Download “Writers and directors of film and TV/SVOD fiction - 2015-2023 figures”

A new edition of the report “Writers and directors of film and TV/SVOD fiction - 2015-2023 figures” has just been published by the European Audiovisual Observatory, part of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. The report analyses almost 36 000 writers and directors involved in European theatrical films and TV/SVOD fiction produced in Europe between 2015 and 2023.

This new report finds that:

• Most European films are written and directed by the same professional.
• More than 40% TV/SVOD fiction directors also directed a theatrical film.
• Unlike their TV/SVOD fiction counterparts, theatrical film writers and directors are subject to large turnover, partly due to the high share of debut films produced each year.
• Therefore, TV/SVOD fiction writers and directors work more often.

Persistence of the (theatrical) film d’auteur model

77% of European theatrical films involved a writer who also directed the film. This means, on the one hand, that 48% of screenwriters between 2015 and 2023 only wrote one or more films that they also directed and, on the other hand, that only 55% of screenwriting jobs are allocated to screenwriters who are not also directors.

Conversely, in TV/SVOD fiction, the roles of writer and director are almost always distinct: only 11% of professionals who have made at least one TV/SVOD fiction film or episode of a series only made a fiction film that they both wrote and co-directed.

TV/SVOD directors are also active in theatrical films

A significant proportion (43%) of all TV/SVOD fiction directors active between 2015 and 2023 have directed at least one theatrical film at some point, including 30% between 2015 and 2023.

Conversely, as there are many more directors active in theatrical films than in TV/SVOD fiction, only a small proportion of theatrical film directors have also worked for TV/SVOD fiction.

Impressive turnover in theatrical films

Looking back, 44% of the film writers of 2015 and 42% of the films directors of 2015 have never worked again since then, either as writer or director, be it in theatrical film or in TV/SVOD fiction. The picture is very different for TV/SVOD fiction, where 85% of 2015 TV/SVOD writers and 90% of 2015 TV/SVOD directors continued to work, the vast majority working only in TV/SVOD fiction and in the same role.

More assignments in TV/SVOD shared between a smaller number of professionals

TV/SVOD assignments are proportionally distributed between fewer active professionals than film assignments. Working in TV/SVOD fiction implies more recurrence, with certain series running for several seasons. Conversely, the field of theatrical films seems structurally open to newcomers (on average, between 2015 and 2023, 51% of the theatrical film directors active in a given year directed their first theatrical film).

This translates into a very different level of activity between the two content categories: between 2015 and 2023, theatrical film writers wrote 1.4 films vs. 2.8 for TV/fiction films or seasons for TV/SVOD writers (excluding seasons with more than 52 episodes).