There’s a long held view among some people in the film industry that unless you work in Hollywood you’re not a professional. This view was founded on the fact that Hollywood is the oldest film industry in the world and has had a massive effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. Some of the earliest film studios and production companies emerged from Hollywood and many genres were born there, including drama, action, comedy, science fiction, the musical, horror and romance.

Hollywood certainly produces the highest budget movies in the world, with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides holding the record of the most expensive film of all time, with a budget of $378.5 million. Budgets aside, does Hollywood continue to dominate the global film industry in 2022, and is it really still the largest film industry in the world? For those of us working in post production, should working at a large Hollywood studio be the ultimate aspiration? Let’s consider a few points…

Highest Grossing Films Of All Time

One obvious way to evaluate the success and scale of the Hollywood film industry is to look at the highest grossing films of all time. Here’s the top 10…

Every single one of the films in the top 10 is a Hollywood production and if you read through the entire top 50 grossing films of all time, everything in the list is a Hollywood production. Done. Hollywood is the biggest and best and we should all aspire to work there.

Except there’s more to consider than that!

Global Box Office

In 2019 the global box office was worth $42.2 billion. If you add home entertainment revenue to that total, the global film industry was worth $136 billion. In 2020 China became the largest box office territory, overtaking North America in gross total. This transition was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Chinese cinema now has the highest annual ticket sales with 1650 million tickets sold.

In 2019, the Asia-pacific area topped the list of largest territories/regions by box office gross, with the U.S. and Canada in second place and North Africa close behind that.

Number Of Films Produced

If we consider the number of films produced, India is actually now the largest film industry, with 2446 feature films made and released annually as of 2019. That same year, just 792 feature films were released in the United States and Canada. Of course, the sheer quantity of films released isn’t the sole metric by which a film industry should be measured, but it is indicative of the volume of production and the popularity of film in that territory.

Working From Home

Traditionally, much of the expense involved in making films meant that productions were restricted to the well established large film companies and their associated facilities. However, advances in equipment have meant that many of the processes which previously required multi million dollar facilities can now be carried out from home. This was also accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of the video editing, colour grading, visual effects and audio post production work can now be carried out perfectly adequately by people working in home studios, and it is!

In polls we conducted back in 2016 and then again in 2018, there was already a definite trend among professional Pro Tools users towards operating from home. Now, post pandemic, the trend certainly seems to have accelerated, both as a result of having to work that way during the lockdowns and now simply because it’s been proven to work!

Most viewers might assume that high production value shows from the big streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, Apple TV+ and HBO Max would have all of their post production work done in large facilities. In actual fact though, a good proportion of it is done by people working from home. Dialogue editing, sound design, foley and even the mix itself in some cases are carried out in smaller home facilities. Naturally, home setups vary in size quite considerably, from a small desktop dialogue editing system to a large Dolby Atmos mix rig but the point is, with the right setup, it’s perfectly possible to work on high end productions without leaving the house, and more and more stuff is now being done this way, both for streaming platforms and for traditional broadcasters like the BBC.

What Is A Post Professional In 2022 Then?

Based on all of this, the idea that you can’t be a post production professional unless you’re working on Hollywood productions no longer holds true. Sure, Hollywood currently still produces the highest budget films but China is the largest box office territory and India releases more films annually than any other territory. And let’s not forget North Africa, which is now the third largest region by box office gross. Then of course we have the streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV + which are massive, and a good proportion of their post production work is done by professionals working from home.

Of course, there are a number of areas full of audio post production professionals that are easy to overlook outside of major film and TV. Such as the national broadcasters like the BBC, NBC and CBC. There’s some incredible content produced by these broadcasters, for example, Blue Planet. There are professionals who have been working in national broadcasters for decades, people at the top of the game.

Independant production companies, some based in TV companies, are also producing world class content, like Peaky Blinders and Doctor Who. Then there are documentary, news, and sport, all served by top class audio post professionals.

There is also an entire film industry making excellent independant films, Jane Campion's, The Power of the Dog is a shining example, but there’s a long list of brilliant independent films.

It’s also worth noting, there’s a huge industry in the commercial sector, making both TV and radio commercials, again, top class professionals making content seen by millions every day.

We’ve not mentioned game design and production, or those who work in the corporate video production world too. The term post professional is a lot more encompassing than we may consider.

Last year, Russ wrote an article looking at what separates a creative professional from an enthusiast. It considered deadlines, approvals and reputation, along with going beyond client expectations and delighting them. Professionals are those who are capable of repeatedly delivering high quality work again and again. The various film industries of the world didn’t reach the scale of production they are at today by mistake. It required the hard work and dedication of large numbers of industry professionals working to deadlines, being dependable and building a reputation which allowed them to work on more productions, refine their skills and create great cinema which audiences are drawn to. The key difference today is that many of the same post production process can be carried out from anywhere. The reliance on having to physically go to a facility to carry out post production work is diminishing.

We should be excited by the opportunities now available to us through the technical capability to work remotely from our home studios. With the vast amount of film and TV production now going on globally, we have the scope to work on great productions from almost anywhere. Remote file delivery and online collaboration have made this possible. One thing’s for sure though, there’s no room for complacency. In this global market, if you don’t meet a client’s expectations, someone else will, and they could be anywhere in the world. The same technology which allows us to work from home also opens up a global post production market where professionals can be recruited to work on projects irrespective of proximity to the production company’s base. So, do you need to work in Hollywood to be considered a true professional in today’s post production industry? I think you know the answer to that!

Image courtesy of Blackmagic Design