'Nobody can truly participate in the motion picture business without looking at numbers of all kinds, and especially those numbers which represent the collective and comparative decisions of paying customers.'
Art Murphy, Boxoffice Register
How do you begin to make sense of the bewildering business of film? As good a place as any to start is the huge body of research that has accumulated over the years from industry, public and academic sources. Economic analyses, market research, social and behavioural studies, policy papers...the list goes on. Plus, of course, box office data in its ubiquity: the very lifeblood of the commercial discourse of film, as Art Murphy makes clear.
The good news for anyone who cares to know it is that much of this information is freely available. You've just got to know where to look. And that, in a nutshell, is the modest aim of Bigger Picture Research. Posting since June 2008, BPR provides a place on the web where you can read about the latest in film-related research and chase links to key sources around the world.
BPR posts may be inspired by the publication of new research, or sparked by events in the news that touch on a relevant theme. Inevitably there'll be a UK focus, but I'm happy to range further afield if there's a good story to tell or idea to share.
From November 2010, BPR will take a special interest in UK film policy post-UK Film Council.
This blog is written by Jim Barratt: jim (@) biggerpictureresearch (dot) com
Formerly: Head of Research & Statistics at the UK Film Council, Head of Policy at the Advertising Standards Authority and a Film and Video Examiner at the British Board of Film Classification.
Once chaired the UK Film Research Network, and was a member of the BBFC’s Advisory Panel on Children’s Viewing.
PhD holder, funded by the British Film Institute, and paid up member of BAFTA.
My book about Peter Jackson's feature debut, Bad Taste, part of the Cultographies series, was published by Wallflower Press in December 2008. You can read an exclusive extract here.
I remain hopeful of more books to follow.
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