Re: National Low Budget Theatrical Tier Contract Rumor

Oh Peter. You want a share of the studio's profits? How silly of you. You
know what the cost of labor does to a budget in the first place!!

D.

Didn't Bruce Willis speak eloquently on that issue once? How quickly we
forget.


On 5/3/08 2:08 PM, in article
749355d9-994e-4359-8fc3-6fc456ac872b@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Peter"
<pkurland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 3, 1:35 pm, Jan McLaughlin <jannie....@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 2, 9:43 pm, Peter <pkurl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On May 2, 5:16 am, Jan McLaughlin <jannie....@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Heard a rumor that the National Tier 1, 2 & 3 contracts may be going
away.

True?

Dear God, say it's true.

:)

Jan

Are you saying it was better when those jobs were non-union?
Peter

Not at all, at all.

That folks work for $16-and-change/hour on Tier One's boggles the
mind.

The 14-hour day thing Mr. Sharman mentions...been there / done that.
It's really, really, really challenging & difficult, especially on
longer-term projects. I swear there's a way to make motion pictures
where everybody makes money without 'em.

It's a squeeze between making / not making a movie with or without
union technicians. By all means, make lots of small pictures with
union personnel that would not otherwise be made. Are Tier projects
apprentice programs in disguise? Yeah.

If the Tier contract goes away, what will replace it, and what do WE
imagine would be better? What are the major issues? Are 14-hour days,
five days a week too much? Will the 18-day Tier One feature production
schedule shrink to 17 days, then 16 days...with 15-hour and 16-hour
days the norm? I know of shows that did 18-hour days regularly. How?
How did they do that? By 'cha-chinging' themselves to sleep? I guess
so.

The East Coast Council model wherein the crew is vested in the
picture's success is one I'm comfortable with and even inspired by,
especially if accounting is closely followed by the hall. Do we have a
forensic accountant or two on staff? :)

I can see the direction things are headed and despair the far horizon.
Unless...unless we do something to turn current models on their heads.

Think outside the box.

Jan

As a clarification, the Independent Low Budget Contract does contain
deferral language that pays the crew a bonus if the project is
successful. This is essentially the same language from the East Coast
Council agreements.
While the pay is bad and the hours sometimes long, these projects used
to be done with no benefits and no overtime. At least double-time
gives a producer a financial reason to stop shooting eventually.
The amazing thing is we work these hours mostly to give flexibility
for cast schedules. It is clearly less expensive to work shorter days.
But then they need a bigger cast window. (To be fair it also costs
less to rent equipment for fewer, longer days.)
Regardless, in the old days one could buy themselves decent health
insurance. Now, some crew is working low budget just to get benefit
days, without which they'd be bankrupted. Until the US figures out a
real solution (read single-payer universal health coverage) we'll be
picking the lesser of evils.
Peter
Just as an aside, while our rates shrink and health costs go up, the
producers are saving a TON of money with the stupid competing
incentive plans. Every time a new state comes up with a bigger
giveaway (most recently Michigan with over 40% including prints and
advertising!!) the others rush to catch up. Producers can now pick
from lots of locations, just like in the past, but now we taxpayers
subsidize millions of dollars everywhere. Where's the taxpayers' share
of the profits for their investment?

.

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