where do we go now? An industry with a history of complacent, outdated and socially non-compliant behavior is the same industry that’s evolved in how it does business more aggressively than any other. Hollywood’s survived and thrived through technological leaps, shifting public opinions, economic downturns, revised distribution models and is now dealing with it’s second pandemic.
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Some are anticipating the demise of the movie business with the idea of movie houses and theaters –long thought obsolete in some circles–suffering a final, fatal blow from COVID-19. Others believe the traditional model of distribution, which has also changed over the course of the recent years, will take the final step into the fully-streaming version of itself. One thing’s for sure: it’s an opportunity!
More curious, what will become of the way films and TV get made now? If the reach, pathology and rapidity of this virus has made anything profoundly clear, it is that large groupings of people in confined spaces without personal protective equipment or physical separators of some kind is likely an intolerable post-COVID reality. Anyone who’s been on a set before knows that this is just the way it gets used to get done.
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In University, I studied ‘futurecasting’, which is a methodology used to model an organization’s future meant to help it make decisions about its future investments, challenges and direction. It’s about to become an invaluable skill for the movie-making biz worldwide.
The threat of a pathogenic or contagious infection overrunning the world is not a new thing. Ironically, versions of it have even been portrayed in our entertainment.
I’m betting on the need of creators to create and the multi-million dollar film business ecosystem that thrives on those creations to once again find their way through the present challenge with an eye to that future, revamped and stronger than ever.
The game –like most things in life –always changes. But the show must go on.
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