So, the Tattooed Man is freshly returned from LA where he was attending the American Film Market - one of the four major events where films are bought and sold for distribution around the world every year - where he was checking out movies such as Legendary Assassin, Lesbian Vampire Killers and Sex Sluts From Mars rather than megaplex fare like the new Bond or Madascar movies.  Okay, I made that last title up but trust me ... highbrow the AFM aint for the most part.

Markets are fun because they give an advance look at what's coming down the pipe next plus a good look at the thousands and thousands of titles that never make it and never should.  They're messy, chaotic places where everyone's working some angle to sell something or other and random people will walk up and hand you things on the off chance that you're that one magical person who can - gasp! - give them the career they've dreamed of.  And this year, like most markets if we're honest, the unifying theme was the collective grousing from the sales companies about how slow business is and how quickly cinema is dying.  And - despite my own assertion that cinema was killed by a wee yappy dog a few weeks ago - I'm here to tell you to stop whining people, film aint going anywhere.  Your jobs, however, could be an entirely different story ...

For as long as I can remember industry types have been all doom and gloom, crying about the end of film - an end that always seems to be just around the corner. Or, at least, it's just around the corner until someone cranks out a hit movie after which everybody is happy for about five minutes and then the end returns to its post, lurking just down the hall. No business like film is as prone to blame their own failures on their consumers or the industry as a whole rather than placing it where it belongs: too many bad films that nobody wants to see. But put out decent stuff that people do want to see and they'll still turn out in droves, just check this past weekend's box office take for proof of that. Yeah, piracy is an issue but for big studio movies the industry is doing just fine, thanks, and is in no danger of going anywhere, though I'm more and more convinced that the way the industry works in five years will be dramatically different than how it does now. And here are my two big five year predictions.

1. Get out your fancy 3D glasses. Yes, I know current 3D technology doesn't actually need the glasses but they're damn stylish and you should wear them anyway. The point, however, is this: expect that fancy 3D technology that people are experimenting with right now to become the defacto industry standard very soon. The indies and foreign pictures will be slower to adopt it but starting with James Cameron's Avatar - you can always count on Jimmy to be an early adopter for any on-the-rise technology, the guy's got a nose for it - expect to see 3D features become the rule rather than the exception. Why?  Well, why did film switch away from black and white and a 4:3 aspect ratio after the introduction of the television? Because the big thinkers realized that if you wanted to charge your audience a premium to visit the theater then you had to give them an experience that they couldn't get at home on the TV. And with the rise of home theater audio and high def picture, normal 2D pictures just aint gonna cut it for much longer.  Plus, because it requires special projection technology to work right, 3D deals with that pesky piracy problem. Its time has come.

2. Kiss your local video rental shop goodbye.   Doesn't matter if it's a specialty mom and pop or a big chain shop, video rental is dead within the next five years. Dead, dead, dead. Just like vinyl, DVD and BluRay will stick around but film ownership is going to increasingly become a niche market for collectors and those who just want to stockpile the biggest hits. And what's going to kill video? Some people are banking on Internet streaming but the lack of a killer app that allows you to quickly and easily watch downloaded video through your home theater setup pretty much kills that dead - yes, I know it's coming, but it won't arrive soon enough. What is going to kill video rentals - and already is in some markets - is Video On Demand.  VOD has been a bit slow to be adopted here in Canada - surprising, since we're usually early adopters of most new tech - but it's going gangbusters in the US where it has a larger user base and where some companies are already making significantly more coin on VOD than they are on DVD sales.  And why not?  Why on earth would anyone head down to the video store to rent a flick when they can get that exact same movie in the exact same quality without every having to leave the comfort of their own couch, often for less money?  Producers love this - it cuts out manufacturing costs and a few layers of middlemen while guaranteeing they get paid for every viewing - and as available content rises audiences are going to love it more and more as well.

And here's why all the people at the market were really crying.  Markets are populated entirely by middlemen, they make their living by pushing physical product.  And while few of them will say so out loud they all know that their time is coming to an end, that sometime very soon all of the people that actually make the the movies are going to realize that they can - through VOD - sell them directly to the end consumers, thereby cutting out that middle layer of the industry entirely. Meaning there are a whole lot of people who should be dusting off their resumes right about now.