A slightly unorthodox post, this one. I want to draw attention to the comments generated by the earlier post about Peter Bloore’s independent film value chain paper. In writing the paper (which was published on the UK Film Council's web site a few weeks back), Peter hoped to spark discussion of the issues raised. The post is already one of the most widely read to appear on this blog, and some readers have seen fit to comment, including Peter himself. If you’re interested and have not already clocked the discussion you can revisit it here (feel free to join in- the more the merrier).
Readers of the earlier post will recall that one of the ideas advanced in the paper is that different players add value to a film during its life cycle. Bloore’s model includes film critics as players in the ‘consumption’ link of the chain, and I was intrigued to find a new online service has been launched in the US that quantifies the critical reception of movies, thereby shedding fresh light on this process.
MovieReviewIntelligence.com, launched earlier this year by David Gross (who has 25 years of movie marketing experience at 20th Century Fox, National Research Group, Walt Disney Studios, MGM/UA and HBO), analyses critical notices in 65 US and Toronto publications and broadcasts.
The result is a suite of quantitative and qualitative information describing how positive the reviews are for a given title, the degree of variance among that title’s reviews, the coverage, volume, and length of those reviews, along with an estimate of the dollar value the reviews would be worth if their print space and airtime were bought like advertising.
In other words, the service provides ways to quantify various aspects of the value added by film critics during the consumption stage. The site explains the methods used in some detail, and the results are very accessible once you become accustomed to the format. Best of all, the service is free and I understand the company has plans to extend coverage to reviews in UK-based publications in future, which is a very welcome prospect.
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