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Stephen Follows

20 stories

Stephen FollowsCinemaPre-order my new book This isn’t a new data study. It’s something I’ve been working on for the past few months, and I’m very proud of it. I’ve made a book with the artist Miriam Elia.

Stephen FollowsCinemaEverything that’s wrong with film finance Over the past year, I’ve been digging into the state of the film finance sector, and a quote from the late 1940s keeps coming to mind.

Stephen FollowsCinemaWould movies treat women differently if more women wrote them? In Die Hard , Holly Gennaro asks Hans Gruber, “ What’s going on? ”, only to receive the less-than-clear response, “ The child is about to touch the stove.

Stephen FollowsCinemaHow much more do Hollywood union bosses earn than their members? Earlier this week, the national board of SAG-AFTRA (the actors’ union) voted to keep Duncan Crabtree-Ireland in charge until June 2032 and to add ‘CEO’ to his title.

Stephen FollowsCinemaThe film finance numbers nobody shows you The question I get asked most is how to raise the money needed to make a film. My stock answer usually starts with asking if they are looking for funding or financing.

Stephen FollowsCinemaDo the sound Oscars just go to the film with the most explosions? A few weeks ago I went to a screening of American Graffiti at the ActOne Cinema in Acton, followed by a Q&A in which Mark Kermode chatted with Walter Murch .

Stephen FollowsCinemaHow many films get into top festivals with nobody behind them? One of the biggest forces in the film industry (beyond familial nepotism ) is your professional network.

Stephen FollowsCinemaHow accurate are the numbers studios use to greenlight films? A few weeks ago, Digger , starring Tom Cruise and directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu , took just $8m in the US and Canada during the opening weekend.

Stephen FollowsCinemaDoes Film Twitter only share the good reviews? Last week, I got sent a tweet accusing DiscussingFilm of never posting the Rotten Tomatoes score for a new Universal film, or a single negative review, implying Universal had paid them off.

Stephen FollowsCinemaHow many shots are in the average movie today? Last night I had the absolute pleasure of watching American Graffiti (1973) at the ActOne Cinema in Acton, and then listening to Mark Kermode quiz Walter Murch about how he built its sound.

Stephen FollowsCinemaA data-led investigation into the on-screen height of Tom Cruise Another Film Data Scientist video investigation into a pressing topic of our time. This time - how tall is Tom Cruise, really?

Stephen FollowsCinemaDoes IMDb undercount the films women go to see? On Friday, two new films opened in US cinemas. Verity , the Anne Hathaway thriller, went straight to number one with an estimated $32.6m over the weekend.

Stephen FollowsCinemaWhich films are hardest to predict at the box office? Digger , starring Tom Cruise, opens today. Apparently it cost $125 million to make, but Deadline’s current tracking estimates its ‘domestic debut prospects’ at ‘around $20M’ .

Stephen FollowsCinemaHow long do film distributors last? A few days ago, a new UK film distributor, True Brit Entertainment , went into administration. It had been launched under three years ago , intending to co-finance $150m of British films.

Stephen FollowsCinemaAre claims of mid-budget movies disappearing true? On 21 September, Paramount Skydance settled an antitrust case with California and 11 other states and agreed to an unusual deal. After it merges with Warner Bros.

Stephen FollowsCinemaHow many film festivals pay cash prizes? As with all the best questions I answer, this one came from Ted Hope . Ted sat on the Debut film jury at the recent Venice Film Festival and emailed to ask: I was surprised to learn that the Venice…

Stephen FollowsCinemaWhy we stopped going to the movies Part of my long-term mission is to foster a broader culture of data-led, fact-based discussions of film. Daniel Parris does that so well through his Substack, Stat Significant .

Stephen FollowsCinemaIs the teal and orange look over in movies? I had the privilege of seeing Terminator 2 in the cinema a few weeks ago, in a 4K restoration released to celebrate its 35th anniversary.

Stephen FollowsCinemaThe most dangerous jobs in movies In my latest Film Data Scientist video, I’m looking at on-screen death rates to figure out how representative movies are of real life.

Stephen FollowsCinemaIs TIFF’s market here to stay? I am writing this as I fly out of Toronto, after spending five days at the film industry’s brand-new major market, TIFF: The Market , attached to the 51st Toronto International Film Festival.

On the calendar

· Trade shows and launch events, this week's stories from each corner of the industry, and what its press is covering.

On view

This week, from that corner the newest stories from the corner of the industry you picked

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How pictures get made in 2026 from the industry's own reports

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About

The small bracket on top of every camera, from a phone rig to an ARRI.

The hot shoe is where the flash goes, and the microphone, and the monitor, and whatever the next decade bolts on. Every camera has one and nobody photographs it. This magazine is named after it because that is where the whole business meets: the body, the glass, the light, the sound, and the person holding it.

I shot news in Gothenburg for nine years and documentary for hire after that, then stopped taking assignments to write about the tools. Since 2021 I live in Tokyo, ten minutes from the used-camera shops of Shinjuku, which is not an accident: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Ricoh and Sigma make almost everything worth pointing at a subject, and their own press writes about it first, in Japanese. So this magazine reads it there, and in German, French, Italian and Spanish, and in English from the reviewers who actually put a card in the slot — around eighty sources and thirty channels, counted and plotted so you can see what is moving.

Bodies and lenses, cinema cameras and drones, film and the darkroom, firmware and the software that finishes the picture, the rumours before the launch and the reviews after it, and the photographers and shows the rest of it is for. I test what I write about on a job before a word goes down. I shoot film on Sundays and do not think that makes me interesting.

A story here is a headline, a short excerpt, one picture and the link to whoever reported it. We never reprint the article, and the picture belongs to the photographer or the maker. A story written in Japanese appears in Japanese, as its author set it down; the link goes to the original.

— Mara Lindqvist, Tokyo