It may be easier for film professionals in Los Angeles, because everyone knows it's the hub of Hollywood, and that people can get to work on bigger film projects. But people have to pay more in living expenses for larger metropolitan cities.
What's more, the many ancillary industries are also affected in many ways when a big film hits the box office. For example, the DVD rentals and sales of the "Batman Begins" film, were boosted by the latest movie "The Dark Knight's." It claimed a record-breaking non-holiday weekend box office revenues of $158.4M, according to Rentrak's Box Office Essentials. That was a 345 percent increase in estimated DVD units sold from the prior week! This may have been because of the limited edition DVD gift set that was released on July 8, 2008 and coincided with the July 18th release of "The Dark Knight."
It's not any surprise that the U.S. motion picture industry produces most of the world’s feature films as well as most of the recorded TV shows. Dominated by six large studios based in Hollywood, over the years, things have started to change. With the increasing popularity and global availability of the Internet, cable television, digital video recorders, editing software and computer graphics there are more and more small to medium-sized independent filmmaking companies filling a growing demand, and they are located here and there across the country.
So if you want to learn how to be a film director, or go to a
film school in Los Angeles, odds are that you can get a job almost
anywhere in the U.S. For example, in 2006, there were 357,000 wage and salary jobs in the film and video industries - mostly produciton jobs such as casting, acting, directing, editing, motion picture and videotape reproduction and film processing. Ten percent of those in the film industry were self-employed. They sell services to anyone who needs them, working for multiple productions throughout a year. Here's a chart that details the jobs.
Oh and in case you've wondered -- what is the most expensive city in the world? This year, Moscow is the the world's most expensive city for the second year in a row. London is in second place, climbing up three spots since the year 2006, while Seoul moves down a place in the ranks, taking third place. Tokyo is number four, while Asuncion in Paraguay remains the least expensive city, according to the source: Mercer Human Resource Consulting. New York was the base city, scoring 100 points, Moscow scores 134.4, London 126.3 and Seoul 122.4.
