How long does a film take to recoup?
Today I am answering a question from a reader who got in contact to say “I am working on a project right now and the investors are asking how long it will take to get their money back. Have you any idea what percentage of total lifetime revenues the average movie earns in Year 1, […]
How many people work on a movie?
I have been contacted by a number of readers asking how many people have lost work due to the cancellation of film productions. Sadly, the complexity of the industry means I cannot calculate the exact number of people unemployed. However, it is possible to look at how many people would typically work on a feature […]
Analysing half a million reviews of British cinemas
As I write this, we’re in turbulent times due to the outbreak of COVID-19. It’s far from clear what the outcome will be on the overall film economy, but already we can see one area which is being hit hard – cinemas. A mix of fear of infection and government mandates mean that projector lights […]
Does one page of a film script really equal one minute of screentime?
A few weeks ago, John August dropped me an email which included a simple question: “How accurate is the page-per-minute rule of thumb?” The rule John is referring to is that a film based on a (properly formatted) 90-page screenplay will be roughly 90 minutes long. This is useful to a number of people, including; […]
What percentage of screenwriters write a second movie?
Last week, I looked at the average number of credited screenwriters on movies. This gave me an insight into how many scripts were written by just one person, and how many were written as part of a team or chain of writers. The same data on screenwriting credits can reveal other aspects of what it’s […]
How many screenwriters does it take to write a movie?
Over the next few weeks, I am aiming to answer a number of readers’ questions around screenwriting. To do so, I have built a dataset of all live-action feature film movie credits over the past seventy years, covering over 280,000 movies and 145,000 people. We’re going to start with a straightforward question and in the […]
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 […]