Some Things In The News
Fetus with Intent
Whoever came up with the word “twinseparable” needs medication and institutionalization. The most irritating part about this soft news piece (aside from being soft news, of course) is the reporter’s insistence on ascribing intent to a fetus:
Mrs Jones decided to let doctors operate to terminate Gabriel’s life.Firstly they tried to sever his umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply, but the cord was too strong.
They then cut Mrs Jones’s placenta in half so that when Gabriel died, it would not affect his twin brother.
But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas.
Although he weighed less than a pound, he put up such a fight for survival that doctors called him Rocky.
Bold added. No, tiny Gabriel did not have other ideas. He didn’t have any ideas.
Writers’ Block
The WGA goes on strike Monday morning at 12:01am. I cannot imagine that if they do strike, other Hollywood unions wouldn’t join them.
Hollywood is a de facto closed shop, of the sort outlawed by Taft-Hartley in 1947. If a movie has a budget over about $2M (which is a really low budget; think late nite Cinemax), it’ll have to be unionized if it wants crew, cast, or distribution. Of course, a person could scrape together $20M and make a movie himself, but he won’t get professional equipment (rental houses rent sophisticated equipment like high-end cameras or motion controlled cranes with approved operators, who are always union, and are basically prohibited from working on non-union shoots with budgets over $2M), he won’t get actors (SAG also pulls its members out of “high” budget shoots), and he won’t get theatrical distribution (The major distributors, Warners, Universal, Paramout, etc., are all MPAA signatories, along with every first-run theatre in the country; theatres don’t get first-run films from MPAA distributors unless they play by the MPAA’s rules). A producer could make and distribute a $50M non-union film for around $500M, and he would not be able to shop any of the work out to the existing professional infrastructure. He’d have to do it himself, right down to negotiating for screens in independent theatres and mailing out prints.
Last I heard, a federal mediator has been sent in. Because, you know, the Federal government has power to force the studios to negotiate with the unions under the National Labor Relations Act. Thank you, Justice Owen J. Roberts, who switched sides in West Coast Hotel just one month before appearing among the majority in Laughton Steel. (Yet another reason 1937 was probably the very worst year in American history.)
The union apparently wants more residuals from DVD and Internet distribution. And that’s fine; they can ask for that. But they don’t have the right to drag the government in and force the studios to give it to them. If it weren’t illegal, the studios should just refuse to deal with the union. But alas, they do not have that option, and they are certainly not principled enough to try.
More “Public Property” Problems
There are apparently cell phone jammers out there. So, like, if you’re a movie theatre manager, you could jam cell signals inside the theatre so the ringing and the talking wouldn’t interrupt the movie. Sounds great, right? But because the airwaves are “public property,” using them is illegal, even for private people on private property. Like roads, “public” “ownership” of the airwaves gives the government extensive control over how private people use their own property.
The news article only confuses the issues, and the confusion is nicely summarized by this quote from James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University:
If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people. The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.
There is no conflict of rights here. Or at least, there wouldn’t be if the government got out of the broadcasting business.
There are two examples of jammer users offered in the article: private property owners, and persons on “public property.” There certainly aren’t any competing rights between shop owners (or theatre owners, or restaurant owners, or therapists, all of whom appear as examples in the article) and their customers. If the shop owner says “No phones,” his wish prevails on his property.
However, if the airwaves were private property, would there be a conflict in private shops? A topic for another day, I think.
“A producer could make and distribute a $50M non-union film for around $500M, and he would not be able to shop any of the work out to the existing professional infrastructure.”
I don’t understand these numbers. Are you saying that a producer could make a film for a relatively inexpensive price as opposed to what a union film would cost and then not be able to distribute it because no theater would accept it?
Also, the more I read about the MPAA the more I come to the conclusion that it is just an abominable organization. I know its private but its so unprincipled. How does it survive? Is it because of pro-union laws? Why is Hollywood such an “old-boys” type industry when many other industries have been opened up in the modern era? I don’t understand this.
You’re right. That was terribly unclear. I meant to convey the idea that it would cost an independent producer 10x more to distribute a film completely outside the union/MPAA/Hollywood system. Not because the union/MPAA/Hollywood system is more efficient, but because it costs a lot more money to avoid the system.
The MPAA, and specifically IATSE, is one of the major reasons I left film. It is impossible to make money in film without joining the union, and it’s silly expensive to join the union, especially for someone who, thanks to the union, cannot get any substantial paying work.
I think all unions are self-perpetuating in this way, but the biggest culprit is the government, which isn’t just pro–union, it forces employers to negotiate with unions, whether or not the employer wants to hire a union. The government permits unions to force employers to fire workers who choose not to join (the so-called “Union Shop” model, which has largely replaced, but is practically indistinguishable from, the now-banned “Closed Shop” model).
Hollywood is more inimical to non-union labor for a few reasons. Hollywood dominates North American screen employment in exactly the same way Detroit no longer dominates North American automobile employment. Toyota, &c., moved in and established non-union manufacturing plants in right-to-work states. California is not a right-to-work state (and never will be, if Hollywood has its say), and although filming may occur in right-to-work states, cast and crew employment agreements are governed by California law.
If vertical integration had not been prohibited by the government, I think MPAA would actually have less power over the exhibition of films. If the studios had maintained direct control over their theatres, independently owned theatres would be more common, and their motive for remaining independent would be different than it is today.
~Q
On a related note, I forgot to mention that I still think that the whole MPAA/DGA/WGA/SAG/IATSE involvement will have a substantial impact on the film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged currently in development by Lion’s Gate. Either the anti-union themes will be absent, or the film will not be made. If it is made, we will end up with a movie with a significantly watered down message.
~Q
Thanks for your reply. I appreciate the information. I have a question though regarding your last point. Is it that the unions have direct say over the content of movies that a pro-capitalist or any anti-Left movie can not really be made or is it really the philosophical corruption of the studios themselves? For example, if there was say a filthy rich Objectivist who could finance an awesome adaption of ‘Atlas’ entirely on his own and all he needed was a distributor would he have to face any interference from the unions? The distributor? How much independence (given the system as you described it) would he have?
From my experience with the industry, I believe it would take a great and highly unlikely confluence of like-minded individuals to be able to make an adequate adaptation of Altas. I suppose it is entirely possible that the Baldwins and Perelman might be able to pull it off. But the Baldwins also have to satisfy Lion’s Gate, who are ideological whores. Lion’s Gate is probably their best shot at a distributor, because Lion’s Gate aren’t particularly choosy about the ideas their pictures relate. The majors (Paramount, Universal, Buena Vista [a.k.a. The Mouse], Sony) are more closely concerned with what will “play in Peoria,” and their views of what “plays” are either very liberal or very vapid.
Even though LGF has already signed on, that doesn’t mean that the ideological production control is now in the Baldwins’ or Perelman’s court. LGF’s investment will almost certainly be contingent on several factors: most obviously rating, runtime, casting, budget. It is not generally studio policy to dictate the ideology of films they contract to co-produce or distribute, but ideological considerations certainly work their way into all sorts of low-level decisions. For example, if a film is running longer than target, ideology might influence what gets cut. This, I think, will happen to Fred Kinnan (his entire character will be, or more likely, already has been cut from the script), even though Kinnan plays a significant ideological role in the story. The decisions of what to cut in order to compress Atlas into 2½ hours are always affected by political and ideological considerations. I don’t know for certain whether this is done knowingly or unknowingly by the producer/director/writer/distributor complex. I suspect it is a mix of both.
The problem with making an anti-union picture with union labor is two-fold. First, if you can manage to avoid the second problem, it undercuts the message. Remember Hook, which was supposed to be a film about spending more time with your kids? Production schedules kept crew and cast members away from their kids for 9 months. It’s not obvious from the film itself, of course, but it undercuts the message nonetheless. The same will happen with Atlas, providing it can avoid the second problem with unions.
The second problem with making an anti-union film with union labor is that all those union workers have a tiny bit of control over the look and feel of the picture. Makeup artists, costume artists, musicians, cinematographers, lighting personnel, and especially the art director and set dressers, all have some degree of control over what goes on the screen. They can (and do) make creative decisions based on their own ideas. Again, these decisions might be made consciously or unconsciously, but the effect is the same. And the creative autonomy of keys is protected by the union agreements. Because narrative film is an empathetic medium, slight changes in lighting or makeup or prop choice can affect the emotional content of the film.
Of course, there is always the possibility of union bosses being intelligent enough to pick up on the anti-union sentiments in the book and threaten to withdraw union support. Generally, there is nothing to stop them from doing so. They can work a strike in for ideological differences, or threaten their members with reduced future employment.
[I should mention: IATSE Local 600 (the camera union) actually assigns jobs in many circumstances. It “guarantees” a certain amount of work per year for “qualifying” members.]
I don’t think union bosses will do that, though. Unless maybe if Atlas ends up being really high-profile. Even then, it is still a low-mid budget picture (that is, the lower end of the “mid budget” range, not the middle of the “low budget” range)
Finally, Perelman is WGA and DGA. Both contracts control his involvement in the picture. LGF and BEG (Baldwins) are signatories to both agreements. With a union member in the major creative roles (writer and director), fear of union reprisal or other ideological considerations will certainly make their way into the production. At best, lots of little changes will pile up to have a substantial effect. At worst, the film will be deliberately corrupted. Somewhere in the middle, it won’t even get made.
As to your question about the ‘filthy’ rich Objectivist producer, he could have as much independence as he could afford. But it is very costly. To be truly independent, he’d have to build his own theatres (because most theatres are subject to MPAA agreements). Theoretically it might be cheaper to buy his way around those agreements, but theatres will be reluctant. And if he produced, distributed and exhibited the movie himself, he’d run into that nasty little antitrust law prohibiting producer/distributors from owning exhibition venues.
Union members are not permitted to work on non-union shoots. They’re not supposed to ever work on non-union shoots, but the unions don’t start enforcing that rule until the budget gets to about $2M (hence my remarks about $2M above). A non-union producer would have difficulty getting experienced crew members. Though it would be extremely spiffy if he were to offer such good terms that union members come to work for him off the union books and under assumed names. It’d be neat if the whole credits came out “Alan and Alice Smithee.” The unions can (and do) take reprisal actions against members who break the rules.
So it could certainly be done. It would just cost a lot more than it should.
~Q
Awesome response! Thank you so much. The film industry is a fascinating industry in its own corrupt way.