Freelance Living Wage

[Guest]

France has a natural language barrier to American movies. France also has a quota system that keeps a large amount of US product out of the country, while allowing the homegrown cinema to flourish. The UK used to have such a system but dismantled it. Canada toyed with the idea in the early 80s, but Reagan shot that down in a real hurry.

 

We could of course have a long discussion about the merits of film quota systems for the English speaking countries, as these are the nations that are most dominated by Hollywood films.

 

There are indeed merits to such a system for both Canada and the UK. But Hollywood will use its considerable lobbying power with the American government to ensure that this never happens. The last thing Hollywood wants is to have to *gasp* compete with homegrown movies in Canada or the UK!!

 

R,

[Conor Stalvey]

As a young recently graduated man, working as a Gaffer on low-budget projects in the Tri-state area (NY,NJ,CT), I have to say this conversation has been interesting. I am that guy Maxim and Phil argue for and I am not a large fan of production, but I cant help but side with Richard here. Believe me guys, I am the first one to "clear my throat" at producers standing infront of me at the monitor on location when I'm trying to light and they are in the way, but they do have their purpose.

 

I have worked for producers that treated the crew like the help and I have worked for producers who treated the crew like Gods. Those bad producers, that don't do anything but seemingly complicate everything. I don't work for them again and yes I have turned down work because of the producers attached. The good producers, the ones that use payroll companies, pay OT, treat the crew well, etc, which Richard appears to be, I work for. Again, and again and again as much as possible. I work my ass off to make sure guys like Richard call me the next time they have a project, because I'm not the guy that puts it all together. I'm the guy that lights it, and just as I have a specific job to do, so do they.

 

I understand your frustration, and please excuse my ignorance about the UK economic system, but do you not have unemployment (thank you for reminding me Rich, I need to file ^_^ )? That is a serious question. I feel that I was adequetly paid for my services, or else I wouldn't have worked. With that pay, I pay bills, save some and spend the rest because I'm young and I like nice things. I don't feel as though I'm being abused or taken advantage of, if I did I would quit. Do you guys not have these options? Are there no unions for those workers who spent 16 hours on set? I've done that more then once williningly and know it can be grueling.

 

I worked for a producer that referred to me and my team as mercs. I laughed and asked why? He said, "you guys are all big and badass, and you come in here light poop up, collect a check and you're out. Hopping from project to project." I thought for a moment, and I had to agree. He was right, as soon as we were finished with that project I had two more lined up immediately after that and I was gone. He will still be attached to that project for months trying to get it sold or distrubuted. I've got my money and I'm working on the next check.

 

My point is, it takes a team to make a movie/film/tv show and this industry, when it's at its' best, can be the perfect example of what Plato describes as the perfect city in his Republic. Everyone has a job to do that they have trained specifically to do. Everyone needs to do their job and only thier job to the best of their abilities. The producer doesnt come over and tell me how to set up a light, and I don't explain to him the ins and outs of tax credits and payroll. He does his job and I do my job. We all get along, make a movie and earn a living in the process.

 

Unless you're friend, I dont work for free. Don't get me started on the people using Mandy to source free labor.

[Maxim Ford]

In a capitalist economy the job of the producer is key. He/she raises the capital for the production of the film and owns and controls the exploitation of the film. As the film has to have a chance of making a profit this means that only certain scripts and subjects will be funded, That there is a pressure to keep wages and costs down.

For example Les Miserables had a budget of $63 million. The majority of this would be above the line costs. The working conditions were so bad they led to industrial action. The film so far has grossed $441,809,770. And this is one of the best funded films made in the UK.

 

In the old studio system, the nationalised film industries and TV companies with subscription or tax support do not need producers. They can finance the whole cost of production. The need a production manager and accounts to supply goods and services pay wages and keep the film on budget. I directed a film for Channel Four in the UK, I took the script to the Commissioning Editor it was approved and budgeted. There was a person call a producer but this is idealogical, as the only production work was needed was done by the production manager. When I worked on films in communist Poland there was no producer. A producer is only needed if there are capitalist economic relations. If you want a healthy film industry making a wide range of films the industry must be funded as a whole and as an economic whole.

The different funding is one of the reasons HBO has made the best ground breaking TV and French cinema is having success.

[Phil Rhodes]

Conor, the basic difference is that in the US there is almost infinitely more work and you get paid a lot more. I have to explain this to Americans quite often, but you have to understand just how bad it is here. There is, to all practical purposes, no film industry. At least 95% of all film shown in UK cinemas is American. I am not exaggerating or making it up, it really is that bad. No British film is shown in my local cinema for weeks at a time. We are absolutely steamrollered. It's over.

 

Because of this paucity of work, the producers can do effectively what they like to us. Well, I say "us". I really got out of that game a while ago on the basis that I was just so appallingly treated, and making so little money, that it wasn't worth doing either creatively or financially. There is a union. Compared to the US unions it has practically no power, but to be honest that isn't really the problem: there's so little work around that they would have almost nothing to control if they did have any bite.

 

So, that's the situation. What's really crippling about it is that anyone of any real ability tends to jump through any hoops they need to in order to get a US work permit and immediately decamp to LA. We have members on this forum who have done exactly that, and I could give you more names in associated fields. The real mark of success in the British film industry is, sadly, to have left it.

 

I think what we're talking about here in terms of "problem producers" is exactly the sort of thing Richard is on about - the fast-talking types who specialise in pulling deals together using shady tactics. My indelibly strong impression, from the outside, is that it is impossible to do this work and be a genuinely honest and upstanding human being.

 

I am nothing like a socialist and it is only with extreme reluctance that I agree that the only solution to actually having an indigenous film industry for people to work in is some sort of taxation, levy or import control. Government action is needed These things need to be used only in dire emergency, I'm more than happy for market forces to work in most situations, but the situation with film and TV work is just so appalling skewed, just so absolutely hopeless, that market forces make it more or less impossible to try and fight the status quo. We're dying out here, and we need help. We're not going to get it because British politicians, running this fading country, are always desperate to curry favour with the US, and Obama apparently doesn't really give a damn about the UK so they're having to work extra hard at butt-licking. They're never going to implement any sort of local content mandate that would risk upsetting American interests. But that's the only real solution.

 

That said, I also don't agree with Richard's apparent thesis that the only way to fund movies is via the morally rather dubious approach that seems to be in fashion at the moment. Ordinarily I would expect that a company - in any industry - should be able to fund its activities from cash on hand, by which I mean that the proceeds from movie A should fund movie B, and so on in sequential order. I'm not sure why this isn't obvious, but that is traditionally how commerce worked. For some reason we seem to live in a world where everything is constantly funded on credit and nobody keeps any cash on hand, which is bad from any number of perspectives.

 

Mainly what it actually ends up meaning that we have to put up with this rather unpleasant group of people being in charge of all the money.

 

P

[Guest]

but I cant help but side with Richard here.

 

Thank-you Conor you may send me your resume anytime!

 

As for Phil and Maxim, well they already know both of their resumes would go in my G-file.

 

Further to the points of Phil and Maxim, I don't really have time to argue nonsense with either of them anymore. I need to warm up my ferrari in preparation to go out for my five star meal at a luxurious hotel that only serves the super wealthy. While I am gone the cleaning crew will come in and clean my 12, 000 square foot mansion.

 

Luckily I am an independent film producer and I have made millions screwing over film workers like Phil and Maxim. Fortunately there are plenty more Phil and Maxims out there so that a**hole producers like me can continue to take advantage of them.

 

R,

[Maxim Ford]

On one thing we can agree your posts which never address any of the points made are a waste of time.

 

I find it very difficult to understand Americans who continualy talk about freedom but never use it. It is shocking what a closed society it is to ideas and cultures from abroad.

 

I remember in communist Poland this American came to tell us about how closed Polish society was and when it was pointed out to him that in that Polish city of 36 cinemas there were films from all over the world, 10 from the USA 1 from Japan, 2 from Russia , that Polish people saw American films, saw their way of life, but American knew so little of what happens outside of their borders. American must be the most brain washed people in the World.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Oh no; someone confused Richard with an American again :O

[Guest]

Oh no; someone confused Richard with an American again :o

 

Ha Ha, that's OK Adrian, I have many many wonderful American friends, I'm proud to call myself an "American" from time-to-time.

 

Now what is most amusing about Maxim's last post is that he thinks I'm some sort of uneducated "ugly American" who doesn't understand that there are other countries in the world.

 

Meanwhile my signature very clearly says "Ontario, Canada." Apparently Maxim is a victim of the very global ignorance he accuses Americans of having, since most people in this world (besides him) know that Canada and the USA are two separate countries! :D

 

R,

[Keith Walters]

Bonk! Rap! Rap! (Sound of broom handle banging on ceiling)
Oi! Less noise up there!

American films make up the other 99%. Only in a place like Canada is achieving 1% of anything celebrated and called a success.

 

So; are you suggesting that Australia is "a place like Canada"?!

OK we have the same Queen, but that's pretty much it.

I mean, where are your friggin' deserts? Marsupials? Crocodiles?

I mean Canada is not exactly renowned for growing bananas. pineapples or sugar cane is it?

[Mark Dunn]

Richard is clearly not American as he does irony. I can only assume that Maxim's excuse for missing it is the language barrier.

[Keith Walters]

 

I have come to realize that discussing the role of the producer is really pointless on this forum, because as far as I know, I'm the only person that actually does it here.

 

Along with a lot of other stuff..... :rolleyes:

 

I'm sort of wondering, if there wasn't an actual producer, apart from really amateur no-budget tripe, how exactly WOULD a film get made?

 

No matter how you slice it, somebody would have manage the operation. You might have a Producer/DOP, or a Producer/Actor (not that uncommon) Producer/Writer, I suppose even a Producer/Caterer if the catering business went particularly well that year.

 

But somebody has to fill that role, otherwise it would be like an orchestra turning up with everybody listening to their iPods....

How would you get a crew together? Would you all just sit in the Pub and wait until somebody turned up?

[Keith Walters]

Richard is clearly not American as he does irony. I can only assume that Maxim's excuse for missing it is the language barrier.

Most Americans think "Irony" is something you do with freshly washed clothes. You know; Laundry, then Irony...

[Freya Black]

Along with a lot of other stuff..... :rolleyes:

 

I'm sort of wondering, if there wasn't an actual producer, apart from really amateur no-budget tripe, how exactly WOULD a film get made?

 

 

The no-budget tripe also has a producer or more than one, even if that label isn't slapped on anyone. There must be people doing the producing or nothing would get produced. It may be that people with other titles are doing this aspect of things.

 

Is the argument here about labels and who gets what label because I'm not getting it.

 

Freya

[Freya Black]

 

At least 95% of all film shown in UK cinemas is American. I am not exaggerating or making it up, it really is that bad.

 

 

 

er, I think you are massively exaggerating. You may have said "at least" but come on, are you honestly suggesting that 5% of all movies shown in UK cinemas are from somewhere other than the U.S.??? 5% is a HUGE number. It can't possibly be anything like that many, even including the Bollywood cinemas.

 

 

Because of this paucity of work, the producers can do effectively what they like to us. Well, I say "us". I really got out of that game a while ago on the basis that I was just so appallingly treated, and making so little money, that it wasn't worth doing either creatively or financially. There is a union. Compared to the US unions it has practically no power, but to be honest that isn't really the problem: there's so little work around that they would have almost nothing to control if they did have any bite.

 

 

Well your first sentence is clearly nonsense as you clarify in the immediate next sentence. You have the choice and the right to say "NO!". I think I've said this before but a lot of stuff I see posted here seems to be based on the idea that people don't have any choices and clearly they do have choices. If you don't want to play that game then it's quite simple. Don't play it.

 

It reminds me of when you were talking about networking and how you were saying it was all about pretending to like people you don't actually like. Actually I think one of the wonderful things about networking is finding out who you don't like so you can be sure to NEVER work with those people. That's really useful information right there.

 

Your thinking is all about having no control over your life. You do have control over your life and you need to take and exercise that control. You can say no to stuff. You don't have to work for free and you don't have to work for the people you don't want to. Exercise your right to say no!

 

This worrying about producers all seems to be about them having some kind of crazy hold over you.

They don't.

 

Freya

[Maxim Ford]

My mistake, but when it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck.....

[Guest]

At the end of the day, no one here is living in a country where they are forced to work in film, and no one here is forced to work on any particular show. Don't like the working conditions? Quit, it's not that hard.

 

Evil capitalists like myself will have you replaced in two seconds. In fact my producer buddies and I are now experimenting with the use of chimps as film crew workers. You should see chimps unload the G&E truck, holy cow are they fast. Lunch is a breeze....lay out a sack of bananas and they are more than happy.

 

R,

[Phil Rhodes]

 

 

Evil capitalists like myself will have you replaced in two seconds.

 

We noticed.

[Guest]

It may come as a surprise to the poor downtrodden huddled masses on this website, but people even try and take advantage of *gasp* producers!! I see dozens of these ridiculous ads on Mandy.com each year.

 

http://mandy.com/1/jobs3.cfm?v=57040647

 

People want a producer to raise money for their daft project. In exchange they will collect a fee once they raise the budget. Of course they will work for FREE while they try and raise the funds for this next mega epic that will take the distribution world by storm. In this case here these yahoos want a sucker dumb enough to spend his time finding them 200K. I don't know what's funnier, ads asking for free producer labour, or ads asking for a DOP with his own camera gear who will work for credit and a DVD. Oh don't bother telling me....the guy being asked to bring his own camera gear to set is the more downtrodden of the two as he's doing, "real work."

 

R,

[Nicolas Courdouan]

The different funding is one of the reasons HBO has made the best ground breaking TV and French cinema is having success.

 

You keep referring to the French industry to prove your point, but I'm sorry, the French industry relies massively on its producers. There are no film or even TV movies made without one or several producers.

 

The last feature I worked on had three producers, and was made for around €5,000,000, which, in France is a decent budget (it rarely goes anywhere over 20M). These three producers were lovely people, two of which had graduated from the producing course over at the FEMIS, which forms dozens of future filmmakers every year and which places a high emphasis on film as an art form. They weren't greedy financiers, they were interested in much more than money, they were filmmakers first and foremost. All they wanted was to make a film they would be proud of.

 

I'm not saying they weren't thinking about the financial side of things, nor that they weren't worried about the film failing at the box office (which it did), but overall, on those rare occasions when they were visiting us in the editing suite, they always gave the impression they were serving us instead of us them, always making sure our working conditions were ideal so that we would only ever have to focus on editing the film.

 

Because that is the job of a producer. Ensuring that every single crew and cast members have what they need to get the film done. That's what they are responsible for, and no matter which way you look at it, someone has to do that job. You can call them the production manager, if they are doing that, they're just producing. And may I be so bold as to suggest that when you were working in Poland, someone - who apparently couldn't bear being referred to as a "producer"- was doing that job too?

 

If you agree that producing is required to make a film, then a producer is also required. Someone has to be at the top of the food chain and be responsible for what happens in the production department. That has nothing to do with capitalism, it's just the way humans work. If you put everybody on the same level, sooner or later, conflicts arise, personalities clash, and things end up being delayed or completely destroyed. There has to be someone at the top who will take that responsibility, and in return can tell the rest to "shut up and get back on track". And in my experience, frankly, they very rarely have to.

 

On a side note, the French film industry is not doing that well. The films that make the most money are all Hollywood films (if you take into account the total gross of American films versus the total gross of French films). Once every year or two, there's the occasional "big B.O. sensation" that makes 30,000,000+, gets sold to the US for a remake, and that is it. The last one was "Intouchables", and that was in late 2011, two years ago. The one before that was "Bienvenue chez les Ch'ti", which was absolute garbage as far as filmmaking is concerned but had the genius to appeal to the popular masses in dire financial times, and that was in 2008. In between those rare examples, the French box office is dominated by Hollywood films, not because they are better received individually (with the exception of the "big ones like Avatar, Harry Potter, and The Avengers), but because there are so many of them they completely blot out the rest.

 

The only reason French cinema is still afloat is that private TV channels such as Canal +, which have a ton of money and are required to finance a certain number of French productions every year as part of their contract.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Maxim Ford]

Starting with the french film industry. 595 films were released in France in 2011 of which 293 were French taking 40% of audience share. In Britain British films had their highest share for many years at 13%.

 

The French film has an average budget of £3 million the UK £1/2 million and falling.

 

You see things upside down TV Channels do not support French Cinema, French cinema makes the programmes for them to show, unless you want a world where every film is made in Hollywood.

 

40% audience share is a very healthy situation.

 

The question about producers is everything to do with capitalism. It is about control and ownership.

 

If a funding body supplies the whole budget the "producer" is an employee like the cameraman, actor or grip.

 

If the producer has raised the money, by borrowing, selling shares, not paying the crew for 2 months etc he is the owner, the employer. Every pound he doesnt spend on wages is a pound extra in his pocket. His creativity is in maximising profit not making great cinema.

 

To him great cinema is the film with the maximum return on his capital.

 

To people who think that cinema is more than an investment but is also an art, a language, a social expression, a window on the world it is important that films are made free from the dictatorship of the market.

[Nicolas Courdouan]

The dictatorship of the market does exist, but only concerns the tip of the iceberg in terms of number of films. Even in the US, independently-funded films do not rely on the dictatorship of the market and yet have producers working on them.

 

I do agree that a healthy system is one where the producer is an employee and not an employer, but I think you're painting too bleak a picture relying on clichés of the big bad boss versus their poor, abused employees. A lot of produces love cinema just as much as the key grip working on their films, and their main objective is to deliver movies that will stay in everybody's minds for decades, if not longer.

 

Saying that the film industry does not need producers is, in effect, just like saying that it doesn't need directors. You want to cut off the head on the assumption that the body can deliver on its own. After all, every cinematographer, sound engineer and Foley artist has a vision too. Who needs a director telling them how to do their jobs to put their on vision on the screen? Why not the Foley artists's vision?

Edited October 31, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Maxim Ford]

I have just bought a loaf of bread. Am I a baker? Did I add the magic that made the loaf?

 

Did Sam Spiegal make the "African Queen"?

 

What difference would have made if Fred Blogs put up the money, a studio paid for it all or Chanel plus ?

 

Whose wife received a gigantic jewel with the profits from the movie?

 

Who paid for the pensions of the film technicians 30 years later?

 

If you are born a slave and never have known anything else it is difficult to see that societies change and social relations too, but in our societies of such unequal division of wealth and where there has been a cooperative tradition of making things without owners for 200 years I would hope that people would have twigged to con that producers really are.

[Guest]

Did Sam Spiegal make the "African Queen"?

 

Yes, absolutely.

 

This is why the Academy Award for Best Picture is given to the producer(s).

 

Oddly they don't give the Academy Award for Best Picture to the camera operator, although I'm sure that in your world you believe that they should.

 

R,

[Freya Black]

I have just bought a loaf of bread. Am I a baker? Did I add the magic that made the loaf?

 

Did Sam Spiegal make the "African Queen"?

 

What difference would have made if Fred Blogs put up the money, a studio paid for it all or Chanel plus ?

 

Whose wife received a gigantic jewel with the profits from the movie?

 

Who paid for the pensions of the film technicians 30 years later?

 

If you are born a slave and never have known anything else it is difficult to see that societies change and social relations too, but in our societies of such unequal division of wealth and where there has been a cooperative tradition of making things without owners for 200 years I would hope that people would have twigged to con that producers really are.

 

I think your problem is not with producers but with the system.

 

The people creating things in a cooperative tradition are still producers.

Your problem would not appear to be the producers themselves but the system in which they are operating.

You would like more ordinary people to have access to the means of production perhaps?

 

The producers are not the part that is the con. They are just people who are working within the system in a straightforward way to make things happen. In other systems you would still have people working as producers even in cooperative ways of organising things, it is just that the system for organising the producers might not slot into a straightforward hierarchy.

 

I'm still not sure what you refer to in term of producers either? It sounds like you might be talking more about executive producers more than the regular kind. Certainly executive producers would fit more the kind of mould you discuss of being the people who just bring money to the table. The executive producers are however just a symptom of the way the system is.

 

There are different ways of organising production and as you suggest there is a long tradition of other ways of organising things. I would suggest that if you don't like the way most productions are organised at present, that you find a way to organise things differently and work in that realm. Obviously that is a lot more difficult than going with the flow of the overarching meme but if you don't like to work under the dominant system then I suggest you look at alternatives.

 

This has nothing much to do with producers tho per se.

 

Freya

[Freya Black]

I have just bought a loaf of bread. Am I a baker? Did I add the magic that made the loaf?

 

What difference would have made if Fred Blogs put up the money, a studio paid for it all or Chanel plus ?

 

 

 

If you buy a load of bread you are a consumer of bread products. A bit like if you buy a DVD, you are a consumer of movies. Not sure why you are throwing that question in there.

 

However I would suggest to you that there is a huge difference between if Fred Bloggs, or Joe Blo, or Richard Boddington or some other guy puts up the money as opposed to a major movie studio or Canal+.

 

For instance what if Ed Wood were the movie producer, as opposed to Warner Bros, Fox, etc

 

Freya

Edited October 31, 2013 by Freya Black