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What percentage of a UK film crew is female?

August 24, 2014 11 comments

Last month, I published a report into what percentage of crews on the top US grossing films of the past 20 years are women.  I found that, on average, women made up only 23% of a typical film crew and in some jobs such as cinematography and composing, it was around 2%. The results were reported widely and sparked a healthy debate about the causes and what, if anything, should be done.  

One consequence was that I was asked by a number of people what the situation is in the UK. This project was far too large to fit into a single blog post, so I’ve written it up as a PDF report. It spans 17 pages and breaks down the results in much …

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What percentage of a film crew is female?

July 22, 2014 41 comments

Today I am releasing the results of a long-term project. For a while, I’ve been looking at the numbers behind female film crew members over the past 20 years.

The results are pretty shocking, and should hopefully serve as a wake up call to parts of the industry.  I don’t believe that the majority of the industry is fundamentally sexist or anti-women but when you look at these results, especially over time, it’s plain to see that something is wrong and it isn’t fixing itself.

Download the full report now, for free. This project was far too large to fit into a single blog post, so I’ve written it up as a PDF report. It spans 16 pages and breaks down the results in much more detail. The …

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How good are movies which pass the Bechdel Test?

April 7, 2014 4 comments

I should start this article with a personal note – I don’t like what I’ve found. I always try to approach data impartially and not look for certain results. Inevitably, this sometimes leads to results which challenge my beliefs or my opinions.  I am a firm believer that the representation of women on screen is often woefully poor and needs addressing.

Last week the guys at FiveThirtyEight published a great analysis of the box office performance of films which pass the Bechdel Test. My first thought was ‘damn’ as I have also been working on a similar study. They have been extremely thorough and it’s well worth reading their article. In order to avoid repeating their work I have shifted my research …

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Do women in film have a harder time than men?

March 6, 2014 4 comments

This is the fourth of ten articles revealing the results of my survey of 1,235 film industry professionals. More details of the survey and my methodology can be found here and for any questions or clarification please contact me.

If you would like to read the full survey results right now then sign up for my email mailing list. I’ll send you the full 25 page PDF report entirely free. You’ll also get updates on my weekly blog articles on film data and statistics. I won’t send you any spam and you can unsubscribe at any time.  Just add your email to the subscription box at the top of this page and you’ll be sent a download link.

Key Findings – Women in film
  • Overall, …
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Do women prefer films made by female filmmakers?

December 18, 2013 8 comments

This is the second of a three part series on gender in the film industry.  The first article was published on Monday and looked at new data I’ve gathered for the global film business. The third article will be published on Friday and is a collation of all the film gender studies I could find.

The blog articles cannot cover all of the information I have gathered so I am creating a PDF report that includes all the gender studies and data. If you want to receive the full 30 page report then please join my free mailing list via the box to the right and I’ll send you the PDF once it’s ready. The report will contain…

  • New data on gender within the global …
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Gender in the International Film Business

December 16, 2013 13 comments

This is the first of a three part series on gender in the film industry, which I’ve wanted to look at for a long time. It’s taken a while to put this together and the end result is three blog posts and a whole heap of graphs. This article looks at new data I’ve gathered for the global film business, the second article looks at film audiences and the final post is a collation of all the film gender studies I could find. The blog articles cannot cover all of the information I have gathered so I am creating a PDF report that includes all the gender studies and data. If you want to receive the full 30 page report …

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