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Agent Representation for Camera Operators?


Steven P. Denny

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As both Phil and Robin point out, there are different levels of things in the film and video world and at a higher level there are unions and agents and stuff and at a lower level there isn't. Personally I like that. I think that is a part of a healthy moving image environment and it's even better if there is any kind of opportunity for people to move between the different levels of things. I dislike unions and agents etc when they try and obstruct that because there is already not enough of it going on.

 

Obviously if you are a high end cinematographer who is very much in demand you might have an agent. I think agents can be a valuable thing in some situations because they might be better at negotiating and selling than other people. Not everyone has the same skillset and some people may well need help in this regard.

 

Freya

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why do you dislike unions.. my only gripe was when they are not a union but a corrupt exclusive club.. as with the union in the UK in the 80,s.. I remember the £40,000 of members fees used for "drinks to foster work for union members with producers ".. and thats 30 yrs ago £40,000.. total A holes..

 

The point is everyone should be in the union.. then things like the 10 hr turn over .. very basic stuff.. like lets not be killed driving home stuff.. lets eat.. minimum pay.. being paid !! film industry is not far off the mining industry 100 yrs ago.. no union .. anything goes.. organize and close down the pricks in our industry..

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why do you dislike unions.. my only gripe was when they are not a union but a corrupt exclusive club.. as with the union in the UK in the 80,s.. I remember the £40,000 of members fees used for "drinks to foster work for union members with producers ".. and thats 30 yrs ago £40,000.. total A holes..

 

The point is everyone should be in the union.. then things like the 10 hr turn over .. very basic stuff.. like lets not be killed driving home stuff.. lets eat.. minimum pay.. being paid !! film industry is not far off the mining industry 100 yrs ago.. no union .. anything goes.. organize and close down the pricks in our industry..

 

If you are talking to me then I think you only read half the sentence I wrote.

I didn't say anything about not liking unions per se.

 

Freya

Edited by Freya Black
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a union that didnt let people join !!

 

Don't worry, Robin, they're still at it. These days, having been stripped of the power to directly exclude people, which is clearly still very much their inclination, they've fallen back to deciding arbitrarily that things they want to control are unsafe and require qualifications... and the qualifications are controlled by the union.

 

Since it's basically impossible to argue against someone making a health and safety case these days, no matter how spurious, they're back in charge.

 

Brilliant.

 

Notice though that they're only applying this thinking to the high end stuff, the desirable, well-paid stuff that everyone would like to be working on. They're perfectly happy for the low-end newbies to get hurt. That doesn't affect the bottom line of the comparatively rich people who run the organisation.

 

It is revolting.

 

P

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Phil.. sorry to hear that.. it was criminal how they operated in the 80,s.. they actual promoted terrible abuse on all the thousands of music video that were being made then.. by not letting anyone join the union..(I remember captain sensible ,s girlfriend almost giving birth in my car at 4am driving back to London from location! ).. what sort of union is that.. obviously they didnt know what the word meant.. I knew someone who worked there so I actually knew what was going on.. not just rumor and hearsay .. which can be crap .. a real nest of vipers in Soho square at the top end anyway ... it was ironically the milk snatcher who got rid of them.. along with the coal mining industry ..

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some one of Gregs skill level is not going to be working on any film that Richard is producing..

 

Ha! Don't make me laugh!

 

R,

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organize and close down the pricks in our industry..

 

Going to be very difficult as the film schools keep churning out thousands of eager new grads every year. Film school grads that will have very little opportunity to earn a living in the film industry. Especially since the unions have done a great job at making film work an exclusive club that protects the jobs of older workers, and basically excludes younger workers from the job market.

 

R,

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Robin R Probyn, on 04 Aug 2015 - 09:30 AM, said:snapback.png

some one of Gregs skill level is not going to be working on any film that Richard is producing..

I'm not sure which of them should be the most offended by that comment.

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I'm not sure which of them should be the most offended by that comment.

 

Well clearly it's me on that one Mark. :D

 

R,

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Going to be very difficult as the film schools keep churning out thousands of eager new grads every year. Film school grads that will have very little opportunity to earn a living in the film industry. Especially since the unions have done a great job at making film work an exclusive club that protects the jobs of older workers, and basically excludes younger workers from the job market.

 

R,

 

As a general statement, unions work when there is sufficient need for the labor in the region where the union exists.

 

Once those that need labor, can move with relative 'ease' to locations where the unions do not exist, or even if unions exist, the cost of labor is cheaper, the unions of the original labor pool region, are dead.

 

This can be seen for any unionized activity.

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Richard.. sorry you have taken my post totally in the wrong way.. what I meant was someone like Greg.. who is obviously at the top end of AC skills.. has a manager etc and will command a high wage.. where as you have stated strongly you wouldn't deal with people who had managers/agents or made "demands'..sorry badly worded by me.. I see now that it can be taken in an insulting way.. not my intent.. I don't know your films at all and I don't know Greg personally either..

 

And I totally agree.. my point all along.. unions keeping people out of the union .. is of course ..promoting exactly what the union should be fighting against..

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Ok thanks.. must have a read through before I hit post !.. just to reiterate .. my point was that you two guys would probably not get through the first phone call.. and so not ever work together.. actually a fairly useless point to make in the first place..

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If Gregory was on my set I would ensure that he was picked up in a limo from his five star hotel each morning. We'd fly in his entire family, first class of course. And his name would go above the title on the poster art.

 

R,

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Richard, you are bigger than your infantile rant. At least I hope so since you are in a position of leadership and all. I really don't care that you insult or try to disrespect me for it rolls right off of my back. But I do find it offensive that you disrespect this forum and the members of this forum. It makes you look small. I wouldn't attack you personally. I critizised you on a professional level.

 

The reality is that Robin is correct. You and your productions are not even on my radar. Your production budget of "Against the Wild" is posted as $1.8M. If that's correct, that would represent only my additional camera gear and expendables budgets. So, I may not have produced a movie but I certainly manage very large sums of money in a way that the American studios like. I run a very tight camera department and deliver on time and on budget.

 

So let's get back at the task at hand. I'll keep doing what I do best - running efficient large camera crews and making very entertaining and profitable movies and you keep up doing whatever you do whether it's based on my opinion or not.

 

Greg

Edited by Gregory Irwin
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Greg,

It's great that you're working on the new Star Trek. Are you guys shooting anamorphic 35 and 65 again like Into the Darkness?

We are shooting open gate Alexa with Zeiss Master Prime Anamorphic lenses.

 

G

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and making very entertaining and profitable movies and you keep up doing whatever you do whether it's based on my opinion or not.

 

Greg

 

Well this would be a debate for another day, but few "tent-poles" actually turn a profit. In fact many are giant financial disasters, I could give you a list of flops so far this year if you like. And of course 2014, and 2013, saw some of the biggest financial flops in cinema history. The more you spend the more you have to get back, no one can escape that rule.

 

R,

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I could give you a list of flops so far this year if you like. And of course 2014, and 2013, saw some of the biggest financial flops in cinema history.

 

Please do - genuinely interested. I was under the impression that tent poles were really the only profit drivers these days.

Edited by Kenny N Suleimanagich
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Please do - genuinely interested. I was under the impression that tent poles were really the only profit drivers these days.

 

Do a Google search for, "movie flops of 2014."

 

You didn't hear about financial disasters like, John Carter, The Lone Ranger, Mars Needs Moms, I, Frankenstein?

 

Sure all these movies had big budgets, and attracted top talent like, er....Greg Irwin, but they also lost tens of millions.

 

Even the illustrious Gregory Irwin worked on "Showgirls," in 1995, a movie that was both a financial and critical disaster.

 

Here are some giant flops from 2014:

 

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/12/30/the-biggest-box-office-flops-of-2014

 

The numbers are far worse when you add on P&A costs and the fact that these are GROSS numbers, the theatre chains take 40-50% of the box office.

 

R,

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We are shooting open gate Alexa with Zeiss Master Prime Anamorphic lenses.

 

G

I once asked ARRI about whether there was any advantage to shooting Open Gate for anamorphic... this is what they told me:
"Open Gate is actually 1.55:1 (3414 x 2198) and because of only 38 pixel differences in height it makes no real difference for shooting anamorphic."
Regular 4x3 ARRIRAW is 2880 x 2160, and ultimately for 2.40 2X anamorphic photography, you can only use a 1.20 : 1 area of the sensor for a 2.40 image... which means for anamorphic, it's the difference between using 2638 x 2198 pixels for Open Gate versus 2592 x 2160 pixels in regular 4x3 mode.
So I'm making a guess that "Star Trek" is recording Open Gate because they occasionally might need to shoot on spherical lenses? Or maybe they want a little around the edges in case they have to do repositioning in post? (Not that a 38 pixel border is a lot of extra room to work in.) So is there a special 2.40 anamorphic frame line marking for Open Gate?
Greg, who is shooting the new movie?

 

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I once asked ARRI about whether there was any advantage to shooting Open Gate for anamorphic... this is what they told me:
"Open Gate is actually 1.55:1 (3414 x 2198) and because of only 38 pixel differences in height it makes no real difference for shooting anamorphic."
Regular 4x3 ARRIRAW is 2880 x 2160, and ultimately for 2.40 2X anamorphic photography, you can only use a 1.20 : 1 area of the sensor for a 2.40 image... which means for anamorphic, it's the difference between using 2638 x 2198 pixels for Open Gate versus 2592 x 2160 pixels in regular 4x3 mode.
So I'm making a guess that "Star Trek" is recording Open Gate because they occasionally might need to shoot on spherical lenses? Or maybe they want a little around the edges in case they have to do repositioning in post? (Not that a 38 pixel border is a lot of extra room to work in.) So is there a special 2.40 anamorphic frame line marking for Open Gate?
Greg, who is shooting the new movie?

 

 

Stephen Windon is the Cameraman. He's fantastic. As far as your observations regarding anamorphic and open gate, you are spot on. We, however, created custom 2.37:1 frame lines in order to create more room outside of the frame lines for VFX requirements. There will be much more on this subject as we get closer to the release date of the picture.

 

G

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Even the illustrious Gregory Irwin worked on "Showgirls," in 1995, a movie that was both a financial and critical disaster.

 

 

 

R,

Actually, that's not true. Yes it was a critical disaster because is plainly a bad movie. The NC-17 rating seriously cut down on the movie's potential audience. But in the end with all markets included, SHOWGIRLS is an incredibly successful hit placing it in MGM's top 20 all time hits! It has become a cult classic.

 

G

Edited by Gregory Irwin
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