Movie making, as a craft, has passed the phase where small teams of people with limited budget can make significant breakthrough. They need high tech that need big money to truly push the envelope.
Happened to Physics, happened to medicine, happened to the car industry, happening to AI … not really new.
Films with smaller budget? Look to China. They keep churning out these so-called “vertical screen dramas”, where you watch them on cellphones in portrait mode. In their original form they were released as short episodes, each a few minutes long, and a “complete” story arc would span dozens to 100+ episodes. But on YouTube you can fine “complete compilation” that you can binge on, usually two to three hours per “movie.” Quality is usually between “mediocre” and “quite good” but never “great.” Very little originality with the big story arcs but a lot of creativity in creating variations within similar story arcs and cross-pollinating elements from the few distinct story arcs that are there. And oh so entertaining, you can sit through them well-entertained without doing much, if any, thinking — like Lifetime and Hallmark movies but can also be exciting, edgy, and actually interesting. Tons of these on YouTube, multiple “new releases” of complete “movies” every day. (And as far as I know, viewers here can watch them tariff-free.) Looking across the world and across history, I cannot think of an even more productive or prolific production of “low budget movies” than this.
J
