Perks of Recession?

Baseball ticket sales are up because of recession woes. Why? Cost of time is cheaper when you're unemployed.

Is the related true for movies? It certainly should be - with more free time and less disposable income - movie-going should be an attractive alternative to expensive dinners, vacations, and other leisure activities.

RELATED THOUGHT: I've gotten quite a bit of shit for not completing a short film project I shot in San Francisco the summer before I graduated from film school. I am reminded of it this week as my friend, who acted in the project, is visiting. One of the principal reasons for not yet completing this film is related to opportunity cost. When I returned from the shoot, my employment opportunities increased incredibly. First, I was "promoted" in my SPO position to lead SA which meant more work, I got a side job on a game project, and really started to buckle down on writing my thesis script. Because there was no deadline or financial incentive to finish the SF project, it got put to the side.

The let up did not stop after graduation (although I thought it would). I knew I needed some income to pay rent, so I started a job with Netflix and decided to use my free time to write, thinking the writing, moreso than the short would be the smarter move towards procuring more work. Needless to say, a similar pattern has ensued. Post film school my TIME because more valuable and the project had less RELATIVE value than say a class project which had sunk tuition costs and other benefits - ie grades, etc. that my independent project did not.

ANOTHER RELATED THOUGHT: Hire an editor, you say. Well, actually, Chuck did a first cut of the film. The problem with asking for any more of Chuck's time (or anyone else for that matter) was that it would require money. And despite the opportunity cost of my time increasing, it didn't increase to the point where actually hiring an editor was sensible. But more importantly, I still needed time to give the cut direction - an editor alone could not finish the project. And I wasn't willing to spend that time - yet. Maybe this summer, although it's not as if my time is getting cheaper - on the contrary - it's getting more expensive.