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Dr Shelley Cobb, Prof Linda Ruth Williams, Dr Natalie Wreyford (2019), Calling the Shots: Women in key roles on UK-‐‑qualifying films made for less than £0.5m in 2015

http://womencallingtheshots.com 1

Calling the Shots: Women in key roles on UK-‐‑qualifying films made for less than £0.5m in 2015 Report produced by AHRC-‐‑funded research project ‘Calling the Shots: women and contemporary film culture in the UK, 2000-‐‑2015’. The source data for this report is the BFI’s Research and Statistical Unit who provided a list of British-‐‑qualifying films from 2003-‐‑2015. The report analyses six key production roles: director, screenwriter, producer, executive producer, editor and cinematographer. Report authors: Dr Shelley Cobb, Prof Linda Ruth Williams, and Dr Natalie Wreyford (2019) The total number of British qualifying films in production in 2015 was 203. 72 of the films in this category were made for less than half a million pounds; that’s 35% of the total number of films. 15 of those films had no women in any of the key categories, meaning 21% of all films with a budget under £0.5m had only men as directors, screenwriters, editors, cinematographers, producers and exec. producers. This is a similar proportion of films with only men in all six roles in the overall data for 2015 (25%).

79%

21%

Gender of workforce on UK-‐‑qualifying films made for <£0.5m in 2015 across all six key roles

At least one woman

No Women

Calling the Shots: Women and Contemporary UK

Film Culturehttps://womencallingtheshots.com

Calling the ShotsWomen and Contemporary UK Film

Culture



Number of women working on UK-‐‑qualifying films <£0.5m

There were 10 women directors working on the lowest budget films. Of these, one directed alongside a man and one alongside three other men. The total number of women directors working on UK-‐‑qualifying films across all budgets in 2015 was 28. Therefore, over a third of all women directors in 2015 worked at this lowest budget level. All the women directors were white with the exception of one who is East Asian but resident in the UK. Three of the 72 films were made with support of the BFI Film Fund but none of those had a woman director. In fact, one of these 3 films had no women in any of the roles, one had a woman screenwriter and the other had a woman producer. Those two women were the only women involved in these three films across all six key roles. In total there were 22 women screenwriters on the lowest budget films. The total number of women screenwriters across all budgets in 2015 was 59. Therefore, 37% of women screenwriters on all UK qualifying films in 2015 were working at the lowest budget level. This is similar to the 35% of women directors on all UK qualifying films working at the lowest budget level. This is not surprising when you consider that 8 of the 10 women were writer/directors. One other documentary directed by a woman had no credited screenwriter. There were two East Asian screenwriters and the rest were all white. One of these women was the same East Asian woman director and the other was her co-‐‑writer. A significant proportion of women screenwriters (over a quarter) fell into a worrying pattern: a man writer/director and women co-‐‑writer. This could suggest that women are not getting the chance to direct their own work, or that men are coming on board scripts written by women and rewriting them.

1022

10 8

76

17

69 70

4056

107

80

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Numbers of men and women working on films <£0.5m in 2015

Women

Men




Culture



There were 10 women editors working on low budget films. The total number of women editors across all budgets in 2015 was 28. Therefore, 36% of women editors working on UK qualifying films in 2015 worked at the lowest budget level. One of the women editors was East Asian, one was black and the rest were white. One director was her own editor. A total of 8 women cinematographers worked at this low budget, including one of the directors who acted as their own cinematographer. In 2015, the total number of working women cinematographers across all budget levels was 13. This means that a very high proportion of women cinematographers (62%) were employed on the very lowest budget films in 2015. In addition, 4 of the women cinematographers working at the lowest budget level were employed alongside a man cinematographer (50%). In addition, three women cinematographers worked on a film with a woman director (38% of all women cinematographers working at the lowest budget level). All the women cinematographers working in 2015 were white. There were 183 producers working across the 72 films. 76 were women (42%). This is a substantially higher percentage of women producers than is found across all budget levels in 2015 (27%), suggesting that women producers are finding more work at this low budget level and as budgets increase women producers are being squeezed out.

13% 24% 20% 13%42%

18%

87% 76% 80% 87%58%

82%

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%100%

Percentages of men and women working on films <£0.5m in 2015

Men

Women




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In addition:

• 20 films had no women producers (28%) • 37 of the films had both men and women producers (51%) • 10 films had only women producers (14%) • 5 films had no listed producers at all

6 of the women producers were BAME (3% of all producers at the lowest budget level). This is also higher than the number of BAME women working across all budget levels in 2015 (less than 2%). 6 of the films with a woman director had at least TWO women producers (60%). 2 more had one woman producer, one had just one man producer and one had no listed producers. Therefore 80% of the films with a woman director also had at least one woman producer. Women producers, it seems, are very significant in getting women director’s films made at this budget level. 10 of the 19 films with a woman screenwriter had at least TWO woman producers (53%). Another 6 had one woman producer (32%). Therefore 84% of the films with a woman screenwriter had at least one woman producer. Again, women producers appear to be very significant in getting films by women screenwriters into production. Only 17 of the 97 executive producers were women (18%). This is in proportion with the rest of the budget levels in 2015. All of them were white. Only one of these women worked on a film that had no men executive producers. All the other films with a woman executive producer also had men executive producers, although 32 of the films had no executive producers listed (44% of the low budget films).

Producers on UK qualifying films >£0.5m in 2015

All men producers

Men and women producers

All women producers

No listed producers




Culture



Comparing the lowest budget and highest budget A comparison of the very lowest and very highest budget UK films reveals different opportunities for women.

13% 24% 20% 13%42%

18%0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%100%

Dir Scr Ed Cin Prod E. Pro

Films with budgets less than £0.5m

Men

Women




Culture

13% 19%38%

0% 24% 31%0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%100%

Dir Scr Ed Cin Prod E. Pro

Films with budgets greater than £30m

Men

Women




Culture



Women cinematographers find a majority of their work on lower budget films. 62 per cent of all women cinematographers employed on British films in 2015 worked on films with a budget of less than £0.5m. Furthermore, half of these films also had a man cinematographer working with the woman cinematographer. Similarly, women producers are finding more work at this low budget level, and are squeezed out as budgets rise. Executive producers show a greater involvement at high budget level, and editors do particularly well, although the majority of these are not British. No real difference between the level of directors and screenwriters was found, although it should be noted that the lower budget films directed by women included a film with a man co-‐‑director, and one with three men co-‐‑directing. Genres of films <£0.5m Of those 72 low budget films, 20 were documentaries, almost one third. The genres of the fiction films were 12 dramas, 9 thrillers, 9 comedy, 8 horror, 4 crime, 4 action, 3 family and one each of sci-‐‑fi, fantasy and biopic.

However, of the low budget films made by women directors, 4 were documentaries, equating to 40% of low budget films with a woman director. This is much higher than the proportion of documentaries directed by men (23%), suggesting that women are still having a slightly easier time getting documentaries made than fiction films, and particularly at this low budget level. The other films directed by women were one horror, three dramas and two comedies. Men had a chance to direct a more diverse range of genres at this low budget level.

Genres of films <£0.5m in 2015

Documentary Drama

Thriller Comedy

Horror Crime

Action Family

Sci-‐‑Fi Fantasy

BiopicCalling the Shots: Women

and Contemporary UK Film Culture

https://womencallingtheshots.com


Culture



Genre of films directed by women <£0.5m in 2015

DocumentaryDramaComediesHorror




Culture

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