Film Job Titles

Current Trends in the Film Industry

There are many exciting trends in this industry. The most important is the move from a theater exhibition to a home theater model. Services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, for example, have already changed the way we consume movies, spending more than $20 billion on original content, changing the financial landscape of studios, and upending old notions of theater-only release standards.

There are also technological evolutions. One impacting the film industry is Virtual Reality (VR). This technology, which fully immerses a viewer in a story, already had a global economic impact of $29.5 billion by 2020 and is expected to grow more in the future.

The industry is also witnessing a cultural breakthrough focusing on relevant social issues, including diversity acceptance and celebration of LGBTQ and race issues, highlighting political unrest, and fostering unity across different populations.

The film industry is an ever-growing industry paying over $181 billion in wages annually to 2.5 million people in the U.S. alone and will continue to grow.

6 of the Top Soft Skills Needed for Film Jobs

Making a film involves different stages of production. The process includes conceptualizing and writing a story idea in the development phase; researching, casting, and location scouting in the pre-production phase; shooting in the production phase; editing and arranging the footage in post-production; and sending the final product to theaters, DVD, or streaming services in the distribution phase. Every stage incorporates creative fields like editors, videographers, and animators, and management fields like producers and program managers.

Even though there are different sets of people working on other areas of the film to bring it to life, and each of them requiring different sets of skills, there are specific skills that every filmmaker should possess, irrespective of their role.

Here are the top six skills to become a successful filmmaker:

• Technical knowledge

  As a filmmaker, you must have a technical understanding of every piece of the filmmaking process; this includes camerawork, sound, special effects, lighting, design, post-production processes, and more. You need to understand different filmmaking tools and software like Final Draft, Movie Magic, and Adobe Creative Cloud used in various stages of film production. The idea is not to be an expert in every software, but familiar with almost every software.

• Flexible creativity

  The soul of a film lies in the creativity of the people producing that film. Whether you’re working as a producer, director, actor, or post-production coordinator, you need to visualize the story creatively to present it in the most appealing way to the audience. Flexible creativity means your creativity shouldn't just remain in the field of your specialization; you should be able to contribute your ideas in other areas of film.

• Written and visual storytelling

  Even if your job doesn't include script-writing or creating visuals, it's essential to understand the story you are trying to tell as a team. You need to understand, evaluate and analyze reports, including written scripts.

• Effective communication

  Being a filmmaker, working on set with countless other crew and cast members, you should communicate well with everyone to bring about a collective result. Without effective communication, you won’t be able to channel your ideas to different crew members. To work towards the common goal of bringing alive a story, you should be a good speaker and listener.

• Building strong connections

  Apart from your talents and experience, your stability in the film industry is determined by connections. Good collaborators are always helpful for your career. Therefore, make sure that you nurture your ability to build strong relationships.

• Knowledge of the latest trends

  The film industry is an evolving industry that goes through significant change every decade. As a filmmaker, you should be able to track those changes. You should be aware of the latest technological trends like 3D printing, autonomous drones, virtual reality, and cultural trends.