THE INDUSTRY IS CHANGING AND HOW YOU CAN ADAPT AS A CREATIVE
The film industry has changed drastically in the last 5 years, even the last year has been different from what we all experienced pre-pandemic. I work primarily as a DP but as you’ll read in this article, I end up having to do much more than the perceived job description to stay ahead of the curve in today’s fast paced environment. This means Producing, Directing, Editing, COloring, and worst of all… Marketing.
In this article I’ll be sharing my experience from a freelance DP perspective in 2025. Let’s Begin.
On Set Shooting the new Indie documentary Feature “The Art Of Falling”
I was DP on this but served many roles as budget was limited so I often times managed camera, lighting, and helped with producing duties like scheduling and crew hires.
A few things have happened since the Pandemic that have changed the landscape of the U.S. entertainment industry as a whole. Inflation is an obvious one, newly imposed tariffs that increase the cost of gear that is already expensive, union disruptions, and an overall shrinking of production budgets buy and large.
Let’s start there, smaller budgets. we know why this is happening. It started with gear becoming more accessible with technological advancements, which is a good thing admittedly. Things like camera and lighting gear become better each year, and with a phone in everyone’s pocket anyone can create videos at any time. Social media is still the biggest money making machine in 2025, but what happened to big studio shoots? How about the big commercials and tv shows? They still exist, but as less money resides in the pockets of up and coming companies, that only leave the big stuff left for the rest of us.
The Film Industry has historically been hard to break into, largely due to gatekeeping and money. Established professionals will often only work with people they’ve either worked with before, or have been recommended by someone they trust. From 2018-2022, there was a boom in content demand, in part because of the pandemic. Therefore there was much more funding in all spheres to go around. High budget, medium budget, low budget, there was always SOMETHING going on. This also gave the opportunity for people in the “lower tier” of production budget networks to get in with more established professionals as those workers also had more flexibility to work on a larger array of projects at different budgets with such abundance in the industry.
Unfortunately we now live in a time where that abundance has faded, at least in the U.S.