I'd love to hear everybody's pet peeves in movie and TV production.
I'd love to hear everybody's pet peeves in movie and TV production.
Actors not sweeping correctly when somebody broke a glass or somebody's ashes were spilled on the floor or something like that is infuriating hahha.
They're always having some serious conversation with heavy relationship complications, but whoever has the broom is literally tapping at the mess on the floor because they know that the production crew is going to clean it up for them after the shoot, so they, the ac-tors, don't have to actually sweep the mess into the dustbin.
I f****** hate that.
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I hate when production companies dupe people into doing work on a movie "on spec". For those who don't know, on spec means that the work is done at a reduced upfront cost with the expectation of a share of profits after release. What the poor schmucks who fall for this don't know is that no movie has made a profit for production companies in over 50 years. At least not as far as paper is concerned. After a movie is made, production companies have to get it out there. The companies who do this are known as distributors, and they charge the production company to do the distribution. Now for the movie magic, the same company that owns the production company also owns the distributor, so they are essentially charging themselves more money than the movie can ever make to do the job. The legal loophole that they fuck people with is that, even though they are owned by the same company, they are separate legal entities, so contracts with one do not bind the other. The on spec contract is with the production company, but the distributor is the one who collects the money from the theaters, which it then funnels into the parent company. The production company shows a loss on the books, so the on spec clauses never trigger. Look into Life of Pi and Rhythm and Hues if you can find the right articles about what happened.
Oh, and remember how I said that theaters pay the distributors? Those contracts are almost as straightforward as the on spec ones. The standard layout is that the theater pays some percentage of the box office to the distributor for opening week, then each week after it reduces by some fixed percent until reaching 0. The initial percentages vary, as do the reduction, but standard is 80/10 from what I understand. The most abusive I have ever specifically learned the details for was a Disney production, I belive it was the first of the new Star Wars movies, but it was a 99% opening week, decreasing by 1% per week for 4 weeks, then 5% thereafter. Oh, and they also tried to strongarm the theaters into having to fork over 50% of concessions as well, which was the first time I had ever heard of that. Luckily the concessions thing was fought and won by the theaters, but it is atrocious that they even tried. Anyway, that is why concessions are so expensive, because theaters make virtually 0 money off box office sales since the bulk of a movie's gross revenue comes from opening week box office. Do your local theater a favor if you genuinely enjoy them existing, buy a fountain drink or a popcorn. Those are the highest profit margin items on the menu and they do actually need the money.
Holy crap I had no idea how much theaters were getting f***** over, thanks for posting this. Fascinating!.
Number 3, and the first article linked in it are good for deeper dives and the linked article may have more updated or detailed info than I am recalling from my reports I had to write for my MA in VFX. There is a LOT of fuckery that really should be quite illegal.
Understood, thanks. I'll read it.
Finally makes sense why so many theaters die when the overhead is so relatively low.
Damn, this sounds like mafia work. We need some laws in place
Yeah, I have studied all aspects of production, from writing all the way through to the audience watching it. There are strong laws on the production side because SAG and WGA exist and have pushed hard for legal protections against the studios and production companies prioritizing money over safety. Unfortunately on the distribution side the theaters actually have some very good anti-corporate laws working against them. What needs to happen is essentially a unionization of theaters so they can collectively bargain against the distributors and be able to say "good luck with getting your movie our there, because it won't be on a single silver screen with those terms." Unfortunately that behavior falls under the collusion and price fixing laws, which are spectacular and need to be there, but probably should be amended for situations like this.
This is the kind of thing I came in to talk about too. Here in New Zealand we don't have guilds that can stand against Hollywood industry and a right-wing government actually changed our labour law in favour of Warners and Peter Jackson so that they could call production crew and cast "independent contractors" (with no security or benefits) instead of employees.
The Actors guild protested but someone working at Weta at the time told me animators were "encouraged" to counter protest in support of the law change "if you want to keep your jobs".
That is appalling. I knew some of that, but not the full extent. It is disgusting. The on-set unions in the states are extremely strong, and I am so thankful for that. The whole post production industry needs a global set of unions. I would like to see the same for on-set. Someone needs to keep these jackasses in check.
Yeah, they really do.
I really lost respect for Peter Jackson over that whole fiasco. New Zealand was already giving Hollywood production companies massive tax breaks so there was no need for it, but he actively helped them stiff the local crew.
Weta's a bit toxic anyway but it's a widespread problem.
Same. I was really disheartened when I heard all of the negative stuff for living in NZ from a past coworker. It had been on my short list of "gtfo my dystipian nightmare" countries, but it sounds to me like it is nearly as bad, just in different ways.