I feel like CGI has increased productivity a lot. Not so much in big, effects driven movies, but in everyday type shots where they can change backgrounds or remove things so they don't need to make big elaborate sets or control environments quite so much. That's my guess at least. Film was also a huge cost of production and especially distribution that's essentially gone now. I think Hollywood unions also add a lot of jobs - look up the job of focus puller sometime.
On the other hand to all the expensive stuff - you can just not do those. I'd take Primer as an example. I believe it was shot for the cost of a Toyota Corolla and became a fairly significant film. I've also seen "low budget" movies (meaning $3-5 million or so) in the last decade or so that probably would not have been possible 20 years or more ago, so I feel like there has been some progress.
> I feel like CGI has increased productivity a lot.
Yeah, but take a look at the massive number of VFX people listed in the end-credits of CGI-heavy films. Often several different companies (e.g. DNEG) each with its own array of artists, modellers, riggers, tech, pipeline engineers, asset developers, IT support, etc etc.
Yep, that's what I mean when I say not so much in big, effects driven films - I suspect those will always consume as much budget as you throw at them because there's always a cutting edge to push. But in smaller and less effect driven films/TV shows, the tech seems to be a net win for productivity.
On the other hand to all the expensive stuff - you can just not do those. I'd take Primer as an example. I believe it was shot for the cost of a Toyota Corolla and became a fairly significant film. I've also seen "low budget" movies (meaning $3-5 million or so) in the last decade or so that probably would not have been possible 20 years or more ago, so I feel like there has been some progress.