Heute geht es um meinen jüngsten London-Aufenthalt, diverse Treffen mit Filmfrauen und eine neue Unterkunft für Künstler*innen im Nordosten der Stadt. Und es gibt viele Fotos.
London
London ist eine tolle Stadt, die ich früher regelmäßig besucht habe, allerdings leider zuletzt vor mehr als zehn Jahren. Deshalb gab es für mich viel Altes und Neues zu entdecken, und dazu noch die Nachwellen des kurz zuvor stattgefundenen Brexit-Referendums, – wobei in London mit 60 % mehrheitlich pro EU gestimmt wurde. Die meiste Zeit verbrachte ich mit beruflichen oder SchspIN-Treffen, die ja auf ne Art auch beruflich (Weiterlesen – Read On)
I am regularly asked why I haven’t been to my local pub’s karaoke night any more since February.
One reason for this is the publication of a list with Germany’s 100 top grossing films 2015 by the FFA / German Federal Film Board during the Berlinale Berlin International Film Festival in February. Since then I have been evaluating the list in my spare time, assessing the share of women for 12 team positions, or rather the persons in charge. That shouldn’t be too many film people and they certainly all deserve a public mention (which would make my research easier at the same time). But unfortunately they are rarely listed completely in any of the film data bases I use – filmportal, crew united and IMBD. Sometime it’s even a little ironic when the first manager is missing but the put the names of the location and set manager and the assistant to the (not mentioned) unit manager. Luckily however I am able to close most gaps by checking the films’ official websites, calling the production companies or browse the archive of casting-network for missing casting directors.
In some cases the gaps remain empty, for example because animated films don’t use a costume designer or a unit manager, and documentaries don’t need casting directors. On the other hand there were cases with more than one person for a category, for example producers or script writers, DoP or music, so in the end I probably came up with more than 1,200 names.
(Sometimes the information on a team position would differ in the different sources, and despite working as dilligently as I can on all this I cannot rule out own errors, but I hope they are unnoticeably small, I do recalculate everything more than twice. Still, no liability assumed!)
Anyway, halfway through this data assembling I thought it would be nice to compare the 2015 with that of 2014, so I did some additional research because for that year I had investigated less team positions (The Top German Films 2014). And for 2012 and 13 (The Top Grossing German Films 2012: Comedy over Crime and A Bad Year for Female Directors – the 100 Top Grossing Films 2013) I raised the evaluated team positions from 3 (director, script writer, producer) to 6.
And therefore it’s now the end of May already.
The Evaluation
Which team positions are investigated in the 6-, 11- or 12-departments-checks?
In 2015 the most films by female (46,2 %) and male directors (40,2 %) belong to the genrefeature film / comedy. In second positions it’s feature film / drama (23,1 % / 22,0 %) followed by documentaries (15,4 % / 8,5 %). If we sum up all children’s film genres (adventure, animated, drama, fantasy-mystery, comedy) they take third place (15,4 % / 17,1 %).
The by far highest shares of women can be found in costume design and casting. At the same time these are the only investigated positions with a female majority. For casting it’s > 75 % for the Top 100 films 2012 to 15 and for costume design >70 % for 2014 and 15. In all other departments the female share remains below 40 %. For 8 of 12 departments the share of women for the Top 100 films remains below 30 % (director, 1st assistant director, producer, 1st unit manager, DoP, editor, sound, music).
Camera / DoP: here we find the most distinct difference when we compare the top 20 and top 100 films for all four years. Sonja Rom (SAPHIRBLAU, 2014) was the only female DoP to be found in the Top 20, for the four Top 100 groups the share of female DoPs is between 6 and 8,7 %.
Editing! Again, in 2015 the share of female editors is surprisingly low (Top 20: 4,2 to 18,2 %, Top 100: 29,4 to 31,5 %). As a reference we can take the share of female editors in their union (61,7 %) or in the crew united database (37,2 %). In some earlier investigations of groups of TV-films resulted in values between 45 and 60 % (Top 20 TV films and German TV awards nominations 2012 and 13). So what is going on? In analogous times film editing was traditonally a woman’s job (at least in Germany). So how come the men pushed them aside? Are men better at digital stuff, especially for commercially successful fllms? Do male directors prefer working with male editors? There is a difference between the share of female cutters in films directed by women (2014 / 15: 56,6 % / 38,5 %) and by men (22,2 % / 31,9 %). Definitely a topic for further investigation.
10 women and 20 men are responsible for the scripts of the 20 top grossing films 2015. The share of women (33,3 %) is much higher than in preceding years and also higher than that of the top 100 films 2015. So indeed women are able to (co-)write successful stories. And not only scripts for children (children / adventure), they also turn up in the top 20 in the genres feature film / comedy, feature film / drama, children / anime and feature film / action (categories as used by FFA).
In comparison: the share of female script writers in the crew united database is 36,9 % and 40,2 % in their union (also refer to It’s the Men that write the Scripts).
In films with a female director the share of female DoPs, editors and sound mixers is considerably higher, the share of female scriptwriters is more than 55 %. Female directors realized own scripts more often than male directors.
Male directors were involved as co-writers more often, frequently in teams of 3 or more. The share of female scriptwriters in male directors’ films for 2014 / 15 was as low as 20,1 % / 14,4 %!
In 2015 male directors had worked with female assistant directors in 74,2 % of their films (female directors: 36,4 %). In 2014 however, with only 26,3 % of it was way below the value for the female directors collaboration with female assistant directors (40 %), based on this no trends can be derived.
Of all films that were nominated in any of the categories of the German Film Awards 2016, in addition to costume design and casting the set designers and editors also had female shares of (roughly) 50 %. In 2015 other than costume design and casting only the female assistant directors reached more than 50 %. The shares of female script writers for all the films included in the nominations were rather low (2015 – 20,7 %, 2016 – 32 %), and below their average in the industry.
29,5 % of the individuals nominated and 26,3 % of the winnersof the German Film Awards 2016 were women.
Some Perspectives
We regularly hear and read from the UK or USA that women speak about being discrimanted against in the film industry, – this is something not happening in Germany. By that I don’t mean that women are not disadvantaged, but the don’t taok about this in public, neither about receiving less pay or having less working opportunities. This is understandable, since there is an undeniable risk that they might harm themselves by doing so. But it does not have to depend on the individual. There are groups and there are statistics. First and foremost thanks to the great lobby work of Pro Quote Regie broadcasters are now talking about female directors being highly underemployed and first quotas and targets have been set. Film funding bodies are discussing ways to end the disregard of female directors in the distribution of funds. More films made by female directors will mean that more projects will employ women behind the camera, at the sound mixer or editing computer, and more female script writers. Films written by women will bring more female characters to the screen and raise the chances for more role diversity and less stereotyping. I am hoping for special funding programmes for female script writers and maybe something like a Pro Quote Script. But it goes beyond that. What will happen if the unions and associations – for example the Editors’ Guild – start engaging in a public gender debate? What would change if the female DoPs would get together?
The ‘generation smartphone’ has shown that technology, videos and sound aren’t something that only men do. How about starting something along the lines of STEM initiatives (science, technology, engeneering and mathematics) targeting girls and young women for the ’men’s domains’ camera, sound and light? And at the same time familiarize boys and young men with ’female fields’ like costume and make-up design? Ideas and initiatives need statistics so that they can ask questions, demand and start changes and monitor them. With my research I want to contribute to this as there are hardly any gendered statistics available for the German film and television industry outside of directing. Of course my data can be used (please name the source!). The other day somebody was talking about actresses and actors in Germany and only qouted US data or statistics relating to the situation of female directors in Germany. This is not very comprehensible because the data is there (e.g. here: A Casting Tool called Neropa). But this is a topic for another day.
Last week at the German Film Awards, actress Iris Berben, president of the German Film Academy, called for “more money for courageous ideas“ and “more women!“ in the German film industry.
Indeed. Let’s employ more women behind and in front of the camera, let’s recognize their work! With all esteem for these two areas (and the casting directors are still waiting for their own German Film Award category): women are capable of a lot more than costumes and casting.
19. May 2016
by SchspIN Comments Off on Theatertreffen 2016: Fast Fifty-Fifty – A Gender-Balanced Theatre Festival?
Aktuell, vom 6. bis 22. Mai, findet das 53. Theatertreffen statt, zu dem wie jedes Jahr die zehn bemerkenswertesten Produktionen der Saison im deutschsprachigen Raum nach Berlin eingeladen wurden.
Laut Theaterstatistik des Bühnenvereins gab es in der Spielzeit 2013/14 an 142 öffentlich getragene Bühnen, das sind Staats-, Stadt- und Landestheater, 1.435 Neuinszenierungen. Dazu kommen etliche weitere Bühnen, beispielsweise das Maxim Gorki Theater, die Berliner Volksbühne oder das Berliner Ensemble, die auch öffentlich gefördert werden, und natürlich die Bühnen im deutschsprachigen Ausland. Das bedeutete also ziemlich viele Theaterbesuche für die siebenköpfige Theatertreffen-Jury (1 F6 M), bis sie sich auf die aus ihrer Sicht „zehn bemerkenswertesten“ geeinigt haben. (übrigens cool, dass es (Weiterlesen – Read On)
20. April 2016
by SchspIN Comments Off on Drei mal Drei: Ein Rückblick – Three, Three, Three: Best Of SchspIN
SchspIN: Ein Inhaltsverzeichnis – SchspIN: A Register
English Version in Black – Deutsche Fassung in Blau.
Heute vor drei Jahren, drei Monaten und drei Tagen ging das Blog SchspIN online. Seit dem habe ich 85 Beiträge veröffentlicht. Amzweiten Geburtstaghabe ich eine Zusammenstellung und Kategorisierung gemacht. Heute gibt es eine Aktualisierung. Three years, three months and three days ago today the blog SchspIN went public. Since then I have published 85 texts. On SchspIN’s second birthday I published a categorization of the texts, this is an update.
For readers old and new, here’s looking back on three years, three months, three days’ blogging, in an incomplete and unsorted way. Every text is (Weiterlesen – Read On)
Alles Neue, alles Riskante richtete sich immer gegen die Vorstellung von Qualität, jede neue filmische Bewegung hat sofort gegen die handwerklichen Regeln verstoßen. Jutta Brückner. Drehbuchautorin, Regisseurin, Produzentin. Quelle: Pro Quote Regie
Im Januar habe ich Neropa, meinen Vorschlag für mehr Geschlechter- und Rollenvielfalt auf Besetzungslisten, vorgestellt (Das Besetzungstool Neropa) und seitdem viele Gespräche über diese Methode geführt. Heute werde ich auf einige Gegenargumente eingehen. Außerdem wird es ein Preisausschreiben geben.
Zur Erinnerung: es gibt deutlich mehr Männer- als Frauenfiguren im Deutschen Film, im Deutschen Fernsehen. Die Frauenrollen weisen keine ähnlich breite Streuung (Weiterlesen – Read On)
19. February 2016
by SchspIN Comments Off on Die Berlinale und die Frauen – No Future without a Past?
Die Berlinale und die Frauen – Keine Zukunft ohne Vergangenheit?
Am 18. Februar fand zum vierten Mal während der Berlinale eine Veranstaltung vom Internationalen Frauenfilmfestival Dortmund / Köln statt, wie im Vorjahr im Familienministerium BMFSFJ. Diesmal unter dem Titel:
NEROPA – NEutrale ROllen PArität: Ein Weg zu mehr Rollenvielfalt
„Das Beste an einem Film ist sich mit den Figuren identifizieren zu können.” Geena Davis, US-amerikanische Schauspielerin. GDIGM.
„Ich glaube NEROPA würde ein hervorragendes Hilfsinstrument für die Verbesserung der Geschlechterverteilung bei Film- und Fernsehbesetzungen sein. Es hat das Potenzial, besonders auch die Chancen für ältere Schauspielerinnen zu verbessern, deren Karrieren (Weiterlesen – Read On)
16. January 2016
by SchspIN Comments Off on DRadio Kultur und sein Frauenproblem – When will we get to see some Change?
Heute ist der 16. Januar, mein Blog SchspIN wird 3 Jahre alt und im Hintergrund läuft das Radio: Die Sendung IM GESPRÄCH MIT HÖRERN, in der jeden Samstag zwischen 9 und 11 Uhr ein oder zwei Fachleute über ein aktuelles oder nicht aktuelles Thema mit anrufenden oder emailenden Hörer*innen diskutieren, hat heute das Thema: Flüchtlingspolitik – Wo liegen unsere Grenzen bei der Integration?
Liebe alte und neue Leser*innen meines Blogs – Dear old and new Readers of my blog,
hoffentlich hattet Ihr 2015 auf SchspIN alle eine gute Zeit. I hope you all had a good time on SchspIN in 2015.
Wenn Euch meine Arbeit gefällt, freu ich mich, wenn Ihr das Blog abonniert und es oder einzelne Artikel weiterempfehlt. Und wenn Ihr ganz andere Meinungen vertretet oder Fragen habt oder oder sonstwelche Anmerkungen loswerden wollt: sehr gerne doch! Ich freu mich auf Eure Kommentare. If you like my work I’d appreciate it if you follow this job and recommend it or single articles to others. And if you disagree with my views or have questions or any other remarks, let’s have them! Looking forward to your comments.
Wir sehen uns im Neuen Jahr. Guten Rutsch und beste Grüße! We’ll meet again soon. Very best wishes for a great 2016!
Germany’s Top Cop Drama 2015 and a Vision for 2016
Only two more new TATORT / CRIME SCENE (Germany’s top cop drama) will be screened this year, on December 26 and 27. Information on these 90 minute TV movies is already provided on the ARD channel’s website – main cast and a few crew members, and all this year’s others are available in an archive (Alle Fälle / All Cases), so I am able to present an analysis of the 40 TATORT premieres of 2015 today – and to make a suggestion for 2016.
The TATORTs 2015 Behind the Camera: Directing, Script and Camera
It looks like more than one person is filling in the information on the ARD TATORT website, at least what and how information is given for the films varies, sometimes you get only director and script writer, most times DoP and composer as well. The number of cast members differs.
Most strikingly, the hiring of female directors of photography hit an all time low. Not one single womanfilmed a TATORT. Or to put it the other way around: all 40 TATORTs were filmed from a man’s point of view, or to be precise, from 30 men’s points of view. Camerawomen do exist, including those with TATORT experience, in 2012 for example 1 in 5 were filmed by a woman. The share of women for script writing was also quite low with 14 %in 2015, this is not a good value genderwise (86 % of the plots were written by men), neither as far as employment policies go, women account for roughly 40 % of script writers in the industry (41,7 % in the Script Writers’ Guild and 36,9 % in the database of crew united). Some TATORTs were written by teams of two which led to 50 authors for the 40 scripts, but actually it was 7women and 36 men, since some appeared more than once. The share of female directors in 2015 was 10 %, 3 women – Claudia Garde(twice), Dagmar Seume and Nicole Weegmann– directed 4 TATORTs. The remaining 36 films were directed by 32men.
The first two graphs show the team positions directing, script and DoP for the years 2011 to 15, on the left grouped by profession, on the right grouped by year.
The TATORTs 2015 In Front of the Camera: Female and Male Roles / Main Cast
We find an average of 12,5 roles for each of the 40 new TATORTs 2015 on the ARD website (which is not the complete cast of course), on average 4,7female and 7,8 male roles, in a ratio of 1 to 1,7.
There were two TATORTs with the same number of roles for women and men, and two with more women (6 to 5 and 3 to 2 respectively). The remaining 36 TATORTs had a male characters majority, eleven had at least twice as many male over female parts, five had at least three times as many and one had four times as many males (3 to 12).
The following graph shows the percentage shares of female and male characters for the TATORTs 2011 to 15. Unfortunately the website contained no information on the size of the roles, but the persistance of the male dominance in the main cast over the five years is significant as it is.
More than 60 % of the parts were given to men. Year after year. We are oh so used to this. If we look at similar pictures for too long we run the risk of getting rather accustomed to them, of taking them as unchangeable truths, – this is what happened with maps and globes that are northwardly oriented. Of course this is not a truth, just an agreement, a tradition, picturing the earth and everything on it in maps with the North pointing upwards and the South pointing down, with all negative side effects. What would happen if this were changed, if for example the United Nations would proclaim the year of the southward maps, if they would ask of all member countries to orientate their maps to the south, and have that as the all defining cardinal direction. What would happen if a majority of states would then change their official maps etc, for example the weather chart on public television, the global map in the background at a press conference by the government, or the map of public transport in a major city? This would literally turn the world as we know it upside down.
According to ARD’s director of progamme Volker Herres , 20 %of the TATORTs shall be directed by women within the next three years. No set gender target was announced for the TATORT scripts or for the TATORT look, the DoP position. The gender distribution of the roles, their characterization and the plots were not a topic for discussion yet either as far as I know. But then how is the men’s programme TATORT to change into one for everybody?
The New Year is nearly upon us and so is Christmas. This is a good time for resolutions, wishes and believing in miracles. So:
What if…
Some call it visionary, some call it setting a target, some call it a challenge. I am going to paint a picture. No inversion of the present state, not even a fair compromise like a 50:50 situation. No, I am keeping this low-key. I will show you the statistics for 2011-16 if next year the following parameters are met:
The roles’ gender diversity will reflect the ratio of women and men in the population
The share of women and men directors will correspond to the shares for female and male graduates from the film schools.
The share of women among script writers will correspond to their presence in the industry.
It is easier to get used to changes if you can visualize these changes, so therefore I have completed the above used graphs for the upcoming year accordingly. So here are the new – feasible – pictures:
Casting: If we take the same number of characters for the main cast in 2016 as was published for 2015, then women would be cast 254instead of 186times and men 245 instead of 313 times. Aditional actresses are available. So it’s feasible. In case you are bothered by the fact that in the left graph the blue column in 2016 is slightly taller than the pink one: On Dec. 31, 2014 the female population in Germany was slightly larger than the male. Did you find the gap between the two columns in the five preceding years irritating as well?
Directing: In order to achieve a 42 % share of female directors (this is the female share of film school graduates), 17of 40 TATORTs would need to be directed by women. This is quite a leap from the 4female directors in 2015. But there’s a first time for everything. The directors’ guild has 132 female members (in 2014), and in the crew united database 323 female directors are officially registered (June 4, 2014), the appeal by Pro Quote Regie has been signed by 325 female directors (Dec 22, 2015). So feasible.
Script: As we hear all the time: there is no such thing as the TATORT, no such thing as the TATORT plot, no such thing as the TATORT characters. However, as a rule, it’s men that devise the films, a ratio of 75 to 90 % was the rule for the TATORTs 2011-15. What will change when more scripts are written by women? We will be able to find out in 2016, wenn women get 40 %of the script jobs. On June 4, 2014 there were 94female scriptwriters officially registered in the crew united database, 17 will be needed for the TATORTs 2016. Feasible.
Director of Photography: As mentioned, 2015 saw nocamerawoman for a TATORT. Between 2011 and 2014 there had been eight, filming a total of 18 TATORTs with eightfemale and eleven male directors. So if four additional camerawomen are found for 2016 on top of the eight, then the 30 %quota is reached. Or each of the eight gets to film two TATORTs, then – for 40 films – there would even be a camerawomen quota of 40 %. Feasible.
On top of that there are the synergetic effect: once the 42 %female directors are established the 30 % camerawomen won’t be that far away since female directors work more often with female DoP than their male colleagues do. Female scriptwriters on the whole write less male dominated plots, so the Vision Cast with more female roles should not be that difficult to reach when there are considerably more female writers at work. The world of the TATORT would not be turned upside down, well, maybe just a little bit.
An actor colleague and sort of older twin brother, Til Schweiger (we share the same birthday) suggested a while ago that the title music for the TATORTs should be modernized.
My vision for 2016 is taking this modernization one step further. What unknown treasures could lie ahead of us?
