📈 #30 Lights, cameras… Optimization!

How Operations Research can reduce production costs in the movie industry.

I vividly remember the first movie I saw in the cinema, "The Flintstones," back in 1994.

I was 6 years old, and The Flintstones were cartoons that fascinated me. Seeing them in flesh and bone was beyond my comprehension.

For me, it was truly magical.

And that magic is still reflected in the Oscars gala to this day.

It's not just a night to celebrate the best of cinema; it's a spectacle that encapsulates the glamour, art, and most importantly, the economic magnitude that surrounds the film industry.

This event, watched by millions of people around the world, serves as a reminder of the huge flow of money invested and generated in cinema.

From the elaborate dresses on the red carpet to the lavish post-gala parties, the Oscars are the epitome of splendor and opulence, reflecting the industry's ability to move mountains of money both in movie production and in celebrating its triumphs.

That's why, and because 2023 has been a year full of good movies, today on Feasible I'll tell you about:

• Some data on the film industry

• The revenues and costs of 3 of the films nominated for the best picture of the year

• How Operations Research can help in this industry to reduce the very high production costs

Let's go for it! 🪂

🎬 The Film Industry

If we combine movies, streaming, and television, the entertainment industry generates around $100 billion annually.

It's not me saying this, it's stated by the Motion Picture Association, a nonprofit association founded in the US with more than 100 years of history.

And the best part is that it seems that the slump in 2020 due to the pandemic has already been overcome: revenues in 2021 were higher than pre-pandemic levels.

So, there's a desire to go to the movies.

As you can see, the hunger to watch movies and finish the popcorn before anyone else continues to grow.

The industry seems to be doing well in terms of box office revenues, let's not kid ourselves.

We could be talking about this for a long time, so here's the report from where I got this data. 67 pages, mind you. It's from 2021 but gives a good account of the current state of cinema.

What I will tell you, although it probably isn't a revelation, is that the US market is historically one of the largest. I suspect it's due to the great influence of Hollywood. Approximately 29% of the revenues are generated there.

However, one difficult piece of data to obtain is the costs associated with producing all these movies. In the collective imagination, we have the image that producing a movie is expensive, but… How expensive is it? Millions of dollars? Tens of millions of dollars?