Recent articles on the Film Data Blog
Each week I look at a different film industry topic, focusing on the data and
statistics to reveal what’s really going on.
Do more experienced directors make longer movies?
Last week I was teaching a group of early-stage filmmakers and the topic of running time came up. Filmmakers often feel limited by the demands on them to make shorter movies. The indie film market doesn’t favour longer movies (partly because cinemas hate long movies) and due to the fact that a longer running time […]
Is movie casting dominated by a small number of women?
Last week I had a (good-natured) email exchange with a reader who asked a follow-up question to my piece entitled ‘Are movies dominated by a small number of old male composers?’. The research found that 95% of film composers were men, and that just the top 20 film composers accounted for 48.2% of box office […]
Are film critics losing sync with audiences?
A few weeks ago I was contacted by a journalist at the New York Times, who asked if I felt that film critics were losing touch with the tastes of the broader public. Naturally, I turned to the data to have a look at what’s going on. I built up a database of 10,449 movies […]
Is the use of film pre-visualisation on the rise?
A single shot within a modern Hollywood blockbuster can be incredibly complex, take years to create and require the coordination of hundreds of people around the world. To ensure that shots are created on time, on budget and as the director intended, they need to plan out every detail before anything is actually shot. Hand-drawn […]