This is the first part of the state of the film industry report. it covers how many filmmakers there are in the US, how many projects are made, and the total size of the market. For more, read the corresponding blog on ProductionNext.com https://beta.productionnext.com/people/ben/journal/state-of-the-film-industry-report-part-1-overview If you want to reference this data, feel free. Please credit Ben Yennie, ProductionNext, or Producer Foundry as your source. This data is considered creative commons, attribution.

1. Part 1:
The Overall Landscape

2. How many Self Identified filmmakers are there?
Film School Grads 14,096
New Filmmakers per Year 23,385
Avg Career life 8.5 Years
Total Active Filmmakers 198,775
Age Group Total Male Female
All 198,775 126,500 66,252
18-24 52,658 37,950 14,708
25-29 33,117 19,734 13,383
30-39 38,062 24,415 13,648
40-49 30,702 20,367 10,335
50+* 34,153 21,632 12,522
Opt out 3,807 2,151 1,656
*We did ask about age groups 50-59, 60-74, and 75+, but did not receive enough responses to merit individual grouping.
**Graph not shown due to lack of data
***Opt outs
Age Breakdown - All
***
2%50+
18%
40-49
16%
30-39
20%
25-29
17%
18-24
27%
Age Breakdown - Male
2%50+
17%
40-49
16%
30-39
19%
25-29
16%
18-24
30%
Age Breakdown - Female
3%50+
19%
40-49
16%
30-39
21%
25-29
20%
18-24
22%
Gender Breakdown
Other**
1%
Female
33%
Male
64%
***
2%
***
***
Above Data Drawn from US Dept of Education data and later report sections.

3. Methodology: New
Filmmakers
• We Asked Asked filmmakers if they graduated from Film
School
• Cross Referenced with graduation data from the US
department of education.
• Referenced total graduates with the Percentage of active
filmmakers who graduated, and then added percentage of
filmmakers who did not graduate or had other education.
X=New Filmmakers/Year
Y=Film School Graduates from
DoE
Z=Film School Graduation Rate(%)
X=Y*(1+(1-Z))

4. Methodology: Total market
• Took the number of new filmmakers, then multiplied
by an average career life of 8.5 years, as defined
from data in section 2 of this report.
• When calculating average career life, we
removed filmmakers under 25 due to them not
having time to have a career yet.
• RESULT: Estimated 198,775 filmmakers currently
active in the US.

5. Projects made annually
Project Type Estimated Projects created annually Confidence
Corporate/Industrial 127,216 to 133,179 95%
Web/New Media 256,420 to 290,212 95%
Shorts 111,314 to 127,216 85%
TV Episodes 55,657 to 103,363 80%
Indie Feature Films. 15,902 to 23,853 85%
0
0.4
0.8
1.2
1.6
Features TV Shorts Corporate Web/New Media
Projects per filmmaker Annually
2.6-3.0
Project Breakdown by type
45%
22%
20%
10%3%
Features TV Shorts
Corporate Web/New Media

6. Methodology: Projects
• Referenced total number of filmmakers to % of filmmakers who
made projects in 2014 and how many they made. All numbers US
only.
Table 1.D - Survey Options and Min/Max Treatment for Estimates
1 2 3-4 5-7 8-10 11-14 15+
High 1 2 4 7 10 14 15
Low 1 2 3 5 8 11 15
Table 1.C - Control Project Max
Max
ProjectsCorporate/Industrial 15
Web/New Media 15
Shorts 3-4
TV 15
Indie Feature Films. 1
• Controlled for unreasonable
numbers of projects claimed by a
single participant.
Table 1.C

7. Methodology: Corporate
• Total number of projects: 157,383
• Defined as Explainer Videos, Training videos, ETC.
• Not Commercials
• We feel like this is as accurate an estimate as exists
• Hard to confirm total value of market, because most
valuations include teleconferencing technologies

8. Methodology: Web
• Total number of projects: 300,968
• Defined as Web exclusive video and content
produced for platforms e.g. Youtube/Vimeo, not
including trivial content e.g. cat videos and vlogs.
• Given we’re only counting web content produced
above the “trivial content” level, this estimate
seems accurate.

9. Methodology: Shorts
• Total Number of projects: 131,332
• Defined as shorts (<40 minutes) produced at film school
thesis level or higher
• Something that can and should be submitted to festivals
• Controlled out anything more than 2 shorts in a year, due
to logistical limitations from our criterion
• Given restrictions, we feel like this is accurate
• We estimate the budgets of these shorts to be $1k-$5k

10. Methodology: TV
• Total number of projects: 66,227
• Defined as episodes produced outside of studio
system, separate from Youtube-esque webseries.
• Estimated cost per episode was $20,000
• This market is hard to define, and given lack of
clarity in our questions we’re only 70% confident in
our assumptions.

11. Methodology: Indie Features
• Total number of projects: 18,895 to 28,343
• Defined as a feature film (>75 minutes)
• Any budget level— documentary or narrative. Not
necessarily distributed
• Controlled out any response greater than one,
primarily due to logistical limitations
• We feel this is high, but possible given the possibility
of making a feature film for 500 dollars or less

12. Total Market SpendProject Type
Estimated Projects created
annually (PL and PH)
Confidence
(C)
Budget
Low (BL)
Budget
High (BH)
Estimated Market Size
Corporate/Industrial 127,216 to 133,179 95% $5,000 $25,000 $1,855,316,156
Web/New Media 256,420 to 290,212 95% $1000 $2500 $454,387,227
Shorts 111,314 to 127,216 85% $1000 $5000 $304,125,750
TV Episodes 55,657 to 103,363 70% $7500 $25000 $904,426,250
Indie Feature Films. 15,902 to 23,853 90% $25000 $250000 $2,459,840,625
Project Type
Annual Domestic
Spending
Corporate/Industrial 1.86 Bn
Web/New Media 0.45 Bn
Shorts 0.30 Bn
TV Episodes 0.90 Bn
Indie Feature Films 2.46 Bn
Total 5.98 Bn
Market Size Formula: MS=((PL*BH)/2)*((BL*BH)/2)*C
40%
35%
12%
8%
5%
Shorts Web/New Media TV Episodes
Corporate Indie Feature Films
Spend (In BN)
0
0.75
1.5
2.25
3
4%
15%
19%
43%
20%
INT: Market size by Projects
EXT: Market size by Spend

13. Budget Methodology
Full Range
Estimate
(USD)
Range
Used
(USD)
Reasoning
Corporate
Video/
Industrial
5,000-
100,000
5,000-
25,000
While corporate video does occasionally end up with
very high budgets, these are outliers. Most budgets are
small and produced by a startup or small business.
Web/New
Media
500-
5,000
1,000-
2,500
These aren’t cat videos, but they are made for the web
without much monetization potential, so they’ve got to be
careful with budgets. However, even though the shoots
are simple, there are crew and logistical costs.
Shorts
500 -
25,000
1,000-
5,000
Since these projects don’t generally have a way to make
their money back, many filmmakers work on them for free.
So even though these shorts often have more ambitious
goals than their web counterparts, the budgets don’t
balloon too much.
TV Episodes
5,000-
50,000
5,000 -
20,000
These episodes are often produced without a network
backing them, so they cut every corner they can. But
the crew needs to be paid when you need to shoot an
entire season of episodes.
Indie Features
500 -
2,500,000
50,000 -
250,000
This category can be anything from a man with a camera shooting a
feature alone to a few B List stars and a day from an A-lister shooting
a festival-oriented drama. However, most independent films that get
attention are made in the SAG Ultra Low Budget Range.

14. Disclaimer About Budgets
• The budget numbers are speculative, and based
around personal experience in the film industry as
well as generalized data from other sources.
• Project budget questions were intended to be a
large part of the secondary survey
• We still believe these to be the most data-backed
market size estimates that exist