Posts by Jonathan King
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Nonononono. No.
NOT anti-union - otherwise there'd be no way in hell I would go.Yeah, I think calling it 'anti-union' is drawing a slightly long bow ... but it's clearly anti the action this one particular union has taken, and I don't think you could get a more emphatic full stop on the public -- and the wider film industry's -- opinion of their tactics. (Hoping this is a full stop, not the twist into Act III!)
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Given that Peter Jackson had tried to make sure the films would be made in NZ since he genuinely likes working here and he has considerable loyalty to the local industry it's very hard to see why he would conspire against himself to have the films made overseas.
Let's not forget, too, another way in which Peter Jackson makes a lot more money making the films here: he owns Stone Street Studios, Weta Workshop and Portsmouth Equipment Hire. He has a huge amount invested in those facilities ... all of which he rents back to the studio film he's making here. To suggest he somehow profits from making the films off shore is ludicrous.
Wherever he makes the film, every time saves on expenditure he doesn't pocket the difference ("Oh, picked up another grand for myself.") His fee will be his fee, his back end will be his back end. Everything between now and then will be going toward making the biggest and best film he can (improving its chance of success, improving his back end -- and the back end of the actors getting some). Every dollar saved goes back on the screen: another day's shooting, another helicopter shot, another CG creature etc ...
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So ... an industrial action misfires SO spectacularly that there are public rallies in all the main centres to decry their action (or, at least, try to mitigate the effects of it) ... on Labour Day!
This must be something of an historic day for the labour movement in NZ. In a not-so-good way.
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I can not recall the correct name of the new union. Had the word 'creative' in it and steered clear of the now tarnished brand of 'equity'.
NZ Independent Actors Guild
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Nice work, DexterX.
I saw this movie once where journalists did this kind of digging and wrote about it in their newspapers.
But, you know, that was a movie.
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I have also failed to go to the beach.
Writers are like that.
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Peter, was just thinking how well you're covering all this when I got to 'sermonising windbag' ... I say just carry on ...
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It does seem to have got them around a table with SPADA and under the wing of the CTU but the cost seems pretty high.
Especially since SPADA invited them to the table almost two years ago.
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But just as Peter Jackson can't negotiate for the whole NZ film industry, how the hell can he negotiate for how theatre hires actors?
Simon Whipp -- or Equity -- have yet to explain why The Hobbit alone was targeted with an incredibly punitive action, when what they seek is (something about) generally raising the standards of the engagement of actors in the NZ screen industry (having conceded that PJ's hiring practises are fine). Talking about other general ways in which actors have it rough are irrelevant to this action.
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He cited a theatre company contract ...
What is this 'theatre' of which he speaks? How does that have anything to do with the local or international film business?