Film-maker Networks

Crew network from years 1923-1939

Who collaborated the most with the other film-makers? Do you recognize recurring patterns or anomalies that you would not have expected? These, and many other questions you can explore with the help of interactive visualisation of film crew networks.

These film-maker networks visualise collaborations of the newsreel film crew. Each point (node) in the network represents an individual who has been participating in newsreel production. The size of the node indicates the number of collaborations of a person: the bigger the node is the more collaborations the person has had. A line connects two individuals if they have been working in the same newsreel. The thicker the line is, the more times the persons have been collaborating with each other. By hovering a mouse over a person, it is possible see the connections of that person, and by clicking the node one can see a list of top-20 collaborators of that individual, where the top consists of people most worked together.

Looking at the data in this way reveals who were the most central figures in newsreel production. Someone intersted in the social aspects and organization of work in the film studios can find interesting patterns in these visualisations. Also, if you are interested in the life story of a film-maker, you can see who were her/his most frequent colleagues in newsreel production, and how these collaborations changed over time.