What is happening to Second Unit Directors?
Something strange is happening to the role of second unit director… and I don’t know why. I have crunched the data in a number of different ways and spoken to a fair number of industry insiders but I remain none the wiser as to what’s causing the trend we’ll see today. I don’t normally publish […]
Are virus-based movies spreading?
Today’s topic was suggested by a number of readers, all of whom asked a variation of “What has been the effect of the Coronavirus on movies featuring viral outbreaks?” Most had presumably read the news that the 2011 movie Contagion had (albeit briefly) reached number 10 in the iTunes chart. This is backed up by […]
How well are women represented among short filmmakers?
Last week, I shared research I have conducted into the number of short films made over the past two decades. I focused on live-action shorts which had played at least once at any film festival. While production levels are interesting, they were not the original reason I conducted the project. I was responding to requests […]
How many short films are made each year?
Short films are a medium close to my heart. They provide emerging filmmakers with an opportunity to practice their craft, explore their ideas, meet peers and showcase their abilities to audiences and the industry. There’s nothing quite like watching a festival programme of shorts and being transported to a different vision of reality every ten […]
How often are women hired in key film departments?
In the most recent issue of The Hollywood Reporter, they covered the efforts being made to increase the representation of women in below-the-line roles. As part of this coverage, I was asked to crunch the data on the number of women working in specific film departments. So I built a dataset of all feature films […]
How wide was the theatrical release of ‘The Irishman’?
Martin Scorsese’s new film The Irishman has been ruffling feathers throughout the film industry. Most notably for its unusual release pattern. The film was funded by streaming giant Netflix, meaning that it was available on SVOD just 19 days after it first hit cinema screens. This is a highly unusual ‘collapsing of the theatrical window’. […]
After Die Hard, what’s the next most contentious “Christmas” movie?
Last year, I used a variety of data-led indicators to assess the claim that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. If you don’t want any spoilers as to the result, stop reading this now and head on over to that article. I used three categories of indicators through which a movie’s “Christmasness” could be judged […]
Which famous actors have a worse career than Al Pacino?
In an interview last week, Al Pacino revealed that he enjoys starring in bad movies as he views it as a challenge to improve them to the point of mediocrity. As Al put it… Sometimes they offer you money to do something that’s not adequate. And you talk yourself into it. And somewhere within you, […]
Can the film industry halt the decline of young audiences in cinemas?
Industry watchers (and regular readers) will know that there is an increasing concern in the film business about the declining cinema attendance among young people. Teenagers and young adults have always formed the biggest group of cinema attendees and yet we have seen a decline in many countries in the current decade. Last week, I […]
Why do cinemas hate long movies?
Last week, I was chatting with a cinema owner who was angrily complaining about Martin Scorsese’s new movie, The Irishman. The movie has proved controversial on a number of fronts: It has a very short ‘release window’, thanks to it being entirely funded by Netflix. This means that it will available to stream only 19 […]