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 […]
Do male and female critics judge films differently?
Last week, a row erupted over a film review in Variety of Carey Mulligan’s new movie Promising Young Woman. In an interview for The New York Times, Mulligan discussed her frustration of reading character descriptions along the lines of “Beautiful but doesn’t know it”, and with the way movies present women as sexual objects for […]
How old is the average film director?
Five years ago I researched the average age of top Hollywood directors. Since then, I have received a number of requests to update and extend the study. Today I am sharing what I found when I looked at the directors behind all theatrically released movies (not just top grossing) and dug a little deeper into […]
Which film jobs have the greatest overlap?
In my previous article, I looked at the number of people who have only worked once in key film jobs and departments across their whole career. A number of readers got in touch to ask how frequently people work in multiple positions across their career. If it were commonplace for people to work within more […]
What percentage of film crew members only work on one film?
Many outsiders to the movie industry would regard the chance to be part of the crew making a movie as a once in a lifetime experience. Little do they know, for the majority of people who actually get that chance, it quite literally is! I have written before about how only about a third of […]
Do film critics punish films with bigger budgets?
Last week, a reader reached out to ask a question around film reviews. They were discussing the critical reaction to Tenet with friends and one suggested that many of the poor reviews were unreliable as they were the typical reaction snotty film critics have towards big-budget movies. The reader asked what the data reveals on […]
Do films with positive messages make more money than those without?
One of the features I love most about movies is their ability to give us shared stories which entertain, inspire and soothe us. And in trying times, this function becomes ever more essential. In the 1940s, musicals provided a colourful escape from war, stories of rebellion in the 1970s gave hope to audiences losing faith […]
How often are screenwriting credits shared?
The Hollywood cliche of a screenwriter is of a troubled genius who struggles valiantly alone to give birth to the highest form of art there is – a movie screenplay. In truth, screenwriting is far more often a collaborative process. Two of the major ways people collaborate on movie scripts are: Teamwork– Teams of writers […]
Are film apprenticeships increasing or decreasing?
Last week, I looked at how jobs in the film industry have shifted over the past two decades. Today, I am turning to a related topic, that of trainees and apprentices. These are programmes for new entrants to the industry in which they receive hands-on training and support while they learn the ropes. They are […]
Which film jobs are increasing and which are decreasing?
Earlier this year, I looked at how many people work on a film, and how that figure has shifted over time (up from around 200 in the year 2000 to around 300 today). This prompted a number of readers to get in contact to ask about the changes in more detail. i.e. which jobs were […]