Each week I look at a different topic around the film industry, focusing on the data and statistics which reveal what’s going on.
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 […]
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 […]
Last week, I looked at the connection between the quality of a movie and the price of a copy on digital platforms. I found that quality (as measured by IMDb score) doesn’t matter for the first few years of release but after a decade, we can see a clear correlation. This link wasn’t strong enough […]
There are a number of ways an actor may assess how their career is going. They could consider their income, fame, power, time employed, quality of roles/movies, how closely it aligns with their ideal career or if it enables them to buy as many Mongolian dinosaur bones as they feel they need. Another metric is […]
Change in the film industry is often an extremely gradual process. The views of those involved tend to be entrenched and hard to shift. Therefore, how the film industry will operate one year can reasonably be expected to be very close to that of the year before. Not so 2020. The current COVID-19 pandemic has […]
The current pandemic has shut shown pretty much all filming worldwide. As we start to leave this lockdown period, we will need to consider how to restart our industries. Social distancing on a film set will be tricky (albeit not impossible) and some have proposed that crews could quarantine together. However, it’s not just the […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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; […]
