Dr Shelley Cobb, Prof Linda Ruth Williams, Dr Natalie Wreyford (2019), Calling the Shots: Women editors on UK-‐‑qualifying films 2003-‐‑2015,
http://womencallingtheshots.com
1
Calling the Shots: Women editors on UK-‐‑qualifying films 2003-‐‑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) Women made up just 16% of editors on the 3,452 British qualifying film productions between 2003 and 2015. That’s a total of just 617 women out of a total of 3820 editors.
There has been little change in the percentages of women editors in production on British qualifying films since 2003. Overall, the inclusion of women in this key role has never again reached the level of 2003 (the earliest year for which the BFI have records). In 2003 22% of editors were women, in 2015 it was only 17%, up a little from the previous year where only 14% were women. Editors are often perceived as a profession where women do better than in other key filmmaking roles, such as director or cinematographer, but our results show that the participation of women as editors of British-‐‑qualifying films is still pitifully low and showing no sign of improving.
Total % of editors 2003-‐‑2015
Men
Women
Unknown
Calling the Shots: Women and Contemporary UK
Film Culturehttps://womencallingtheshots.com
Calling the ShotsWomen and Contemporary UK Film
Culture
Dr Shelley Cobb, Prof Linda Ruth Williams, Dr Natalie Wreyford (2019), Calling the Shots: Women editors on UK-‐‑qualifying films 2003-‐‑2015,
http://womencallingtheshots.com
2
BAME Women
As we have found throughout our research, the situation for BAME women is extremely poor, but for editors, the opportunities for BAME women appear to be worst of all. Just 33 of the women editors were identified as BAME (2% of all women editors, less than 1% of all editors).
Since the percentages are so low, the following charts present the actual number of BAME women working as editors in the UK by racial background:
22 19 19 16 15 18 16 14 13 14 17 14 17
77 81 81 83 84 82 84 85 86 86 83 85 82
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Percentages of editors by year 2003-‐‑2015
Unknown
Men
Women
Calling the Shots: Women and Contemporary UK
Film Culturehttps://womencallingtheshots.com
Calling the ShotsWomen and Contemporary UK Film
Culture
Number of women editors 2003-‐‑2015
White women
Black women
South Asian women
East Asian women
Unknown
Calling the Shots: Women and Contemporary UK
Film Culturehttps://womencallingtheshots.com
Calling the ShotsWomen and Contemporary UK Film
Culture
Dr Shelley Cobb, Prof Linda Ruth Williams, Dr Natalie Wreyford (2019), Calling the Shots: Women editors on UK-‐‑qualifying films 2003-‐‑2015,
http://womencallingtheshots.com
3