Skillset/UK Film Council Feature Film Production Workforce Survey 2008

1.5 Analysis and presentation

In the majority of cases analysis has been undertaken to see if there are any significant differences in patterns of response in terms of age, gender, ethnic background, whether or not the respondent is disabled, occupational group, contract type, stage of production and region of residence. The small numbers of respondents in some of these sub-groups means some seemingly large differences are not found to be statistically significant. To avoid undue repetition in the text, only those cases where significant differences have been observed are reported, unless the absence of difference is itself an important finding. All statistical tests have used a significance level of α=0.05.

The other main analytical strategy has been to look for any notable differences between comparable results of the first film production workforce survey and the present survey. Two factors should be borne in mind about these comparisons:

• As described in section 1.3, different recruitment methods were used for each survey. In consequence they have different reference periods: The first survey is referred to throughout as the 2005 Film Production Workforce Survey Report, the year it was published. It was based on a questionnaire survey of crew employed on films that began principal photography in 2002, and the survey itself was undertaken in 2004. The reference year for data collection was 2002 (for details about work on a specific film in that year) and 2003 for income data (i.e. the 12 months prior to the survey). The 2007 Film Production Workforce Survey involved a questionnaire survey of crew working on films that began shooting in 2006, and the survey was undertaken in 2006/07.  The reference period is therefore 2005 (for income data) and 2006 (for details about work on a specific film in that year).
  
  
• We cannot rule out the possibility that differences between the two surveys in terms of the composition of the production workforce (and their work and training experiences) may result from the different types of film that were included in each study.

Most tables in this report present percentages, with the number of eligible respondents to that question (the ‘base’) shown below.  This base fluctuates throughout the report as some respondents chose not to respond to every question, and some questions were asked only of particular sub-groups of respondents.

All percentages have been rounded to whole numbers. This may mean that percentages do not always add up to 100%. Values of less than 0.5% are indicated in the text using ‘*’. Missing data are represented in tables using ‘-‘.

Wherever possible, comparisons have been made with data on other audio visual sectors or the whole UK economy. Data from other audio visual sectors come from the 2005 Skillset Survey of the Audio Visual Industries’ Workforce in scope to which are individuals working in the following sectors (excluding film production): broadcast, independent production for TV, facilities (including post production, digital special effects and studio equipment hire), interactive media (including web and internet and offline multimedia), computer games, corporate production, commercials, animation and transmission. Data for the workforce across the entire economy are sourced primarily from the quarterly Labour Force Survey and the 2006 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) reported by the Office for National Statistics.