Working in film – Employment in a project based industry

Abstract

Currently the “creative industries”, especially the British film industry, are receiving much popular attention. The aim of this paper is to present a description and evaluation of employment in the film industry, and through doing so to challenge dominant populist and academic analyses of employment in this sector, as exemplified by the Labour government and a number of British and American academic commentators. These analyses are both premised on the apparent occurrence of an epoch breaking change in society, the balance of economic activity in society and the organisation of work. However, trends in employment practice over recent years, it would appear from the survey evidence and from other sources presented here, have not improved in the manner they could be expected to if such fundamental epochal change had occurred. Rather the data presented here point to much continuity in the employment relationship between capital and labour.