By Jay Holben
Last week I was, um... pontificating... on a pet peeve of mine, which actually was a wonderful segue into today's Blog – The Digital Revolution: The Real Numbers!
This data is in regard to the films released theatrically in the United States in 2007 and how many of them were originated digitally, as opposed to on film. Ten years ago, this was unheard of. Today, it is becoming more and more commonplace — but just how commonplace is it? What are the trends and how firmly has the digital revolution taken hold?
There is no doubt that digital technology has firmly taken hold of the postproduction world – and there's no going back. Post, for the majority of films made today, is nearly 100% digital. There are a few die-hard hangers-on, but they are as rare as a spotted owl in the middle of Times Square.
If you believe the PR hype from camera manufacturers and newbie know-it-alls, everything is shot digitally now-a-days... But, alas, that is not the case. For the last 100 years, 35mm film has been the primary origination medium in the motion picture industry (and it still reigns king in the theatrical world) but there are exceptions, and digital origination is taking a strong foothold in the business — not just with independent filmmakers.
In 2007, there were 628 films theatrically released in the United States. Utilizing a combination of the official qualification list from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, full release list from Boxofficemojo.com and the Internet Movie Database as the principal sources of information, I have complete technical data for 404 of those films (224 films have no technical data listed).
Of the 404 films (and please note I use the term "films" to represent any motion picture whether digital or film) 363 of them were live-action fictional narrative films. I exclude animated films (nearly 100% digital these days) and documentary films (have long been shot on "amateur" — or inexpensive — formats such as 16mm and video) from the statistical data.
Of the 363 live-action, fictional, narrative films released theatrically in the US in 2007:
69, or 19%, were digitally originated.
This number is actually down slightly from 2006, when 20.1% of the live-action, fictional, narrative films were digital originated.
In 2001, 7.1% of films released were digitally originated (those are the only three years I, as of yet, have data for).
So, from 7.1% in 2001 to 20.1% in 2006 to 19% in 2007.
Most professionals believe that digital origination will eventually overtake film as the primary format in the business. How long it will take before that happens requires a crystal ball. The reality is, however, that we won't ever see the death of 35mm film, just like we've not yet seen the death of 8mm or 16mm. There will always be someone shooting on film, and it will be around as the best archival medium for a long, long time.
So, with the rhetoric aside, let's get back to the nitty-gritty numbers, shall we?
Of the 69 films that were digitally originated in 2007:
10 were shot on DV
8 were HDV
30 were various forms of HD
Of the 69 digital films, only 11 had a wide theatrical release (in more than 500 theaters).
The hightest grossing digital film in 2007 was the comedy Superbad at $121 million (the #22 highest grossing film of the year).
Then, in descending order:
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry - $120 million
Balls of Fury - $32 million
Reign Over Me - $19 million
Next - $18 million
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - $12 million
Once - $9 million
Interestingly, ALL of these projects were shot with the Panavision Genesis with the exception of one — the only real "Independent" film in the bunch, the Irish musical Once, which was shot HDV with a Sony HVR-Z1U.
By comparison, the top five 35mm film-shot films grossed between $292 and $336 million (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Transformers, Shrek the Third and Spider-Man 3 (#1 grossing film of 2007).
Also of note, 22 — or 6% — of theatrically released films of 2007, were shot on 16mm film. With the increased availability and lowering expense of digital intermediates, 16mm seems to be coming back into vogue, in 2006 there were only 13 films shot on 16mm (13.44%).
It's important to keep in mind that these numbers are just statistics. They're merely a way of quantifying trends, not intended to be a prediction for the future. My sample-size of only three years of data is far too small to make any conclusive statements; rather it's here to just offer some real-world insight into the Digital Revolution that we're currently witnessing not only in the motion picture industry but in the world at large. Certainly, the consumer world has embraced digital technology much faster than the motion picture industry has.
The real hard fact that one can walk away with from this data is that although the Digital Revolution has democratized movie making, it's still the big studios that run the show. (Once is an anomaly, for sure.) Only 22% of 2007's digitally originated films got a wide theatrical release and 90% of those were produced by the major studios. So —by those numbers — only 2% of the digitally originated films with wide theatrical release were independent films, and only 0.2% of all films released in 2007 were digital independents that got a wide release.
As an independent filmmaker who has been working professionally in Hollywood for two decades, I can tell you firsthand that the Big Boys still run the show. Any independent filmmaker who has every tried their hand at the wonderful world of distribution will tell you: It's hard out there for an indie.
Alas, keep shootin'. Keep creatin'. There are the anomalies like Once that break through the barriers (which is a great film, if you haven't seen it – go rent it, now). And YOUR film could be the next to do so...
Next week, I'll dive back into this data one last time for a look at what, to me, seems to be a disturbing trend: The death of an historical motion picture standard...
Special thanks to Ms. Amanda Bolten for her invaluable assistance in gathering this data.
]All the best,
Jay Holben
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