Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Compared to those, the LBSPG looks pretty good.
I guess I'd like to see that comparison made. If the government feels it has X million dollars that it wants to throw into subsidising international investment, then it'd be nice to see that as a competitive exercise in which a national industry group from films/tv competes with Tindo and anyone else who wants to put a suggestion forward.
Right now they're political footballs and some industries have strong calls to receive ongoing subsidies because they're been receiving them historically so if they stop receiving them a bunch of people are going to lose their jobs.
Which is a valid argument, but it'd be nice to know if the subsidies are good in themselves, and at which point we are no longer happy to keep on subsidising an industry just because we've subsidised it until now.
After all farming seems to have survived OK losing (financial) subsidies.
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Oh, FFS… if you take that to the reductio ad absurdum you can’t trust Ernst & Young either, because who commission them and, I assume, set the (as Russell pointed out extremely broad) terms of reference?
No, I'm quite happy with Ernst & Young. Just pointing out that if the CEO was doing the review, it can't be considered independent.
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So, just from an outside perspective, y’all are talking about subsidising exports, right? I mean, we’re exporting the production of local labour here, so that’s how I’d categorise it. Selling the production of films to foreigners.
I wouldn't say it's subsidising exports. Because if the hobbit was never released and never sold any copies, we'd still get our money. It's subsidising investment.
I fail to see how anyone could favour the latter proposition over the former for ideological reasons.
I don't have ideological concerns about subsidies. I have practical concerns about subsidies but recognise that we're in a crappy international competitive subsidy market.
My question is more about why we're subsidising movies/TV production rather than anything else. Why are we picking the winner of making movies over the winner of making computer games, software, phones, solar panels, planes, boats, cars, pogo sticks, music, custard squares or fancy children's toys.
Particularly since our subsidy has a fixed return - for every dollar we put in we get x times the amount of investment. If we were at the IP end of the scale in some way, we might have more risk, but we'd also share the reward. For producing some very profitable movies, we've watched the vast majority of the profit flow to companies who then look to another country with a bigger subsidy next time around.
It seems like a very tempermental industry in which the ability of the country to maintain a fairly level amount of production to keep everyone working at a reasonable level is difficult, and which every other country is in a race to the bottom of subsidies.
Say a set builder makes $40 grand a year on the Hobbit (ha ha), and could have made $35 a year on a building site. Then that’s an economic input of $5k, not $40k. Multiply that out, and you get the real number.
Only if you assume that every person who has a job in the film industry, once that industry collapses, can get another job for slightly less pay without displacing another person. That's clearly not the case for everyone - if the industry disappeared from NZ, we'd have more unemployed and more businesses collapsing or leaving NZ as a result.
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The review is being conducted independently, by Ernst & Young
Ah cool.
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The Doug McKay quote I have from today's Herald is:
"I have received an assurance from both the mayor and his chief of staff that no mayoral office funds were used in relation to the mayor's relationship with Ms Chuang," he said last Thursday.
"However, I have agreed to independently review this to confirm that is the case."
Given that the mayor heads the council that employs the Chief Executive of the council, I don't imagine how any investigation by him could be called independent. Power over etc.
Not an electorally significant population – it’s more that journalists give these sites more credence than they deserve.
Not electorally significant, but in terms of National Party activists, a significant proportion of them follow one or both sites. Watching bits of the party gut itself must be disheartening, and activists are important come next year.
Either Cook is exaggerating for effect, or he really has no idea what he’s doing.
Porn producers would never lie/underpay/screw over the talent etc. 100% respectable bunch of people.
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Does (did) black and white film capture anything more than colour film? I guess, is there anything different between a photo taken on black and white and a photo taken on colour and converted (any conversion process)?
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Can my gob have a little longer to recover from “Jock Anderson fired for being opinionated in an editorial.”
I understand he was fired for ignoring a directive not to publish an opinion piece on the topic which came down either way - he went and did it anyway - rather than publishing an opinion in itself. Whether or not that's a firing offence...
exactly, but what also amuses me is Slater saying he tried to protect her identity by – oh my gosh, blanking out her name, the devil – while providing enough clues in the text messages for us to get her name within five minutes.
Didn't the biggest clue to her identity come from Len Brown's initial statement? Yes here:
Brown confirmed the woman was not a council employee but served on a council advisory board and stood in this year’s election for a local board.
Once you had that information, would have taken about 30 seconds to identify her.
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I am not suggesting it doesn’t happen but not everybody does it
I never said everybody does it. Just that lots of people have, and any public outcry for anyone to lose their job for having sex in their office is going to be loaded with hypocrites.
There are professions and work sites where that might be the case, but I don't think the council offices qualify. Even the Ngati Whatua room that's been mentioned isn't a sacred space.
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Why do we admit such people as citizens.
Please go away.
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I am sure he regrets using public offices for these ‘private’ and ‘personal’ activities ’ , but that doesnt make amends to those who believe those places not be used for salacious purposes by those who temporarily hold the permanent public office of Mayor.
Christ, if everyone who had done some sort of hanky panky at a place of work at some stage in their past lost their job, NZ would sink under the weight of the unemployed. It's right under "go on OE" as a right of passage isn't it?