Agent Representation for Camera Operators?

[Guest]

placing it in MGM's top 20 all time hits!

 

MGM must be so proud of their porno movie.

 

R,

[David Mullen ASC]

We can talk later, Greg, about "Star Trek 3" but I'd be curious to hear then about anamorphic lens flares, which were a big part of the look of the last two Trek movies, but Zeiss Master Prime Anamorphics are not prone to flaring much...

[John E Clark]

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

 

I don't know if noting your association with the production was a 'guilt by association' argument or not. But I don't think that unless a film is a 'technical disaster', the crew should feel any guilt/remorse/responsibility for box office floppiness.

 

In the 80s someone like Joe Esterhas and Paul Verhoeven seemed like a reasonable pair to make a money maker. Unfortunately with the rise of PG-13, a need for 4 quadrant audiences, such 'raw' material as strippers or Las Vegas Show girl exposees, just didn't have the market, and the NC-17 is a death knell for most such films, regardless of what the critics say.

 

Don't know if the public that would be interested in the subject matter thought it was some sort of extension of "Flash Dance"(1983) or not, but it just didn't work.

 

For me the film, perhaps due to the actors/actresses, it just didn't ring true on some level... but then most people are not all that familiar with stripping and the culture, especially the Las Vegas milieu.

 

One of these days I'll write my Magnum Opus using a story of attempted unionization of strippers in LV, as in Norma Rae meats Casino...

[Gregory Irwin]

We don't write 'em... We just light 'em! :)

 

G

[Guest]

But I don't think that unless a film is a 'technical disaster', the crew should feel any guilt/remorse/responsibility for box office floppiness.

 

YES! And the crew should not share in the credit when a movie is a success either!

 

If the writer and director are going to get flamed when things go badly, then they need to get all of the credit when things go well.

 

R,

[David Mullen ASC]

It's not as black and white as all of that...

 

Distributors, producers and directors already get the lion's share of both credit and blame -- and financial risk and reward -- but it doesn't hurt to be generous when you are in that position of power and give some credit to the crew when the movie is a success, nor shoulder the blame for failure (or avoid assigning blame)... that's a basic leadership principle. And of course, the truth is more complicated when assigning blame or credit to whatever works or doesn't work in a movie, and we all know that some bad movies can become hits and some great movies can be ignored.

[Guest]

Then the "crew" has to be on the hook and take part of the blame when things go bad. I'm looking at you craft services!

 

There is a reason the Academy gives the best picture Oscar to the producer, the producer makes the movie, the crew does not.

 

Victory has a hundred fathers, failure is an orphan.

 

R,

[John E Clark]

... I'm looking at you craft services!

...

 

Victory has a hundred fathers, failure is an orphan.

 

R,

 

Given how people begin to leave as soon as the credits roll, that should be 'failure is an anonymous orphan'...

 

Also an army marches on its stomach...

Edited August 5, 2015 by John E Clark

[David Mullen ASC]

I think behind the scenes, among the production companies, studios, etc. -- due to reading daily production reports -- there is blame that goes to crew members, it's just not public. If the craft service person can't stay on budget or does a lousy job or gets a crew member sick, then odds are high that they will not get hired by that production company again. And it's even more true for department heads. Sometimes they will even get blamed for falling behind schedule when it is actually the director's fault; I've heard stories of studios firing DP's, AD's, Gaffers, Key Grips, etc. just because they can't easily fire the director, so they attempt to scare him by firing everyone around him, hoping he takes the hint, sees the light. AD's are particularly vulnerable in this situation.

 

And with some of the big flops in Hollywood, it can have a dampening effect on the careers of some of the below-the-line people like DP's, editors, production designers, just as being associated with a hit would have the effect of boosting their careers.

[Guest]

And with some of the big flops in Hollywood, it can have a dampening effect on the careers of some of the below-the-line people like DP's, editors, production designers, just as being associated with a hit would have the effect of boosting their careers.

 

I agree with that, I hear the 2nd AC on Pluto Nash never worked again, LOL :D

 

I have a friend who was one of the "zillions" of guys who worked on the VFX for an Oscar winner. He was so excited, he felt like he had won the Oscar himself!

 

Problem was, his name was in the end credits inside one of those giant blocks of CG people that now frequent the larger scale movies.

 

R,

[ian dart]

producers with attitudes like yours Richard is one of the reasons crew resorts to agents and unions.

 

cheers.

[Guest]

And it's crew like you Ian that drive producers to shoot in non union jurisdictions. When I was shooting in South Africa this year the country was packed full of US shows that could of been shot in the US, no unions in South Africa. Look at how many US shows have shot in Romania.

 

So go ahead, cling to your little union, there are so many places around that globe that have excellent crews and no unions. Do you really think we need you?

 

R,

[Robin R Probyn]

Is it the higher wages /set time penalties ..you as a producer,have to pay union crews that you object to Richard.. I know you were joking about gaffer,s trailers .. and AC,s limo,s.. or something else .. honest question.. Im not trying to wind you up..

[ian dart]

i am not a union member. in australia the producers act like civilized human beings so we dont need them, unlike your part of the world apparently.

 

ps. i am an australian and a gaffer so it should not take much imagination to see i dont really give a rats arse what you think.

 

my runs are on the board.

 

cheers

[Phil Rhodes]

Honestly in the UK you can get a crew who are theoretically part of a union and treat them like crap anyway, and nobody's going to stop you.

 

P

[ian dart]

some producers would would have you work 20 hours a day and feed you cold shoulder and tongue pie for lunch if you are lucky.

it is up to yourself to set your working conditions and enforce them.

 

i myself have a strict lights out at 12 hours condition which is not negotiable. this is known by all before i am booked.

 

book me or dont book me those are my conditions take it or leave it.

 

cheers

[Phil Rhodes]

Many of us are not in that position and it seems inevitable that it'll get worse.

 

P

[Robin R Probyn]

And so the need for a union,that is not a private members club.. and one that should be open to all,and all should join.. thats the only way.. whether it ever will I don't know.. but logically its the only way for things to get better..

[Phil Rhodes]

The membership requirements of BECTU are fairly lax - when I joined I had to supply a few invoices and that was it. The problem is that the more powerful people in the union see this as a problem and as a reaction have implemented things like the qualifications we've discussed here before, which are transparently union controlled but have a lot of plausible deniability engineered into them until you look even slightly closely at it.

 

Nevertheless, it is pretty clearly designed to create a sort of club-within-a-club effect and restrict desirable work to a group of people controlled by those already at the top.

 

Ultimately, though, I don't think this makes very much practical difference to most people. There is so little real work going on in the UK that the high end is inaccessible to most people in any case. I don't think the high end folks really have much to worry about. I think it's actually more about intercine fighting between groups of the bigwigs, rather than trying to keep the little people out. The little people were never going anywhere anyway.

 

The thing that exercises me particularly about this is that the reason these things go through is because the lower end people don't go to union meetings, and the reason lower end people don't go to union meetings is because they're exclusively about percentage pay rises at the BBC and five minute disputes over mealtimes on some huge movie. The fact that so many members of the camera branch often don't get paid at all and don't get meal breaks at all and yet still turn out to work their backsides off for illegally long hours in unsafe conditions on material nobody will ever see...

 

...is apparently irrelevant to the union.

 

I have repeatedly offered to work for the camera branch, for free, on any initiative aimed at helping people who are working at that level. I've always been shouted down by some AC who arrived in a BMW and is worried about getting 2% next year.

 

They don't even phone up producers asking for freebies on Shooting People and berate them. They just don't care.

 

 

P

[Robin R Probyn]

see what you mean.. thats going no where then..

[Stuart Brereton]

I remember the crew of a very well known BBC drama having to organize their own strike action over conditions because BECTU refused to get involved. As has been said many times, the only reason to join was for the public liability insurance.

[Guest]

i am not a union member. in australia the producers act like civilized human beings so we dont need them, unlike your part of the world apparently.

 

ps. i am an australian and a gaffer so it should not take much imagination to see i dont really give a rats arse what you think.

 

my runs are on the board.

 

cheers

 

Next you'll tell me it is also illegal for a producer to whip the crew in Australia.

 

R,

[Guest]

Is it the higher wages /set time penalties ..you as a producer,have to pay union crews that you object to Richard.. I know you were joking about gaffer,s trailers .. and AC,s limo,s.. or something else .. honest question.. Im not trying to wind you up..

 

Mainly a union these days is simply a money grab for a few union bosses, I am amazed how few union members understand this fact. The unions suck money in fees out of their members, and offer very little in return. In addition to ensuring that very few new up and coming young people are allowed to join. I would ask those that defend unions, is joining IATSE free? If not how much does it cost? Why does it cost anything to begin with? It's totally corrupt.

 

Also, there is really no need for film unions anyway as there is ample employment legislation on the books that protect all workers. On my last two shows the total amount of overtime worked by the crew was.....zero hours. On many occasions we wrapped early, and still paid a full day. On my second to last movie two crew had family emergencies, I told the UPM we were going to keep paying them while they were gone and while we paid a replacement to come in for a few days. Not even the strongest union has those kind of provisions.

 

Those employment laws also prevent evil producers like me from putting naughty crew into "the box." I got the idea from Bridge On The River Kwai, apparently in most countries it's illegal for the producer to bake the crew in a box if they complain about the lobster being served for lunch, sheesh!

 

R,

[Freya Black]

 

Those employment laws also prevent evil producers like me from putting naughty crew into "the box." I got the idea from Bridge On The River Kwai, apparently in most countries it's illegal for the producer to bake the crew in a box if they complain about the lobster being served for lunch, sheesh!

 

R,

 

Gotta say, I don't remember the lobster scene in Bridge on the River Kwai but it's been a long time so I'll take your word on it. :)

 

Freya

[David Mullen ASC]

Richard, our fees and dues go to our healthcare plans and our pensions. We don't live in a country with national single-payer healthcare.

 

And employment legislation doesn't set rates for overtime, or deal with things like idle days when stuck on location. Just because you didn't work your crew late doesn't mean that the reason was that there were "ample employment legislation" in existence to stop you, it's because you decided to not do it, which is great, but what's to stop the next producer?

 

The camera union is relatively easy to join, you just have to prove that you've worked 100 days and got paid in your job category within a 3-year period. Some people would say that this makes it too easy, if there is a notion that being in a union must mean something in terms of skill level over other workers. But the other unions are a lot harder to get into, such as electric.

 

It's not a perfect system and has been rife with corruption historically because big money is involved, but big money corrupts everything, unions are not special in that regard.

 

The biggest argument for unions is simply this: a single worker has less power than a rich factory owner, a multinational corporation, anyone with power and money. When an industry employs thousands of workers, what power does an individual have other than to not take the work if he doesn't like the conditions? So the ability to bargain collectively is the only effective way to negotiate on anything close to equal footing with people with power and money. Sure, government regulations can be passed to bring many of these same protections and wage controls that unions argue for, and the government has the power to create a national healthcare system, but guess who lobbies the government to weaken business regulations? The people with power and money. You could say that it has taken government almost a hundred more years to do the work that unions did when governments wouldn't step in to protect workers.

 

But the power of collective bargaining creates a conundrum for unions, who have also been the evolution from the trade guilds of the Middle Ages, places where you could go that had highly trained people and were thus exclusive, with limited membership. And if union members themselves could agree on which they would rather be, an everyone-is-welcome union or an exclusive guild, that would be great, but they can't, and it's the members that determine the nature of their own collective. Trouble is that some people tie unions to job protectionism, as if the point of a union is to make sure that every union member works, and they lobby their own union into job protectionist activities, one of which is keeping the membership more exclusive, because simply put, there are always more workers than there are jobs.

 

I don't see a solution, it's always going to be a struggle between conflicting goals - like a lot of things in politics, it's about workable compromises.

 

But in principle, I believe in the importance of people gathering together into groups to demand protections, benefits, etc. as the only practical way of getting things done because an individual has limited power against larger forces with more money, the only strength is in numbers. So collective bargaining will always be an aspect of capitalism, I don't think you would ever have one without the other. This notion that a truly free market would somehow be free of unions of some sort is a fantasy, because when people are free, they form alliances to get things accomplished as a group that they can't accomplish as individuals.