By Jack Egan

IATSE president Matthew D. Loeb has been president of IATSE since July 2008 when he was elected by the IA’s executive board to succeed Tom Short who suddenly stepped down after 14 years. At the recent IA quadrennial convention, in Orlando, Loeb chaired his first conclave and was re-elected unanimously to serve a full four-year term as International president of the world’s largest entertainment union, primarily representing below-the-line and behind the scenes workers. Following the convention, Loeb sat down with Jack Egan of BelowThe Line to discuss IATSE’s present and future.

Below the Line: This was the first convention you chaired. What was your takeaway?

Matthew Loeb: I got a tremendous sense of solidarity from sthe group, and a sense that the mission of the IA is shared by the entire delegation.

BTL: IATSE has been one of the few unions to add a significant number of new members—by some 50% from 1993 to mid-2008. Can this continue?

Loeb: Not at the same pace, but I think growth can continue for new media work, for the low budget work, the basic cable work, the reality TV work. There are also huge opportunities in the stagecraft and trade show work that we also represent.

BTL: You’ve been in charge of a lot of organizing in recent years, signing a lot of term agreements. Will that continue to be the pattern for IATSE?

Loeb: The term agreement secures the work for this union as opposed to competing unions. It also binds the employers on a long-term basis to renegotiate with us and build up a relationship with us. So yes, term agreements in organizing will remain key.

BTL: Doesn’t new technology in some ways reduce the number of jobs for your members?

Loeb: Sometimes it also potentially creates jobs. With digital technology, for instance, the advent of some of the new cameras caused new jobs to pop up with respect to servicing those cameras. There’s no question that some technology is designed to streamline the process, and the result is a diminishing number of jobs. But we’re going to stay ahead of it, retraining people, making sure that we organize people with the new technology to keep our handle on the labor force.

BTL: We’re still relatively early into the digital transition, but its impact is already pervasive. People in the art department, for example, are worried what happens to them when the sets for films and television shows are done primarily using computer graphics. We’ve already seen that in a few instances.

Loeb: First, you still need to have a production designer, even with CG. But we have to make sure our people are retrained so that the work that was done with a pencil, or at the drawing table or in the drafting room turns to the computer. We have to make sure that our people are ready to step up to those jobs and we have to organize the other people who are doing similar work.

BTL: At the last convention in Honolulu four years ago, your predecessor Tom Short talked about organizing the people in the computer graphics area. Is that still under consideration? And what’s the challenge of moving into this turf?

Loeb: Yes, it’s still under consideration. With all this digital technology potentially you can separate people geographically; you can do this kind of work from a number of different places. The challenge is first identifying the workforce, and them accessing them. Though some people see digital as a threat, technology is also an advantage. You have not just email, you have Facebook, Twitter and all those new social media—we can’t be left behind. We’re going to be up to speed. And we have some really bright people who can wrap their heads around the new technologies. But with respect to the work that’s done digitally, whether it’s CGI or animation or even video gaming—as far as I’m concerned those are all our organizing targets potentially.

BTL: I think a lot of people in the computer graphics and effects field would like to be organized, because they are freelancers now. And they have no leverage to negotiate.

Loeb: Maybe the Employee Free Choice Act that’s before Congress will help. The challenge is that in a freelance world, if you support having a union and the company wants to avoid the union, you don’t get called back for the next job, so you’re really under a lot of pressure. We’re going to continue to win the hearts and minds and get the support the old fashioned way. Maybe the new legislation under consideration, if it helps protect the worker a little bit with better enforcement, or some final contract arbitration–so that at least they know they will come out with a deal for a union—that will certainly help. But it’s hard to say when Congress is going to deal with that.

BTL: The latest word coming from Washington is that the Employee Free Choice Act won’t have the card check provision, to replace the secret vote, and that’s what unions have been wanting to attain for so long.

Loeb: My opinion is that we come from the position that we want all the pieces from the original act. But if we’re going to get cloture [60 votes to end a filibuster] from the Senate, they’re going to have to massage it. And what parts are left remains to be seen. And card check is being discussed as possibly being dropped. Anything that we can get is better than what we’ve had.

BTL: Who is Matt Loeb? Where have you come from to attain this position of International president?

Loeb: I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. I entered the industry in 1988-89 in New York. I was working mainly on movies, some TV commercials. I was working with the scenic artists union. I didn’t have that much talent, beyond doing stick figures. I started in the capacity of what they called “paint boys.” That term became politically incorrect, so it was changed to “shop man,” and then to “shop person.” That jobinvolved cleaning up after everybody at the end of the day, and ordering supplies and doing time cards.
And if you do time cards for 75 painters at 5 locations, you’ve got to know the contracts. You become the de facto steward on all those jobs. I learned the contracts and a position became available at the scenic artists union as a representative. I applied for that job, and worked there for about three years. I worked with Brian Unger who is now with the Director’s Guild. He had been the chairman of the East Coast Council of the IA. And when he left to go the DGA, he recommended me to then President Al Di Tolla. He hired me to take this spot as chairman of the East Coast Council. Then I became International vice president, director of the motion picture and television production department in 1998 when it was established. So there were a couple of steps in between scrubbing the paint boxes and where I am today.

BTL: You became IA president last July. So were you in charge of negotiating the latest three-year Hollywood Basic Agreement that was ratified by the members earlier this year?

Loeb: Negotiations on the Hollywood Basic Agreement began in early 2008. Tom Short was still the International president. We had a couple of sessions with the AMPTP [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers]. We staked out a couple of positions—that was very helpful because we did that before the markets crashed. We came back in November after I had become president, and essentially held to those positions. The idea was that with all that was going on, and with the Writer’s Guild having struck plus other labor strife, we had remained a responsible union organization. So there was no justification for us getting a deal that was any less rich than what anybody else was getting.

BTL: But there were some givebacks in the end.

Loeb: We went into the negotiations $578 million in the hole on our pension fund which we had to make up to get the benefits back to where they were. The employers argued that the number was closer to $800 million. We spent three days staking out our position that it was the lower number. Then you start to bargain. We were able to get enough new money, over the term of three years, not only to cover a $578 million shortfall and keep our benefits intact, with no cuts whatever on the IAP part of the pensions. And then we acceded to some plan design changes, such as going from 300 to 400 hours as a work minimum every six months to qualify for the health coverage.
Beyond the 3 percent in annual wage increases we were able to obtain, we put the rest of the money into the health plan, which we consider most important to our members. If you retire and you have a big annuity account but crappy health insurance then you’re probably going to dip into your retirement money to pay for your health.

BTL: And those health expenditures can be huge as you grow older.

Loeb: And that leads to a discussion in my mind about the overall health crisis and what it does to the country’s economy, and what it does to labor unions’ bargaining process. You can’t solve this at the bargaining table when health care costs are increasing by double digits each year. If you look at other non-IA guilds in this industry, you will see that despite the increase in medical co-pays, and the other design changes and streamlining in the contract, we really held our own.

BTL: So you think you got a pretty good deal net-net?

Loeb: I don’t think you’ll find many agreements reached by the American labor movement that closed in November 2008, when the economy was in free fall, and that look as good as this one. You can see what happened to the auto workers.

BTL: In the last negotiating round with the studios, the Writers Guild of America went out on strike for over 3 months, and the Screen Actors Guild went a year after their contract expired, creating a de facto strike atmosphere, before they reached a new deal. What do you expect will happen in the next negotiating round, which is now less than two years away?

Loeb: We’re going to watch to see how the next round of leadership elections in those guilds plays out. I’m hoping for a more stable leadership environment. And that will be pivotal with respect to the next cycle.

BTL: What is the relationship like between the entertainment companies and the Hollywood unions these days?

Loeb: It varies by the union, and it varies by issue. With respect to piracy we’re collaborating with these companies. And we had a very stable negotiation last time. Some of the other unions had instability and the writers had a strike. The relationships are different with each of the unions. Ours has been stable.

BTL: One issue you have worked on in your previous position as head of the IA’s motion picture and television production department, and stressed at this convention, is the issue of piracy of films and other entertainment product. Most people wouldn’t think that the below-the-line guilds would care that much about this problem. Explain how piracy affects you, and affects you very directly.

Loeb: It certainly affects the flow of revenues to the studios, and thus the resulting residuals into our health and pension plans. The revenue stream is what funds production throughout the United States, Canada and globally, If you pull money out of the revenue stream through piracy, there’s simply going to be less work and less jobs for our members that might otherwise be the case, and there’s less money for benefits and less money to get at the bargaining table.

BTL: Despite all the talk about the impact of piracy, I haven’t heard much in the way of a solution.

Loeb: It’s a global problem first of all, and we have to work with our global allies. I’m talking about the unions and guilds here and elsewhere that are affected and the employers that have a major stake in this thing. But frankly you don’t have a lot of resources available. We have to probably get in bed with music and publishing who have the same kinds of issues with respect to intellectual property.
In my view the biggest problem we have right now is that we lack somebody or some organization to coordinate the anti-piracy effort. I don’t believe that labor will coordinate this on behalf of the major studios. The IA can take a leadership role in coordinating the labor piece of the puzzle. But there are many other pieces. There also has to be a media campaign. We have to culturally change attitudes from the days we traded cassette tapes back and forth, to today where there are millions of illegal copies made of a DVD and downloading from the internet isn’t considered as theft. Again it’s not just a labor issue.

BTL: The studios have even more at stake.

Loeb: The studios and also those other industries I mentioned. We shouldn’t wait to get our heads around this problem and finding somebody or some organization to take the leadership role in coordinating all the different pieces. The piracy technology is here, and it’s only a matter of time before it gets out of control. We can’t go the way of the music industry. We can’t sue a 10 year old for a million dollars—that doesn’t work. I don’t any 10 year olds with a million dollars.

BTL: How has the present sharp slide in the economy affected IATSE workers.

Loeb: It depends on which part of the organization you’re talking about. With stage crafts, we have benefactors putting up less money, the contributions from endowments are down, so the smaller theaters are really getting pinched. And that puts a lot of pressure on the bargaining process. But Broadway is strong. Audiences, many from Europe and other parts of the world, have held up even with a stronger dollar which makes it more expensive for them.
Motion picture production has also held up pretty well. People like to be entertained—it’s not expensive like a vacation or a new car –and people haven’t given up going to movies. So we’re holding our own on the motion picture end. The trade show business is getting hurt. It’s one of the first things to go when you cut back. You can see what’s happening in Orlando and in Las Vegas.

BTL: Are there real profits to be made on the internet?
Loeb: I don’t think families want to sit around the computer and eat popcorn and watch a movie yet. But I believe there will soon be a seamless entertainment model where your big-screen television and your computer and the internet are probably going to become one thing. I think that they will digitize every picture ever made, and everything will come over the internet. At some point that will happen.
The real question is how that will change traditional entertainment on television. Right now I don’t see it as a big thret. People still like the half hour and hour long shows. The little three-minute snippets on the internet are popular and they get a million hits. But there’s not a lot of money. However, when the internet is delivering everything, and there’s no more need to get of the house to see a movie recently released or to rent a DVD when you can hit a download button becomes another story. Will it erode or cannibalize anything that exists now? That remains to be seen.

BTL: What is the relationship between the entertainment companies and the Hollywood unions these days?

Loeb: It varies by the union, and it varies by issue. With respect to piracy we’re collaborating these companies. And we had a very stable negotiation last time. Some of the other unions had instability and the writers had a strike. The relationships are different with each of the unions. Ours has been stable.

The 66th convention of the IATSE, taking place in Orlando near Walt Disney World, concluded Friday with the same lockstep unanimity that was the case for the entire five days of the meeting. The election of officers for the union was pro forma, since no one ran in opposition to any of the candidates on the official slate.

Matthew D. Loeb was re-elected International President of the IA by acclamation. Loeb said solidarity and cooperation between the 400 local unions in the United States and Canada that come together under the IATSE umbrella, characterized the convention. “There are no divisions between the crafts,” he stated in a warning to employers. “You take on one of us, you take on all of us,” he said in final remarks to the 880 delegates in attendance.

This was the first convention Loeb presided over and the first time he was officially elected. He moved up to the top job at the end of July 2008 when Tom Short suddenly stepped down after a 14 year tenure. Loeb had previously served on the IA’s executive board as first vice president and was chairman of the East Coast Council for over 14 years. m

The issues stressed by Loeb and others at the confab included the need for national health care reform and the threat of internet piracy to films and other entertainment product.
The delegates I talked to responded favorably Loeb’s ascendance, calling him “a uniting force,” and a “stabilizer,” after Short’s sometimes tumultuous but mainly successful reign. Loeb was also seen as “a forward-looking leader” at a time when digital technologies and new systems of media distribution–over the internet and cell-phones—are reshaping the entertainment industry and calling for new worker skills.

Also re-elected unanimously was James B. Wood, the General Secretary-Treasurer and the return of the entire General Executive Board, consisting of 13 vice-presidents, as well as three international trustees and the union’s delegate to the Canadian Labor Congress.

The IATSE represents members employed in the motion picture and television production, stagecraft, and trade show industries throughout the United States, its Territories, and Canada.

Additionally: Publications covering the book biz (Publishers Weekly and Library Journal are part of the sale), have been a little swifter covering the story. Media Bistro has a good overview…

Piracy of film and television product has moved to the top of the agenda at the IATSE convention now underway in Orlando, Florida. “The internet has become a sort of Wild West frontier, where anyone can steal our work with a click of the computer,” Jay Roth, the executive director of the Directors Guild of America, said in a featured address to the IA delegates in attendance. “Digital piracy is instaneous and accessible to anybody who has an internet connection,” he said.

With the most to lose, the entertainment conglomerates have been at the vanguard in trying to reign in the theft of their intellectual property by illegal downloads over the internet. But the IA unions gathered here also feel the livelihood of their members is threatened—a point IA president Matthew Loeb also made in his opening-day remarks . That’s because loss of revenues to the studios from piracy diminishes the amount they contribute to the pension and health funds of the below-the-line Hollywood guilds.

“The theft of audio visual work via the internet is the most immediate threat we face,” asserted Roth. (Though not an IA union, the DGA has in the past been a friend and informal ally of IATSE, and Roth has been a speaker at previous conventions.) “As technology continues to improve, piracy problems will increase exponentially,” he predicted. “What digital piracy does is destroy the after-markets that let our members keep working.“

Roth noted that up to 70% of what entertainment companies make from film and TV production comes after initial release, in the form DVD sales and other ancillary redistribution. Those resales are undermined if product is pirated first for free.
“There is no more important issue facing us at this point,” agreed Bruce Doering, the executive director of the International Cinematographers Guild, IA Local 600, who quantified the financial impact at another session. He estimated global revenue losses from internet piracy of Hollywood product at about $6 billion, which directly impacts members of the ICG and other below-the-line guilds. “The IA motion picture health and pension funds, can’t afford to lose $100 million a year,” he stated.

“This is a battle that cannot be won without the leadership of labor,” Roth concluded in his speech concluded. “We can’t depend on the entertainment companies to do it themselves.”

However, for all the hand-wringing, neither the studios nor the guilds have come up with an effective solution to the piracy problem.

By Jack Egan

The once-every-four-year conclave of the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employes, or IATSE, got off to a brisk start at its opening meeting on Monday . The setting: the Dolphin hotel near Disney World in hot and humid Orlando, Florida.

The union represents some 110,000 entertainment industry workers throughout the United States and also in Canada—including 18 below-the-line Hollywood locals, whose 35,000 members work behind the scenes on movies and television shows in jobs ranging from production designers and film editors to lighting grips and set painters. Nearly 1,000 IA delegates are attending the five-day confab.

Matthew Loeb , the relatively new head of the IA, was in the chair, presiding over his first convention. Loeb was elected president of the International almost exactly one year ago, succeeding Tom Short who last July suddenly stepped down after 14 years at the top. When Loeb introduced Short, now president emeritus of the IA, the delegates sprang to their feet as one for a loud standing ovation. Obviously Short—know for his record of conducting numerous successful negotiations long before contracts expired, as well as for his blunt, no-nonsense personality and rhetoric—still resonates strongly with the IA delegates. And many believe he still pulls some of the strings behind the scenes.

Loeb, for his part, ran a tight ship at the convention opener. The 10 AM start-off session, set for two hours, was over in about 60 minutes—and that included the singing of both the United States and Canadian national anthems, along with other preliminaries.

In his opening remarks, after officially receiving the ceremonial gavel, Loeb emphasized the IA’s strong support of the Employee Free Choice Act now before Congress, including a “card check” provision that would make it easier for labor to organize workplaces by ending secret-ballot votes. Instead, employers would have to recognize a union if a majority of workers signed cards saying they wanted to unionize. “If a union is what you want, a union is what you should get,” Loeb told the nearly 1,000 delegates to the confab.

However, he didn’t mention that the legislation, a top priority for labor, suddenly seems all but dead for this session of Congress. Though wholeheartedly embraced by President Barack Obama during his election campaign and in his first few months in office, he has recently backed off from making a concerted push for passage of what has long been a top goal for organized labor which has been thinking passage was finally at hand with Obama, who had received strong union support during his run for president, now in office.

The main reason for the retreat: a half dozen moderate Democrat Senators who usually are pro-labor recently decided to allow the card-check language to be dropped from the legislation in order to get the overall Labor bill passed. So there won’t be enough Senate votes to achieve the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster even though there are 60 Democratic members of that body, now that Al Franken has been seated as Minnesota ’s second senator. Republicans fiercely oppose card-check.

Another subject stressed by Loeb in his remarks was the IA’s strong stance in aggressively fighting the global threat of movie piracy. “Under no circumstances can we ignore the threat of piracy to motion picture revenues,” he said. He warned that film companies “could go the way of the music business,” which has suffered enormously from illegal downloads of songs off the internet, unless action is taken to eliminate the threat.

The IA’s strong support of the studios on this issue arises out of self-interest. The Hollywood Basic agreement with the studios includes residuals that go into the pension and health funds of the locals, based on a formula related to box office performance.

Loeb has long worked closely with the studios. Before assuming the post of IATSE president, Loeb had been the IA’s director of the motion picture and television production division for the previous decade, making him the point man on the piracy issue for the union. Last year he received the signal honor of being invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

BY JACK EGAN

Jon Furie, the head of Montana Artists and a Hollywood super-agent for below-the-line clients, fell to his death at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood Saturday evening. The case was listed as a possible suicide, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of the Coroner. He was the son of director Sidney Furie.

Furie, 48, joined Montana Artists in 1996, lured by company chief Carl Bressler, who served as a mentor to him. Furie bought the company from Bressler at the end of 2003, and functioned as president and chief executive of the production-services company while continuing to represent a long list of cinematographers, art directors and other production keys and crew members working behind the scenes in both film and television.

“Jon Furie is the best below-the-line agent I ever met, who consistently demonstrated mixing keen intelligence, integrity and aggression in unrelenting support of his clients,” said Bressler, who communicated regularly with Furie. “Jon’s kindness and caring touched hundreds of clients, competitors, buyers, family members and others he interacted with personally and professionally and none of them will ever forget him. Me, included.”

Even rival agents regarded him highly. “He was honest, he was fair, he was a strong competitor and always a gentlemen,” said Patty Mack, head of the Mack Agency. “He was gifted, he loved his wife and was a great advocate for his clients. It was a total shock.”

Furie apparently “went missing” from the Montana Artists offices for about a month before his death. “He was not personally replying to phone calls and e-mails from friends and clients,” according to a source. Company staff responded instead.

“He was taking some personal time off, recharging his batteries,” said Howard Soroko, Furie’s cousin by marriage and his business manager for the past 15 years. “We all know it’s been a tough year for everybody in the industry, “ he added. “There are only a limited number of good jobs compared to the number of people looking for jobs. So it was stressful period. And clients tend to spill their guts in front of their agents.”

“But even during the hiatus he and I met regularly and were making detailed plans for the future,” stated Soroko. Furie did not appear to be depressed, and the firm’s business was thriving, he noted. “In the worst economic times since the Great Depression, Montana Artists was in expansion mode,” he noted.

Following a record year in 2009, the firm has recently added two agents and two agents in training, and is thinking of moving this fall to larger premises from its current location on Sunset Blvd., close by to the Editors Guild. “It is everyone’s goal and desire here at Montana Artists that his legacy continues.”

Furie is survived by his wife Karen, who has played an active role on the business side Montana Artists, and six-year old twin sons, Eli and Mari.

Funeral services are scheduled for 3 pm on Thursday July 23, at Hillside Memorial, in Culver City, and will be public. (Information at www.hillsidememorial.org.)

The family suggests charitable contributions in lieu of flowers be made to “Good Beginnings,” a program for the neo-natal care unit at Cedar Sinai Medical Center ( www.goodbeginnings-csmc.org). Furie’s twin sons were born prematurely.

“This decision by the membership marks the end of a very long process. We can now move forward with a new sense of certainty.” Those were the words of actor Sam Freed, a 2nd National Vice President in SAG, as quoted in Jonathan Handel’s showbiz column over at Huffington Post, rounding up reactions to SAG’s settled-at-last de facto “strike” of the last year, bringing to a close — for better or worse — Hollywood’s inordinately long shutdown season, nearly two years long, when one factors in the WGA walkout as well.

And it would seem that things should be “certain” for awhile — working actors are getting a 3% raise in an era where most people are getting layoff notices and/or pay reductions, television shows can (theoretically) be organized under SAG contracts again, and the studios lose their last believable excuse for not greenlighting features.

The “yay” vote for the new contract clocked in at around 78%, with 22% against, with higher margins on the “yes” side for union members outside of L.A.

TV Week’s Bizwire took to the web the morning after the vote to pronounce somewhat grandly that Hollywood had achieved “Peace in Our Time,” with an end to labor strife.

But is it, really? One of the only tangible concessions SAG was able to wrest from the conglomerates was an agreement to let their contract expire in two years, instead of three, which is to say, in 2011, when the current WGA and DGA contracts wind down.

What this means of course, is that there is probably only a reliable 18 months or so of feature film production ahead of us (if “reliable” is a word that can, in any way, pertain to working in or for Hollywood). At that point of course, the visual content divisions of said conglomerates — those businesses formerly known as “studios” — will announce that unless/until they can sign new contracts with those guilds, it will be too risky to for those aforementioned green lights to apply to any new features that might have to be shut down.

Not that SAG’s contract shouldn’t be synchronized with the other guilds. One disadvantage Hollywood’s labor force has had compared to say, the UAW (back when there was a UAW, in that before-time when America had its own manufacturing base), is that they must negotiate with all the “producers” at once, rather than walk out against a single company — GE, Viacom, take your pick — at a time.

(Of course, it was when single companies began to peel away from the monolith and settle with writers, that there was, at last, some movement in that shutdown).

But just as “governance” in America is really an unending campaign season — we have, instead of in-depth analyses of where the Obama administration has succeeded or failed in the early going, media speculation on whether Sarah Palin has her garter in the ring for 2012) — so one must wonder if Hollywood will be steadily marked by a seemingly unending slowdown/shutdown mode.

SAG President Alan Rosenberg, who would seem to be a lame duck when his term comes up within the year, announced that on the heels of his faction’s position getting roundly rejected (by a majority of the 35% of SAG membership who actually voted), he would take to the phones and contact other guild leaders about coordinating strategies early for that potential shutdown in ‘11.

Of course, things aren’t as simple as a traditional labor vs. management dynamic — the economy still seems only as steady as a Jello bowl in an aftershock, and it was to a large degree a “one in the hand” attitude that fueled the large “yes” vote for a contract that really didn’t settle the streaming/digital revenue issues that have been punted a couple of years down the road.

And not everyone survived to celebrate this putative “peace,” either. Venerable Pacific Title — which was founded as silents gave way to talkies, and endured a previous Depression — shuttered their doors before the “green lights” of feature production could start winking again. They were unable to secure bank loans to see them through the rest of the year.

On the Millimeter website, writer Michael Goldman set out to do a piece on “post-recession strategies” for Hollywood, and instead found himself writing about companies — like Pacific Title, FX house The Orphanage, and others — that didn’t make it. He interviews producer/director Marshall Herskovitz in the article, who observes that the larger systemic issues of the credit industry’s breakdown have affected the film biz in unpredictable ways:

“My feeling is that [the recession] has definitely impacted the movie business [longterm] for the first time,” Herskovitz comments in the piece. “In many ways, we were recession-proof in the past. But there has been a complete shift in how investments and loans are made [globally] now. Those big companies have their own problems, and that never happened before… The potential of an actor’s strike had an intermittent effect, but what I think is more germane is the simple difficulty in raising money, along with the lowered valuation of some of these [media] companies and seeing ad dollars on TV diminish.”

Herskovitz also comments about being at the end of the DVD product cycle: “The other aspect to this is that DVD [sales and rentals] have leveled off. DVDs propped up our industry for the last 10 years, and the movie business without DVDs is not really a profitable business. It used to be, but now the business model doesn’t work without DVDs. There is also the problem of huge actor fees and other things, so in many ways, it’s a shaky business anyway.”

And, per that Jello bowl, only going to get shakier, outbreaks of “peace” notwithstanding.

You can’t definitively negotiate labor contracts when no one knows, exactly, where the revenue is going to come from. Or what it means that people are able to watch things at home, without commercials, because they’ve downloaded them in ways both legal, or otherwise.

Nobody wants to give up the old salaries, or the old perks, of what “making it” in Hollywood used to mean. But nobody knows, really, where the money is going to keep coming from to prop up those edifices.

Welcome to 2011.

When one considers “traditional” below-the-line avenues to directing, it’s usually editing or cinematography — or lately, visual effects supervising — that come to mind as usual routes to that storied above-the-line perch.

For Jeremy Alter, whose “The Perfect Sleep” is currently in release, it was location managing.

“I’ve always loved films,” he recounts. “By the time I flew out to UCLA to go to school there, I had a fairly good idea that directing and producing films would be my life’s pursuit.”

It was something he kept pursuing while building a name for himself in locations, eventually teaming up with “Sleep’s” writer and star, Anton Pardoe — who had the bulk of his credits as an assistant location manager.

“The project came about when, some years back, Anton and I were frustrated trying to get a couple
projects past the development stage. We had previously done an award winning short film and we were now more than ready to make a feature. We talked about doing a hard hitting genre film for next to no money that could really stand out. Intent on writing something to serve that purpose, Anton asked me what locations would be optimal for cost effectiveness. At that time, there was a state funded incentive called optical channel ‘Film CA First’ whereby location fees for certain government owned properties were reimbursed to film companies along with some permit fees and manpower, (so) I put together a list of good, inexpensive locations and other general concepts to keep costs of a potential film down. Anton then went off into writing mode and a short time later, ‘The Perfect Sleep’ was born.”

The film –quite practically - was written around the available locations. But knowing your locations was no guarantee against bumps in the road:

“We then found that trying to raise even a small amount of money was incredibly difficult and ended up getting the remake rights to an old horror film and began to package that project. Eventually, that script garnered some attention and a new company called Unified Pictures loved the script but said that they didn’t have access to the amount of money we were looking for but did we have any lower budget films ready to go?

Enter ‘The Perfect Sleep,’ back from the dead, and Unified Pictures to the rescue.”

But the film no longer had the built-in rebates it once did, since “the Film CA first program had dried up and we had to break virtually every rule on how to make a low budget film. We had elaborate stunt scenes, very challenging/expensive locations, children actors, period cars and wardrobe, and enough ambition to sink two ships. The only reason we were able to get through a shoot like this was because I had worked below the line on nearly 40 features and was fortunate enough to convince many overly qualified professionals to lend me their time and expertise.”

Among those colleagues was “first hire” Clayton Harley, “production designer extrordinaire. I met Clayton on ‘Anchorman’ which he production designed and I location managed. He read the script and thankfully agreed to do the film. We then worked together to try and find the right DP for the project. This turned out to be a very difficult task as I had very high aspirations visually but was limited in our budget. Eventually, I called Charles Papert — he and I worked together on additional photography for a Disney film called ‘Mr. 3000′ — and he thankfully came on board. My line producer was Jay Sedrish who had worked with me on a New Line film a few years back.

“Our gaffer was Rafael Sanchez, who I had worked with on ‘Sideways’ and ‘The Million Dollar Hotel,’and he brought his crew as well as Key Grip Ray Garcia. Similarily, my transportation coordinator, Charlie Ramirez also worked with me on ‘Sideways.’ I had worked with my first and second A.D.s, Chris and Michelle Edmonds, on a film called ‘11:14.’”

And what about his location manager? That’d be “Jun Lin, an old friend and locations compatriot.” Rounding out the rest of the crew, his stunt coordinator Jeremy Fitzgerald “came to me as a recommendation from Scott Rogers. Finally, my costume designer Kristen Anacker had been through all the fun and madness with me previously on our short film. I was and am extremely lucky that I have worked with so many talented, generous crew members!”

That generosity was needed in a shoot which Alter jokingly concedes had an “unstated mission to make things as difficult as possible for ourselves,” which included shooting “in some very large spaces. We were able to make up for what we lacked in manpower and equipment with a clear idea of what I wanted the film to look like and some very talented people like Charles, Rafael, and Ray Garcia made the look happen. Those men really took this film to another level. Thanks to their efforts (and those of many other fantastic crew members), we were able to get a look that I believe matches films with 100 times our budget.”

The “unstated mission” aspects also covered a wide swath of local geography: “We ended up covering a lot of ground filming from Palm Springs and Camarillo to San Pedro and many other places in between. My locations experience paid off in a big way as I had enough relationships that I was able to secure some of the amazing locations where we shot despite our relative lack of funds. Ken Johnson at La Center Studios/Hollywood Locations, Eric Bender from the Bradbury Building, and Peg and Joaquin at Unreel Locations were very supportive of the film.”

But Alter also concedes an ever-so-slight drawback, with his locations experience, which he surmises “probably hurt a little in that I was all too aware of situations where the property reps were not pleased when we were going late into the night, only this time I had a million other things to worry about in addition to that.”

The million other things paid off: At the time of our interview, the film was opening in L.A. and then going wide to New York, Chicago, Portland and Dallas.

Union Roundup
by
Mark London Williams

It’s the economy, smartypants! And it’s everything else!

Of course, what is it that we mean by “economy” anymore, since we seem to allow the word to encompass all human endeavor? — the refusal to confront environmental collapse, the backing of dictators, wives leaving husbands, husbands using their moment of peak earning power to act middle aged crazy; love, politics, and whether any wilderness will remain — everything is subsumed, at some level, through a prism of economic activity.

The “change we can believe in” may refer to the change in our pockets, and whatever other money or wealth we have lying around. Somehow, that’s what we use to calibrate our views of the world.

So what aspects of the economy are besetting Hollywood right now? The usual suspects? Which is to say, fearful, wanting-to-be-salvaged banks not loaning money to make pictures? Parent corporations — who never understood their movie town “assets” to begin with — making bottom line demands incompatible with tinsel town reality? (”Make everything a hit! Fire 10% of personnel!”), etc.

One such parent corporation, General Electric, is busy laying off workers from its healthcare division, and declaring publicly its hopes to get a piece of a US Air Force tanker contract, on the very morning we’re going to press.

So if the tanker contract doesn’t come through, does that mean more layoffs at NBC and Universal?

How much is Hollywood at the mercy of outside forces, or at the mercy of its own?

In the latter category, we have this dispatch from a UPM of our acquaintance, whose daughter also produces. She was commiserating with her daughter about the protracted effects of SAG’s ongoing kinda-strike: “Quite a few movies were shot under SAG waivers. Now, there are production companies who agreed to this and thinking the strike would not occur, they made several features with SAG waivers. One of the deals with the SAG waiver is that before a distributor can ’sign on’ the waivers have to be satisfied.”

In other words, you’ve got to “pay up.” Her tale continues:

“So a studio that had guaranteed distribution might have made 3 or 4 movies, and now they’re stuck until SAG settles. This can be a heavy toll for small to medium production companies. In a sense, they used their credit card to make the movies, and now they don’t have the money to make more product because they haven’t gotten any money out of their pending distribution deals. And the movies shot under the waivers can’t get distribution until SAG decides what to do. It’s a dilemma……or as my daughter described it, a Perfect Storm.”

So the number of features that have been made during this perfect downturn, will continue to, er, “trickle down” to a smaller number, until a contract is signed. Our in-the-field correspondent concludes thusly about her producer daughter:

“She has been working with one company who was using a special effects house — a rather large one –and poof! The effects house closed its doors in the middle of the shoot. I suspect the house maybe couldn’t hold out until they were paid by the production companies who were waiting for money from their to-be-distributors.

“What a mess.”

The longer the not-a-strike continues, the higher the toll, in addition to all the other economic factors. Since our last print issue, SAG has signed a commercial contract, which some viewed as a stepping stone to a larger settlement — especially now that SAG leadership perceived to be more amenable to a negotiation, has taken over the reins of the “thesp” union.

And has been reported around town recently, the main feints and parries to a new contract being signed seem to be the corporations agreeing to a two-year SAG contract — thus allowing it to expire with the contracts of other Guilds. This in theory may give a bigger bargaining chip to “talent,” if everyone walks out at once. Heck, under those circumstances, even the IA could consider striking to try and get some of its health benefits back!

On the other hand, recall that writers and actors were supposed to walk out together this time, too, but the word-slingers had to pull the trigger early, before GE & and its management confreres could stockpile too many scripts in advance, which kind of left the actors dangling, after Hollywood had already been hit with a big strike.

And would those high and mighty directors agree to strike with everyone else?

Questions for another day, of course, and digits will have further radicalized the landscape (as will rising sea levels, but that’s taking the metaphor literally!) by then.

In turn for this synchronicity-of-contracts-concession, actors will have to agree to settle ongoing force majeure claims for lost wages from the writers strike, for far less than they wanted.

So the studios will save some money up front, and gamble, I suppose, that they won’t face a walkout circa 2011-2012.

Of course, isn’t the world supposed to end around 2012?

If everyone in Hollywood walks out then, it might in a certain sense.

That is, if you believe things like YouTube aren’t ending it already.

On which note, while we in the trades rarely write about each other, it turns out the Hollywood press is itself part of Hollywood’s news. Variety recently ran a piece attacking various Hollywood bloggers, like Nikke Finke, who stole so much of their thunder with updates and dispatches during that writers’ walkout.

Now, Variety editor Peter Bart is out — kicked upstairs, as these things go, after a 20 year reign. Does full disclosure require me to note I wrote for Variety as well, some years back, during the Bart reign? It might, though our paths never crossed during my time there.

But certainly I used words like “thesp” a lot more often then.

In any case, some of the reports indicated that Bart had resisted a more aggressive online/digital strategy for Variety, or at least, wanted to stay committed to a print platform as well. I’ve never talked to the man about any of this, but a reading of those tea leaves may indicate that the show biz Ur-trade may realize its “newspaper” days are numbered.

To what degree ad buys will return to their pages, or the Reporter’s — or ours — after a SAG settlement remains to be seen. But the idea of keeping same overhead in terms of paper, print, warehousing and distribution so people can read news in their Beverly Hills offices or Agua Dulce set locations on slivers of dead trees, would seem to be a bit ridiculous in an age where most of those same people loitering by craft services also have iPhones and Blackberries.

How do papers like us “monetize” those delivery systems?

How do networks “monetize” you watching a show on your laptop, anytime you want?

These are the interesting questions of our times, compadres. At least in this business. And for those of us whose job it is to gaze into the abyss, Hollywood-wise, and report on what we see, the abyss is also — interestingly — gazing back.

One way or another, we’ll be here to tell you what it sees.

Write: mark.williams@btlnews.com

IATSE LOCALS UNANIMOUSLY RATIFY NEW HOLLYWOOD BASIC AGREEMENT

The 15 Hollywood-based locals representing over 35,000 members of the IATSE working in motion picture and television production have ratified the new Hollywood Basic Agreement with the AMPTP. The three year contract, which will go into effect August 1, 2009, was tentatively proposed last November, with drafting completed last month.

At the time of the November negotiations, IA President Matthew D. Loeb stated, “This was a tough negotiation during tough economic times but both sides worked hard and negotiated reasonably to come to this agreement.”

After each of the 15 locals covered under the new contract ratified the agreement, Loeb added, “We have delivered a strong contract in a very chaotic economic climate. We feel we have given our members the best protection we can at a time when the bottom is falling out of a lot of traditional business models. We look forward to three years of labor stability and a commitment to keeping our members working.”

On the other hand, if Loeb knows something about delivering “labor stability” over the next three years - in any field whatsoever — maybe he has more tricks up his sleeve than we realize..