HOLLYWOOD AND THE JOBS CRISIS - PART 1

TheWrap.com is launching a very good series on how the Great Recession has impacted and continues to impact the entertainment industry.

Here is an excerpt
 

In the wake of the financial downturn, the major studios slashed the number of films they were producing in 2010 by nearly 20 percent, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Throughout the industry, companies went into cutback mode. Studios shut down or auctioned off speciality arms such as Miramax and Paramount Vantage, eliminating scores of jobs in the process.


Post-production houses such as Deluxe and Technicolor merged while smaller shops like CFI and Pacific folded, displacing hundreds of workers.
On studio lots, nearly every major studio shed jobs, particularly in their home entertainment divisions, with the likes of Sony and Warner Bros. letting hundreds of employees go in order to stay in the black. They also slashed away at producer deals and movie budgets, adding more people to the unemployment rolls.

And the butcher’s cleaver hasn’t gone back on the shelf just yet. Last month, Paramount announced that it is merging its home entertainment, licensing and digital operations, and Disney consolidated its toys arm and home entertainment into a single division, which will almost certainly lead to more staff cuts.

Studio executives tell TheWrap that more companies are likely to follow Paramount and Disney’s lead.

Yesterday Jerry Bruckheimer talked about the decline of DVD revenue has killed the studios. Here is an example of how that decline has impacted the major studios and mid-size production companies.

Yet it is not limited to the major studios, it only takes a quick google search to see same thing happening in the anime world. ADV, Central Park Media, Tokyopop are gone, other companies have cut back and it looks like it might get worse.

Though California hasn’t abandoned its status as the movie industry’s base, the state was particularly hard hit by the downturn. Runaway production exacerbated the problem. All told it has cost the state $2.4 billion in wages and $4.2 billion in total economic output since 1997, according to the Milken Institute, as more and more films fled the golden state for the generous  tax incentives being doled out by Michigan, Louisiana and other states

Go read the whole thing...