Superabundance: 900 Films/Year in the NYT
I’ve written and spoken a lot about the overabundance of films available today, but this weekend’s NYT confirmed it rather dramatically. In his year end wrap-up, A.O. Scott writes:
By the time midnight strikes on Dec. 31, The New York Times will have reviewed almost 900 movies in the course of 2013. This number, which grows every year, nonetheless represents a tiny fraction of the moving-picture entertainment made available to the public over the previous 12 months on television, video on demand and streaming services and at the festivals that span the globe and the calendar.
Wow. Let’s put that in perspective. That means that on average 17.3 movies are reviewed per week in the NYT, and as the Times still has a policy of reviewing every movie that opens for at least a week run (and this usually means at least two shows per day), that means that about 17 films open each week in NYC in theaters. I am a major film buff, and I can’t possibly see all of those films, whether in theaters or on demand.
I’ve had conversations with the heads of WithoutABox (the fest submission tool, and I use tool in many ways here) and they estimate 40,000 unique individual titles are submitted to film fests every year, globally. If that’s true, and I imagine it’s more now as I got that figure a few years ago, then that means about 2.2% of films submitted to film fests get released in NY each year. Pretty slim odds, yet I’m still overwhelmed.
Contrary to what many think, I don’t believe this is a bad thing. As I’ve said before: I never walked into a record store and thought, Damn, there’s too many bands. And I don’t think it now when looking at iTunes, whether for music or film. But I do think it creates a problem of awareness and makes it much harder for filmmakers to break through the noise and get discovered. It’s possible, of course, but much more daunting than in the good old days of scarcity. And remember, this is just the tip of the Iceberg – as A.O. Scott writes, the films reviewed in the Times are just a small fraction of the movies made each year, not to mention the competition for my attention from other online video, games and what not.
As a filmmaker, you might think you can’t do much about this. But you can recognize that showing your film in NY and getting a NYT review won’t matter as much as it used to – you’re one of 900 a year that get that chance. You must also do a lot more to cultivate, build and grow your audience and fan base. I don’t need to go into the ways to do that here, if you read this blog, you know enough about it already, but I think this article shows why it’s important to realize that hard work must be done to get noticed in an age of superabundance.
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