Doing Research on the European
Film Industry
Huw Jones
University of York
Project description
•
Our experience of other Europeans is heavily
mediated through film and TV drama.
– Which European films and TV drama actually
travel well within Europe?
– How do these represent other Europeans?
– How do audiences engage with such screen
fictions?
•
Need to understand the funding, production,
distribution, dissemination and policy
circumstances which enable European films
and TV drama to be made and circulate.
•
Study therefore combines Europe-wide
overview with detailed national case-studies for
the period 2005-2015.
Research team
My role on the project
•
Joined in January 2014 as part of the team
responsible for studying European film
•
Gathering data from public databases (e.g.
LUMIERE), film agency reports (e.g. Focus
Market Trends), trade press (e.g. Screen Daily)
and interviews with industry players
•
Analysing data on trends in the production,
distribution and circulation European film
•
Blogs and working papers:
–
–
–
–
Circulation of European films
Foreign Language European Films in UK Cinemas
Profiling Film Audiences in Europe
UK-Europe Co-productions
European co-productions
• Films produced by two or more
production companies from different
countries.
• Supported by a range of policy incentives
– e.g. European Convention on
Cinematographic Co-Production
• Research questions:
– How widespread are COP in the UK?
– What are the different kinds of UK/EUR COP?
– How creative and/or financial input does the
UK’s COP partner have?
– How well do UK COP films perform on the
European market?
The Wind that Shakes the Barley, A Ireland / UK /
Germany / Italy / Spain / France / Belgium /
Switzerland co-production
Source of industry data
•
BFI Statistical Yearbooks:
–
•
UK Film Council database:
–
•
cinema audience in EUR36, territories released,
director, producing countries, distributor
IMDb:
–
•
producing countries, production companies,
territory of shoot, director, screenwriter, lead
cast, sales agent, UK distributor, genre
LUMIERE database:
–
•
trends in number of UK co-productions, UK
spend, budget, territory of shoot, official coproductions
genre, awards, critic and audience approval,
production companies, casts and crew, budget,
release dates and territories
Trade press/interviews
–
Background to the production, financing,
distribution deals, release strategy
Challenges
•
Gathering data:
– Availability of statistical data (e.g. VoD sales figures)
– Access to key industry personnel
– Language and cultural barriers
•
Data validation:
– Accuracy of data (e.g. missing country data)
– Consistency of data (e.g. country of origin)
•
Analysing data:
– Computing skills (e.g. Excel, SPSS)
– Advanced statistical tests
– Technical knowledge (e.g. legal terminology, tax systems)
•
Disseminating findings:
– Permission to use data
Conclusion
• An understanding the film industry is essential to making
sense of the cultural significance of European film
• But film researchers face key challenge of gathering,
validating, analysing and disseminating industry data
• More investment required in developing key skills (e.g.
quantitative data analysis) and technical know-how (e.g.
finance, tax systems, contract law)