Skillset/UK Film Council Feature Film Production Workforce Survey 2008

1.3 Survey development

The launch of the Bigger Future coincided with a feasibility study to explore possible approaches to gathering skills intelligence from film production crew. This led to the first Film Production Workforce Survey[1] for which a population database from crew lists obtained for all productions within scope of the study and shot prior to the study, was built. As these productions had already been shot, and in some cases released, at the time of the survey it was not always possible to gather current crew contact details. In the present survey, contact with crew was made wherever possible via producers whilst the production was being shot, in order to ease the creation of a sample frame.

While in a repeat survey it is desirable to retain the same survey questions and format from year to year, to enable comparable analysis over time, it is not always possible to do so. The first survey asked respondents to reply retrospectively about their previous production work. The present survey asked about the most recent production work, which in many cases was the film production respondents were involved in at the time of the survey. This also assisted recall for respondents, thus minimising the research burden on them. Respondents completing the questionnaire while still working on a production were required to provide projected estimates of factors such as the number of days they worked on the shoot.