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That is not what you wrote and all can see.

It is interesting though the logic of who should have what rewards in society. Most people would agree that it takes a wide variety of people to make a society function, and all are needed. In a capitalist society even an reserve of unemployed labour is needed. To be laid off during recessions and reemployed in booms.

And film technicians surviving until you need them for your Zombie epic.

 

Each job in this capitalist society has a mixture of rewards and negative aspects, money, status, how interesting the job is, how easy or difficult, how dangerous, how much training is needed.

My personal feeling is that a burger operative has as much right to a fulfilling life as everyone else. Therefore it would be logical that they be compensated for the boring unhealthy low status of the job. A brain surgeon my have a higher salary to compensate for the long years of training, but the job has rewards in terms of status and interesting work.

 

One of the positive things I though about wages in communist Poland was not only was there full employment but that a coal miner earned more than a manager.

Also the film industry had full employment, great status and working conditions but modest wages. It meant that the majority of film workers were in it for the love of film.

 

SO I hope that has cleared up some of your misunderstandings about capitalism. About socialism you truly are clueless. What socialism says is this, as capitalism production demands that people work together to make things, all the things that humans need and want, it would be logical and fair if the people controlled the wealth they produced together.

 

A society where people controlled the market rather than the market controlling people. A society where people can decided whats most important to them jobs, health, housing, culture and happiness and not wealth for tiny tiny minority, um employment and poverty for millions, and falling living standards over the world.

 

I have to survive in this capitalist society as best I can, and with my understanding of capitalism I kept the copyright of a lot of the film material I shot. All of the people who worked on the making the footage received the full rewards for making it.

 

When we have a socialist society copyright will be abolished and ever one we be welcome to use my footage.

 

Capitalism has a new form now from even 20 or 30 years ago. capitalists in manufacturing struggle to make a profit because of the casino capitalism where money is siphoned off by giant corporations. That is why national film industries have failed and need state support.

 

I would suggest that by making personal insults and attacks you weaken your argument and that a better tactic is if you don't have anything intelligent to say is to remain mute.

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My point Maxim is that 99.99% of people in Western society do not believe that a doctor should earn the same as a burger flipper.

 

You do just keep repeating this point, you know.

 

The issue is not whether role A should attract greater compensation than role B, but the maximum reasonable differential between them. If (for instance) a film producer is earning a literally couple of hundred times more than a focus puller, something is wrong.

 

You don't even need to evaluate people's net personal value as a measure of their abilities to understand that this has a negative effect on society which will eventually have downsides for wealthy people as well. You don't have to understand that it's immoral and undesirable (though I take the position that it axiomatically is immoral and undesirable) to understand that it is fundamentally impossible, at least on a long term basis.

 

But I fear this is all a waste of time while we have someone who's happy, as you seem to be, with the idea that some people are inherently worth hundreds of times more than other people. This is exceptionalism taken to ludicrous extremes; some of the world's most unpleasant regimes have been based on the idea that some people are intrinscially better than others, and by a huge degree. I take the position that this isn't the case, whether you measure it by their work output, absolute achievement, or anything else; some people are certainly smarter than others and can do more than others, but not by that amount.

 

There is a danger here that rich, successful people indulge in circular logic, wherein someone sees themselves as worthy of exceptional wealth, on the basis that their wealth indicates their worthiness; "I am rich, which indicates that I am worth it, so it's OK for me to be rich." Everyone engages in justification of their own behaviour to some extent but there is a spiral into narcissism and rapaciousness here which is extremely destructive: this sort of thinking is key to the recent banking crisis.

 

Without it, a normal human being would have thought, "hang on a minute, the amount of money I'm being paid is a couple of thousand times more than the cleaning lady; this is clearly untenable for society on even a medium-term basis." There is no socialism inherent in that realisation. Adherence to basic rules of good economic governance can't reasonably be characterised as socialist.

 

And as I say, for all that to be reasonable, you don't even need to presuppose that film producers are often unable to contribute much to the process.

 

P

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You do just keep repeating this point, you know.

 

Right because you and Maxim keep repeating the same idiotic material.

 

Maxim, I have my Pay Pal account ready to receive my share of your profits from your stock footage library. When can I expect to receive my first payment?

 

R,

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I have to survive in this capitalist society as best I can, and with my understanding of capitalism I kept the copyright of a lot of the film material I shot. All of the people who worked on the making the footage received the full rewards for making it.

.

So your business model is identical to Richards & every other producer. Perhaps they are all communists just trying to survive :D

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So your business model is identical to Richards & every other producer. Perhaps they are all communists just trying to survive :D

 

Exactly right Stephen! I too retain the copyright to my work, and I paid everyone proper wages to create it.

 

However, I am no longer a capitalist and I have embraced Maxim's form of socialism. This means that all Maxim did was exploit the labour of others to create his stock footage. Maxim will now reform by giving 25% of his revenue to me. Clearly Maxim now realizes, that like George Lucas, he has profited way more than he should have from his stock footage library.

 

When can I start seeing payments Maxim?

 

R,

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Where is your evidence that I have exploited anyone?

 

The money raised by a few people shooting footage on spec to sell sadly does not raise gigantic sums of money. Not enough to count as profit, money not generated by our own work.

 

I am very glad you want to be a socialist, but sadly social relations are to a large extent decided by the society you live in. You can't be a serf in a slave society, or a socialist when all the relations are based on people being employed to make a profit out of them.

 

The best we can do is cooperative models of production, where film makers together make films and share the ownership.

 

The concentration of wealth and power now is so extreme that most small businesses are struggling to survive and the owners exploit themselves. In fact this is used by corporations who farm out whole sections of production who know that they will exploit themselves and others far better than themselves.

 

Take Les MIs, a big studio Universal commissions Working Title to produce the film on a smaller budget than they would use. They bare the brunt of the production problems.

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I too retain the copyright to my work

 

Interesting side issue - most of us don't.

 

I'm currently involved in licencing some music for a production and it is extremely expensive, mainly because I have to pay a music library for the music, then I have to pay a collection society for... well, the music again, and then if I want to exhibit it anywhere, I have to pay another collection society for... um, the music.

 

Musicians (and photographers) do rather better in this regard than, say, writers or camera people, for no reason other than that they had better lawyers.

 

P

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Where is your evidence that I have exploited anyone?

 

The money raised by a few people shooting footage on spec to sell sadly does not raise gigantic sums of money. Not enough to count as profit, money not generated by our own work.

 

I am very glad you want to be a socialist, but sadly social relations are to a large extent decided by the society you live in. You can't be a serf in a slave society, or a socialist when all the relations are based on people being employed to make a profit out of them.

 

The best we can do is cooperative models of production, where film makers together make films and share the ownership.

 

The concentration of wealth and power now is so extreme that most small businesses are struggling to survive and the owners exploit themselves. In fact this is used by corporations who farm out whole sections of production who know that they will exploit themselves and others far better than themselves.

 

Take Les MIs, a big studio Universal commissions Working Title to produce the film on a smaller budget than they would use. They bare the brunt of the production problems.

Where is the evidence George Lucas or Richard Boddington exploited anyone ? It'more sour grapes you have been less successful than Richard. Problem with time lapse stock footage is anyone can do it with a DSLR or even a iPhone. Unless you really push the boundaries as Tom Lowe has, your not really providing anything that essential in today's market..

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Interesting side issue - most of us don't.

 

I'm currently involved in licencing some music for a production and it is extremely expensive, mainly because I have to pay a music library for the music, then I have to pay a collection society for... well, the music again, and then if I want to exhibit it anywhere, I have to pay another collection society for... um, the music.

 

Musicians (and photographers) do rather better in this regard than, say, writers or camera people, for no reason other than that they had better lawyers.

 

P

 

Yep those music folk can earn some good money from their work, over and over again. This is why I create original scores for my movies.

 

We've had a 100 discussions on here before with people suggesting that the DOP and or camera operator should retain the rights to all of the footage he shoots on a movie. And we know why this would be totally un-workable.

 

Writers BTW do receive residuals for their work in film if they are members of one of the guilds. If they are not....there is nothing stopping them from negotiating a back end deal. This is why I prefer to do all the key creative work myself, I don't have to negotiate with myself, and I don't even have to pay myself anything if I don't want to.

 

If I want to donate all of my services to the production for free, there is nothing to stop me.

 

R,

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Where is the evidence George Lucas or Richard Boddington exploited anyone ?

 

As I've said a thousand times, it's a matter of degree. Call me a left-wing socialist stalin-banger, but I think there does come a point where wealth becomes so extreme that it is inherently abusive.

 

P

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As I've said a thousand times, it's a matter of degree. Call me a left-wing socialist stalin-banger, but I think there does come a point where wealth becomes so extreme that it is inherently abusive.

 

P

f

 

Plenty of people do the lottery every week, all in search of abusive wealth, so it can't be so evil

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Where did I ever say that anyone here was exploiting anyone?

 

I have been talking about social relations. People who sell their labour and talents and people who buy them and keep ownership of them.

 

Wealth is created by people working together in society. Propaganda pretends that it is done by special people producers or entrepreneurs.

 

The average wage could be considered the economic potential of the society. If you are hard working and getting less you are being exploited, if you are being paid 10, 100, or 1000 times the average wage that money is coming out of a lot of peoples pockets. You are part of the problem.

 

It is not an accident that wages are falling at the same time as the wealthy are becoming wealthier.

 

As one lottery winner gets £1 million richer 2 million losers become a 1 pound poorer.

 

This has nothing to do with what dif with time-lapse The time-lapse that I did was film based, computer controlled and successful in its day.

 

The cameras have all been sold and I am doing other things now.

 

How stupid to accuse people of jealousy because they stand up for a decent living wage, better working conditions and a well funded film industry.

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. Unless you really push the boundaries as Tom Lowe has,

Pushing the boundaries of what?!

Whatever happened to Tom anyway? He left this forum in a huff after he comprehensively lost his famous "film will be dead by 2010" bet, and he went pretty quiet on Reduser after his Main Man Terence Malick started using the Alexa :D

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As one lottery winner gets £1 million richer 2 million losers become a 1 pound poorer.

 

This has nothing to do with what dif with time-lapse The time-lapse that I did was film based, computer controlled and successful in its day.

 

The cameras have all been sold and I am doing other things now.

 

How stupid to accuse people of jealousy because they stand up for a decent living wage, better working conditions and a well funded film industry.

Those people lost their £1 due to greed, the person won £1,000,000 was LUCKY just like George Lucas .

 

Clearly your not doing very much now or you would not be complaining, as Richard said why don't you share your stock footage income?

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So, what you're suggesting is that no matter how hard I work, no matter how successful I am in my chosen career, any time my earnings exceed an arbitrary amount, the greedy hand of big brother will swoop down and redistribute the money I have worked for, and give it to the 'needy'. Who the needy are will be determined by the same faceless politburo that sets the 'maximum' wage.

 

Hmm, maybe we should try it, after all, communism worked so well in Eastern Europe...

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As far as I know a human being can only work so many hours in the day and have a limited range of physical strength and inteligence.

 

Are you saying that you need to earn more than a £1000 pounds a day? £250,000 pounds a year?

 

Pray do tell what you do that is worth that reward.

 

And also who should go without, have low wages to pay for your greed.

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So, what you're suggesting is that no matter how hard I work, no matter how successful I am in my chosen career, any time my earnings exceed an arbitrary amount, the greedy hand of big brother will swoop down and redistribute the money I have worked for, and give it to the 'needy'.

 

Sort of. I wouldn't necessarily suggest forced redistribution of individuals' wealth; do it at the corporate level. This would not actually affect many people anyway.

 

Let's be clear that I propose this sort of draconian action only very reluctantly, and for two main reasons:

 

- Hard work and ability don't actually contribute to financial success very often, at least not in modern western societies. Instead, we reward a sort of acquisitive narcissism, which we call "entrepreneurism", which is destructive both sociologically and economically. This is one reason we have a problem with manufacturing: we just don't reward engineering enough. Film producers, or the Alan Sugars of this world, are not actually capable of doing anything. They're not capable of building anything, or achieving anything concrete. They're merely capable of servicing a construct we call "management" which is entirely made up by humans and doesn't need to exist at all, or at least not in its current form. We need to reward things that are good for society preferentially, and if free market economics can't make that distinction adequately, then legislation should. And please let's not have any hand-wringing over this: free market economics could hardly have a poorer record at the moment.

 

- Even if you accept that hard work leads to success, which I don't, there is a maximum degree of benefit it could possibly bring. Often, the most senior people in an organisation will be paid literally a few hundred times more than the least senior. It is inconceivable, given the small range of human intelligence and the relatively fixed hours humans are capable of working, that any one human is worth hundreds of times more than any other in terms of work output, whether you attribute that to deliberate effort or innate ability. It's highly offensive to, say, a cleaner, whose absence will be marked almost immediately by the smell, to imply that the CEO is able to put in hundreds of times more work. Yes, the CEO's job is responsible, but let's not confuse responsibility with achievement, especially with the amount of teflon-desking that goes on in order to shift blame down to the lowest possible level.

 

- Very large wage packets tend to exist only in circumstances where other people are doing a lot of work. There are arguable exceptions for people like authors whose work input is fairly well confined to them alone, but certainly in film and TV it's not unreasonable to suggest that a large wage might not really represent money that you have personally worked for, but which a large number of people have worked for, and you've just sort of... got.

 

P

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sadly, working as crew (or maybe anything else) on low budget indie movies, even when paid, is kind of a hobby and not a career. Just the nature of it nowadays.

 

Even a Tier 1 Union film that shoots for just 18 days is not going to be a career job...

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So, what you're suggesting is that no matter how hard I work, no matter how successful I am in my chosen career, any time my earnings exceed an arbitrary amount, the greedy hand of big brother will swoop down and redistribute the money I have worked for, and give it to the 'needy'. Who the needy are will be determined by the same faceless politburo that sets the 'maximum' wage.Hmm, maybe we should try it, after all, communism worked so well in Eastern Europe...

That pretty much already happens , it's called taxation.

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Take Les MIs, a big studio Universal commissions Working Title to produce the film on a smaller budget than they would use. They bare the brunt of the production problems.

 

This is what I have been trying to say throughout this thread. What are we talking about in terms of a producer? Are we talking about a company like Universal, or Channel 4, or Canal+ that own and control the means of distribution and are able to dictate terms, or are we talking about a company like working title who only has distribution through their relationship to these big companies, or are we talking about some Ed Wood type character who has very little access to distribution and is struggling to get movies made at all. To suggest that all producers are some monolithic block is a nonsense. There are all kinds of producers and they have different places within the system.

 

Freya

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As I mentioned above, they all have different reasons for screwing you, but they do mainly all try to do the same thing in the end. What's worse is when little producers try to behave like big producers because they have this strange impression that it's the right way to behave - that is just pathetic.

 

P

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All this talk about Free Markets its also a lot of nonsense too. There is as much a free market here or in the USA as the Soviet Union was communist. It's especially strange to hear this talk in the context of the film and TV industry.

 

Just because some people talk about something or put a label on something, doesn't make it so.

Don't fall for it.

 

A Free market is something that would need to be created and maintained. It does not magically happen on its own, as there will be forces working to undermine it, thus there needs to be regulation in place to avoid monopolies being created or restrictions on the free market.

 

There was action taken against the movie industry in the USA in the past because of the studios tight control on the market and it is still the case that Hollywood companies are heavily vertically integrated. Here in the UK the situation is even worse with just a few entities that control the TV and film industry. For the most part there is the BBC, ITV plc, Channel 4, Channel 5 and BSkyB. That's 5 entities which largely operate together to some extent. Channel 4 was a valiant attempt to try and pull apart the distribution from the production side of things to allow there to be more of a variety of producers and that, along with quotas at the major channels for independent production, has been a really good thing. Having said that the decisions made in the direction of ITV in the past have largely been a disaster and the government should have stopped ITV plc from ever forming. The market is still tightly controlled in the UK even in situations where there isn't a great scarcity of bandwidth these days too.

 

To have a free market you need a lot of smaller companies and a means for new entrants in the market and scope for companies to fail.

 

If you have companies of any kind that are "too big to fail" then you do not have a free market, you have monopoly suppliers basically. That's what they mean when they talk about "too big to fail". They are just avoiding using the M word because then there would be less scope to say "Well do we need to have companies that are too big to fail?"

If you say "Do we need to have these Monopoly companies or should we have smaller companies?", then that is much less of a question isn't it? They are just trying to make things sound like there is more of a question about the situation than there is so they can try and maintain the status quo.

 

A free market would require extensive action to maintain it and there isn't a system for this, at the moment.

 

Watch out that language isn't controlling your thinking.

Watch out for the NewSpeak.

 

Freya

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As I mentioned above, they all have different reasons for screwing you, but they do mainly all try to do the same thing in the end. What's worse is when little producers try to behave like big producers because they have this strange impression that it's the right way to behave - that is just pathetic.

 

P

 

There's a whole bunch of status stuff that goes on in all parts of society. This is basically because human beings are apes. This happens at all levels of society and with producers and cinematographers etc. I mean look at all this stuff about "I couldn't possibly call myself a cinematographer", or "I couldn't call myself an artist" and it's all stuff revolving around status because they perceive these terms to have special status. I doubt there is ever this stuff going on with "I couldn't possibly call myself a plumber". These are all just terms for jobs, but people assign special status to stuff.

 

So yeah there are some little people who try and big themselves up to try and make themselves seem like the big ape or something but hey, are you saying you are falling for this stuff or are you just annoyed by it, because if you aren't falling for it, you just say no to those people.

 

I believe that people can overcome the status thinking because I believe people can be more than just apes.

It's there all over human society tho.

 

Freya

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