Posts by webweaver
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Hard News: Do you like what we've done…, in reply to Deborah,
let's see shall we?
Edit: bah - no nesting (though that would be confusing I think - too easy to miss answers to earlier posts once you'd read later ones) - but I like the way it says who I replied to. V helpful!
Love the fonts and the layout too. Great job guys!
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I miss Rod Donald
*sniff*
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Back in the 80s sometime, my mate Donald plucked up the courage to say "hi I really dig your music and your politics" to Paul Weller as he was sitting having a cuppa in a cafe in central London.
Mr Weller gestured at the chair opposite, Donald sat down, and they ended up talking music and politics for the next hour or so. Top bloke, according to my mate Donald.
The Jam was the first punk bank I liked (I remember listening to them on Radio Luxembourg during our summer hols in France in August 1977 in between the endless Elvis tribute songs), and they were a real standout in concert. I finally saw them from the front row at the Birmingham Odeon, 14 November 1978.
I absolutely loved The Style Council too - saw them perform at Rock City in Nottingham in (I think) 1984.
Both The Jam and The Style Council are very well-represented on my ipod - in fact I'm listening to The Style Council as I write this.
I'd love to have seen PW this time around (although, sadly, I'd be one of those old gits begging for all the old songs). I kinda like the way he's kept the same haircut all these years and only the colour has changed. V cool.
Front-runner for my favourite lyrical line of all time - from A Town Called Malice:
And a hundred lonely housewives clutch empty milk bottles to their hearts...
Genius!
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The whole "class war" stuff makes very little sense to me in New Zealand in the 21st century - but I acknowledge that I am not an oppressed worker - I'm a self-employed contractor (absolutely by choice) and so I must be a Chardonnay-swilling liberal from [a nice suburb in Welly] - and therefore I don't count.
However - I just don't think that NZ has remotely the class system that the UK had (maybe still has - I dunno - haven't lived there for nearly 20 years) - and so I remain unconvinced that class warfare in the old-school socialist/labour sense of the phrase is even relevant here and now.
Actually, "class war" made no sense to me back in the UK either - I was there for most of Thatcher's reign and earlier and although I supported the Miners' Strike - as every good leftie did - in hindsight I can see what damage Scargill's strategy did - when placed against the ruthlessness of Thatcher and the police at the time.
No idea what a good solution would have been, but I do know it pretty much destroyed the mining industry in the UK.
Back in the 80s in the UK I had a boyfriend who was a member of the Socialist Worker's Party and I went to a couple of meetings with him. I was open to hearing what they said and what they believed in, and was quite willing to be convinced by them.
They were all about class war and I remember being struck by how little each person there actually thought about what they were saying. They simply parroted what their leader at the time was telling them - down to using the exact same phrases and sentences - and I ended up deciding that I wasn't interested in being a part of a group that couldn't think for themselves.
I accept that if you are a member of a union and that union decides to go on strike, you have to go on strike as well, even if you disagree with that decision - that's kind of the point, after all.
But there are rules around taking industrial action that have to be followed, and which AE didn't follow in this case, and that's what concerned me (in addition to their overall lack of a strategy). The blacklisting call went out without ballotting their members, and that's a complete no-no.
When I said here that I don't accept "my union right or wrong", just as I don't believe in "my country right or wrong" - a comment that was referenced in the comments on 'Reading the Maps' - I was thinking about the fact that AE didn't follow proper procedure.
I was also thinking that, as a union member - if I don't agree with my union's proposal for industrial action I am free to a) argue against it b) vote against it and c) leave the union and accept I will no longer be protected by it or represented by it if the vote is for industrial action and I think that's the wrong decision.
We should all be able to think for ourselves and make decisions that are right for us - and take the consequences of our decisions. Being a member of a union and/or being a left-winger shouldn't mean that we have to fall into line and accept decisions that we think are wrong.
And that's where I have a problem with those of a fundamentalist political standpoint (in either direction) - because I am yet to be convinced that sticking to an ideological POV regardless of any other considerations is either a morally correct or strategically effective way of doing things.
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I'm with ya there, Petra. Me too. Exactly.
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It will put NZers off. The rest...not so sure. Non-fanbois won't care. And fanbois are always going to watch it, whether they care or not (and most likely get pissed off about things like mispronounced Elvish anyway). I don't really rate our international kudos as worth more than a few million ticket sales.
One of the people who've made videos in support of keeping the Hobbit in NZ made an interesting point. He's written a book about the making of LOTR and in the process has interviewed a lot of people both involved in making the film and the fanbois themselves.
He talks about the fact that the best casting decision was the casting of NZ as Middle Earth. He says that fans of the movie see the NZ landscape as a character in the film, and that to move the filming of the movie anywhere else would be like casting another actor as Gandalf when Ian McKellen is still available.
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Hmmm. I can't find any reference to Bilbo's "groundskeeper" either. I thought it would be Sam - but I think he only does Frodo's garden.
However, from page 1 of The Hobbit
This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him.
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And the union bashing? Ummm, I generally support unions, I think they have advanced western civilsation hugely, and I think there is a place for them today. Without a doubt. Does this mean I have to support every union in every action? No, it does not. I'm not a blind ideologue, ffs - each on it's own merit. Like the women. And the men.
Hear! Hear! Totally agree with you Petra.
I'm not "my union, right or wrong" - just like I wouldn't be "my country, right or wrong". Supporting something doesn't preclude my right to point out when I think they've made an error of judgement or have made a decision I don't agree with. Crikey!
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Rudman is full of shit.
Down with the evil actors for asking for another plate of soup, they [the people at the rallies - including me] chanted. Off with the heads of the dastardly Aussie manipulators. The union leaders were simple womenfolk who should be back in the kitchen where they belong....
...Few [New Zealanders] would have known how they came to have the public holiday that freed them for the day to indulge in their union-bashing activities...
...There they were, saying, "Tell us how long to grow our elven beards, and how hard to pull our forelocks, Sir, and we will do it. Straight after we burn those evil witches, Robyn Malcolm, Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Helen Kelly, in the public square for disturbing the tranquillity of our feudal land."
Man, this pisses me off.
If he'd bothered to look at any of the multiple videos online of the rallies (not demonstrations - there's a difference) he's have seen that the one and only reference to unions came from PJ in his letter read to us by Richard Taylor, in which he said:
"We don't open the doors to an Australian union... who destroy everything we have worked to build."
He said the intervention by Australian-based union Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) risked tearing apart "the great big heart that beats inside all our films".
"Turning us into another state of Australia under the sway of a destructive organisation carries the very real risk of destroying the great big heart that beats inside our films.
"As an industry we are perfectly well-equipped through our various guilds to provide excellent terms and conditions for our film workers. If there are problems, it is up to us to use our guilds to resolve them."
Not a single other person who spoke even mentioned unions, and no-one - not a single speaker - had anything negative to say about the actors themselves.
Not a single person at the Wellington rally I attended did any chanting - not against actors, not against unions - and every single placard and banner bar one was positive about NZ, The Hobbit, PJ, film-making in NZ etc - there was one anti-union one at the very back (I've seen a photo of it) but all the rest were positive and aimed at showing Warner Bros how positive we are about our fledgling film industry and the suitability of NZ as the place to film the Hobbit.
Rudman's rant does not have any remote relationship with the truth of the Wellington rally - either in spirit or in terms of the actual facts.
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But pretty much every commentary on the case suggests that this was an atypical example.
Yeah I get that, but when I actually looked at the differences and similarities between the 3ft 6 case and actors in general in relation to contractor/employee guidelines, I got a bit stuck.
From the Dept of Labour website:
Indications of being an employee
If all or most of these features are present in a work relationship, it is likely to be an employment relationship between employer and employee:
* the intention of the employer and employee is to form an employment relationship, and this is shown in any written agreement or correspondence and/or by the behaviour of the parties to it
* the employer or their agent controls the hours worked
* the employer or their agent has the power to hire and fire
* the employer makes the profit or loss from the enterprise
* the employer deducts ACC premiums and PAYE tax on behalf of the employee
* the employer owns or leases the equipment needed
* the employee is bound to one employer at a time and is expected not to compete or offer his or her skills to competitors of the employer.Indications of being a self-employed contractor
If all or most of the following features are present in a work relationship, it is likely to be a contract for services involving a self-employed contractor:
* the intention of the parties to the contract is not to form an employment relationship, and the actual nature of the relationship reflects this
* the contractor controls how and when the job is done
* payment is made in a lump sum at the end of a job, or in instalments as progress is made on the job
* the contractor can choose who does the job and can hire other people without approval from the other party
* the contractor pays any tax, ACC and insurance directly
* the contractor can make a profit or suffer a loss directly
* the contractor supplies equipment and materials
* the contractor is free to accept similar work from a number of sources at the same timeI would say actors have a mixture of the two:
* the intention of the parties to the contract is not to form an employment relationship, and the actual nature of the relationship reflects this (contractor)
* the employer or their agent controls the hours worked (employee)
* the employer or their agent has the power to hire and fire (employee)
* the employer makes the profit or loss from the enterprise (employee - although I guess you could say that residuals are a reflection of sharing in at least some of the profit, which would be more like a contractor)
* payment is made in a lump sum at the end of a job, or in instalments as progress is made on the job (contractor)
* the contractor pays any tax, ACC and insurance directly (contractor)
* the contractor supplies equipment and materials (contractor - assuming you mean the actor's voice, face and body. If you include the fact that they also need a set, makeup, costume and props in order to do their job, then no - the studio provides these)
* the contractor is free to accept similar work from a number of sources at the same time (contractor)And IMO there are a couple of biggies that define a contractor, and which actors definitely don't have - namely:
* the contractor controls how and when the job is done (I can see the how - if they have an understanding director, that is - but definitely not the when)
* the contractor can choose who does the job and can hire other people without approval from the other partyI originally thought maybe the ultimate measure of an actor being different from James Bryson was that one could argue that once an actor's role in a movie is complete, there is no guarantee that the next movie a studio makes will require the same actor in another role.
In contrast, one might be able to argue that every movie will need models, and therefore every movie will need model-makers and therefore the skill that James Bryson brought to Weta and 3ft6 was a skill that had ongoing relevance to the studio and could be used on multiple movies, but that's still a bit of a stretch.
The ultimate decision by the Supreme Court was made by comparing the DoL employee criteria with the contractor criteria and seeing on which side James Bryson fell - not by looking at whether he might be useful to 3ft6 on an ongoing basis.