PREDICTIONS 01.03.08

Many local theater companies will transform themselves into microbudget filmmaking organizations. It has now become possible to make a feature-length film for the cost of producing a small play, thanks to digital productional, editing, and distribution. As a result, many theater companies will experiment with making films rather than plays, bringing to this new medium a similar artistic model as they brought to stage productions, and with the same goals. After all, few amateur productions of plays are ever seen by more the a few hundred or thousand people, and if a film can be made in the same amount of time and for the same expense, it can potentially be seen by tens or hundreds of thousands of people when placed online. Of course, there will still be theater, but there will be less, as many of the people who would have been attracted to the stage will instead turn their attention to digital filmmaking.