Posts by Jonathan King
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
@ Matthew Poole "As opposed to "You get paid your ordinary rate for x hours a day, ordinary-times-y rate after x hours, you get fed and looked-after, there're health and safety rules" and the other usual, basic shit one expects to see in a contract for anyone working 16, 18, 20 hours a day, often in the middle of nowhere."
All of which will certainly be in the deals they've already been offered. NO question. No film production in NZ operates without that stuff being covered.
-
Kyle, one of the big issues here with actors is that you can't necessarily hire them on a fixed term on a film like this. The Rings shoot went on for years, with schedules (not to mention the script) constantly being rewritten and revised. You can't hire every day player (remember, we simply aren't talking significant roles in the film in here) on a fixed term, because you don't know if you're going be done with them in a few days or if they'll appear again later. The production will estimate the time they're needed and almost certainly do a deal with their agent for something like that ... but they may be called back for the odd day ... or three ... or not. That's movies.
-
Wow, look at this from the comments in the story Russell linked to about the 'remix' film the MEAA blocked in Australia:
http://rights.apc.org.au/culture/2005/03/meaa_halts_worldfirst_film_project_in_australia.php
"The US Screen Actors Guild (SAG) have endorsed our stance on Sanctuary and stated that their members will not sign to any productions, either on film, tape or digital, made under a creative commons licence," Whipp said.
-
Oh, and say what you will about SPADA, at least they've made a clear statement on this issue. The Directors Guild and Writers Guild have remained silent on this, the most significant labour issue to affect our industry (er, other than to say that they have no postion. And that an announcement to say they support pay parity for directors is a hoax).
-
Great piece Russell. And by bringing up the scary incidents that have occurred in Aus, you highlight very important questions that haven’t been asked of our actors. (Disclosure – I am a director and producer of NZ feature films Black Sheep and Under the Mountain. I have never worked for Peter Jackson).
• Do these pay / benefits / residuals issues apply to just The Hobbit or all ‘international’ films?
• Will they apply to NZ films?
• If they think there is inequity in how they are paid, do they also see inequity in how the rest of the crew are paid?
• If yes, how do they think crew also pursuing this kind of action will affect overseas production here? (And, if yes, do we want our crews having the same union structures as the USA – where, for example, only a painter can touch up a scratch on the wall, only a teamster can move a chair a metre, only a driver can back a car up a foot?).
• If no, why not? Are only actors special?
• Do they really think SAG care about lifting their conditions? Given that SAG have been entirely open about their opposition to ‘runaway production’ (which of course they count all foreign films shooting here as), then I don’t think it’s conspiracy talk at all to suggest that SAG would love it to be as expensive to shoot here as it is in LA ... so that studios just stay in LA!!
An editorial in the Herald today says Peter Jackson “implies that companies ... are attracted here not by New Zealanders' film-making skills or even the spectacular scenery but by the low cost of production”. *Implies?* Well, I’ll say it then: they’re attracted here not by New Zealanders' film-making skills or even the spectacular scenery but by the low cost of production. Yes, our crews are ‘world-class’ ... but SO ARE LOTS OF COUNTRY’S CREWS! So much of film making is large scale, reasonable skilled physical labour, than you need to find a place where you can get that as cost-effectively as possible. The editorial says we need to elevate our industry so that people are coming just for our extra ordinary skills ... but, really, it isn’t possible to elevate most of those skills to something SO extraordinary that people will travel this far to get it for reasons over and above economic ones. The handful of people at that next highest level can simply be flown to wherever in the world that cost-effective labour base is.
There are other places with that labour. There are even other places with, you might want to sit down for this one, scenery. And they will go there if the numbers dictate it.
This all – particularly the issue of MEAA’s jurisdiction spreading to local production – has to be considered against another important thing that isn’t being talked about: the world film industry is in absolute crisis at the moment (that it may never come back from). DVD sales have crashed, dowloading (illegal and legal – but hard to monetise) is rife, theatrical admissions are down and, most importantly, theatrical exhibition is open to only a handful of titles that can do big opening weekends. There are stories about ‘box office revenues up’ ... but that is both inflated by 3D ticket prices and, crucially, limited to VAST audiences for a tiny handful of films. It’s the Dan Brown principle: why make ten $30 million films, when you can just make ONE $300 million film that everyone goes to (when you spend another $100 million advertising it)?
Independent and foreign films (that’s us on both counts) CANNOT get theatrical release internationally. This affects the chances of any DVD release (the revenues of which, as I said, have plummeted anyway). And, it must be noted, our films face almost the exact same issue here in the cinema: we open against Hollywood juggernauts and people just don’t go. (Yeah, I know they went to Boy. But one – terrific – film is not an industry). And, Boy – through no fault of its own, rather the issues all films are facing – has been unable to get almost any release internationally!
Budgets for NZ films (that we can’t sell internationally, that are own audiences are too small to support) are about to CRASH. And if – as in the Australian examples mentioned in the original post – a union starts making inflexible and unreasonable demands on local productions, then along with the international production, local production will also disappear.