Run Away Production-a different point of view

[Anthony Hardwick]

Hi,

 

Sorry, still not feeling fluffy about this. Allow me to list the films currently showing at the local multiplex:

 

Big Fish

Brother Bear

Cheaper by the dozen

Some "Looney Tunes" thing

Lord of the Rings

Lost in Translation

Peter Pan

Scary Movie 3

School of Rock

Something's Gotta Give

The Last Samurai

Tooth

 

I'm sure it's unnecessary for me to point out that every single one of those movies was US financed and poured cash back into the US industry, with the exception of "Tooth." The first IMDB comment for "Tooth" begins:

 

"This kind of kids film should be left to Hollywood. They know how to do them properly, and are willing to cough up an adequate budget."

 

The rest of the comment makes quite interesting reading, and no, I didn't write it.

 

You people own the world, and you're griping about it.

 

Phil

At least three of the movies you listed were shot outside of the U.S., perhaps more, but three that I have seen and know about... and of those three, two are probably the highest budget projects on your list.

 

Lord of the Rings (ALL THREE in the trilogy) - shot in New Zealand

Lost in Translation - shot in Japan

The Last Samurai - shot in New Zealand

 

So how exactly do these films qualify as having "poured cash back into the U.S. Industry?"

 

Good God mate, get your head out of your bloody arse for a change.

 

Feeling fluffier Phil?

[Anthony Hardwick]

I admit I'm going by etymology of names, but it looks like a lot of imports to me.

 

Phil

Since you're so keen on correcting the grammar, syntax and punctuation of others, I thought you would appreciate having your own errors "corrected."

 

"Genealogy" is not a synonym for "etymology." If you had studied your etymology, you might have known that.

 

Cheers mate

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> So how exactly do these films qualify as having "poured cash back into the U.S. Industry?"

 

Same way anything does - financed, owned, and therefore providing profit to US companies. I'm sorry, is there some strange reason this isn't hopelessly obvious?

 

Phil

[Michael Stumpf]

**Here's in most part an LA times article as well.

Like the McDonald's commercial tagline says, "I'm lovin it".

 

 

 

L.A. TIMES

 

MOVIES

 

A 'Cold' war over foreign filming

 

Frustrated by job losses, industry workers launch an

Internet campaign against "Cold Mountain" for

choosing Romania as its American stand-in.

 

By John Horn

Times Staff Writer

 

February 4 2004

 

At first glance, "Cold Mountain" looks like a quintessential American

story — a Civil

War drama set in North Carolina filled with traditional U.S. mountain

music. But the

movie is being condemned in an Internet and e-mail campaign for hardly

being American

enough.

 

A number of unheralded show business veterans are blasting the Miramax

film in a

widespread electronic campaign that very well could be hurting the film

both at the box

office and in the Academy Awards. "Cold Mountain," which received seven

Oscar

nominations last Tuesday, also has been targeted by the

cinematographers' union, which

refused to host a December screening of the film because it wasn't made

in the U.S.

 

Among "Cold Mountain's" e-mail critics is production designer Ann

Champion, who

worked steadily in Hollywood for 20 years until hundreds of movies and

TV shows

started saving money by relocating to Canada and other countries.

Champion says she

hasn't had health insurance for years and doesn't know how she'll pay

her February

mortgage. So when "Cold Mountain" fled its North Carolina setting to

film in Romania,

Champion finally had enough.

 

"I want the industry back here in America," says Champion, whose

credits include

"Cagney & Lacey" and "Parker Lewis Can't Lose." Even though Champion

wasn't up for

a "Cold Mountain" job, she was raised near where the fictional story

takes place. "So it

really became a personal thing," she says.

 

The debate over so-called runaway productions echoes the fray over

numerous U.S.

companies, from jeans maker Levi Strauss & Co. to air conditioner

manufacturer Carrier

Corp., moving operations to distant lands to boost profits. There is

growing resentment

within working class Hollywood over a production exodus that many

estimates say is

costing the local economy billions of dollars and tens of thousands of

jobs. Legislation

aimed at blocking foreign production subsidies and boosting domestic

rebates have yet to

bear fruit.

 

"'Cold Mountain' is the culmination of a lot of frustration," says Gary

Dunham, a camera

assistant with 25 years experience who has forwarded an e-mail critical

of the film to

dozens of industry colleagues. "People are very, very angry. There

really is no reason for

[filming in Romania]. It's just greed."

 

 

'Economic losses' (an FTAC article)

 

"You can send a message that these economic losses and artistic choices

compromised in

the name of saving money are not acceptable to Americans," "Do not contribute to 'Cold Mountain' profiting literally at your

expense by buying a

ticket, (or the DVD or renting the cassette when they become available)."

 

A similar article denouncing "Cold Mountain," from the United States of

America

Coalition of Film and Television Workers, has circulated via e-mail.

The coalition is

aimed at members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage

Employees, which

governs many production jobs.

 

While it's impossible to quantify the impact the "Cold Mountain"

campaign has had on the

film's ticket sales or award chances, anecdotal evidence suggests the

effort against the

Nicole Kidman-Jude Law film has spread. Just before Christmas, Mark

Levinson, "Cold

Mountain's" dialogue replacement supervisor, was chatting with his

Berkeley mail

carrier.

 

"And somebody else on his route told him he wasn't seeing 'Cold

Mountain' and was

telling people they shouldn't see it because it was filmed outside the

U.S.," Levinson says.

Levinson, who has collaborated with "Cold Mountain" writer-director

Anthony Minghella

on three other features, called the filmmaker to relay the news. "He

was pretty much

speechless," Levinson says of Minghella's reaction.

 

Albert Berger, one of the film's producers, says he "really doesn't

know" if the e-mail

and the Internet movement has hurt the film or cost it a best picture

Oscar nomination.

"But it is upsetting to me," Berger says.

 

"We want more than anything to make movies here," Berger says from the

Northern

California set of the Richard Gere movie "Bee Season." "The real focus

should be on how

can the government make moviemaking here more affordable. Miramax went

out on a

limb to make this movie. We tried everything we could, but the movie

would not have

been made had we not gone to Romania."

 

Minghella and his production team scouted a number of locations both

here and abroad

before deciding to film much of the $80-million movie in Romania.

Several factors

prompted relocating overseas.

 

First, Minghella felt modern American development threatened his need

for natural,

sweeping 19th century vistas. Second, the director needed four seasons

of weather, which

was more likely in southeastern Europe. Third, moving overseas would

save Miramax

millions just as its financial partner on the film, MGM, was dropping

out of the

production. Within a few weeks, Romania's Carpathian Mountains had

replaced North

Carolina's Blue Ridge mountain range.

 

"Cold Mountain's" producers say they spent some $18 million during

several weeks of

filming in the United States. About half the film's actors are

American, as are many of its

crew members, Miramax says.

 

 

'We refused'

 

It's still not enough for the film's critics, who say such a distinctly

American movie

should have remained at home. "The producers of that movie betrayed us,

and they

treated us like manure," says director of photography George Dibie,

president of the

International Cinematographers Guild. Dibie says a variety of union

workers offered to

cut their "Cold Mountain" fees by as much as 30% to keep the production

from going to

Romania.

 

Miramax approached Dibie's ICG about a December "Cold Mountain"

screening in which

Oscar-winning cinematographer John Seale would answer questions from

some 600 ICG

members. Such screenings are common among many Hollywood unions in the

weeks

leading up to the Oscar nominations, and can help generate enthusiastic

buzz and awards

momentum. "They begged us to show it. We refused," says Dibie.

 

Those criticizing "Cold Mountain" make clear they are not upset by

movies that film in

other countries for artistic, rather than economic reasons.

Consequently, they are not

complaining about "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,"

which was made in

New Zealand, or "Lost in Translation," which was filmed in Japan.

 

But FTAC says it is about to launch a letter-writing campaign against

director Ron

Howard's "Cinderella Man," a movie about American boxer Jim Braddock

that will film

in Toronto later this year. "This is intolerable," an FTAC letter to

Howard says. "Instead

of promoting the great American film industry, you are participating in

its destruction.

Have you so much money and fame that you can turn your back on the

people and the

industry that gave you the opportunity to succeed?"

 

"Cinderella Man" producer Universal Pictures declined to comment.

 

Miramax says the real problem is that the U.S. government does not

offer the same kind

of rich economic incentives, which range from tax refunds to

sale-leaseback deals, that

make filming overseas so financially attractive.

 

"We take the runaway production issue seriously, and have been very

active in lobbying

for federal legislation to make us competitive for future productions,"

Miramax

spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said.

 

"The thing that is most disturbing is that this has nothing to do with

the film," says

dialogue replacement supervisor Levinson. "Awards are either about

quality or they are

not."

 

As for Levinson's mail carrier, he eventually bought a "Cold Mountain"

ticket. "He liked

it," Levinson says. "Too bad he's not an awards voter."

[David Allen Grove]

I think we should stage a MAJOR protest the next time a movie that was Runaway. Involve everyone that is directly and indirectly affected by it.

 

We could protest at a movies premeire or several theaters playing the movie.

We could also inform the media. I don't think the general public is aware of the problem and how it affects many people outside the industry.

 

If there is a protest... I'll be there.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> production designer Ann Champion....hasn't had health insurance for years and

> doesn't know how she'll pay her February mortgage

 

My heart bleeds. I have these problems without the advantage of a twenty-year career behind me, and if I have the unmitigated temerity to complain about them, I get jeered at. Double standards, anyone?

 

Phil

[David Allen Grove]

Poor Phil... no one has it worse than you.

[Anthony Hardwick]

Hi,

 

> So how exactly do these films qualify as having "poured cash back into the U.S. Industry?"

 

Same way anything does - financed, owned, and therefore providing profit to US companies. I'm sorry, is there some strange reason this isn't hopelessly obvious?

 

Phil

So by this logic, a company like Levi Strauss, which closed it's last one or two U.S. based factories within the last month or two, and will now be manufacturing all of their products in foreign lands primarily for the cheaper labor costs, qualifies in your opinion as "pouring cash back into the U.S. industry" because it's "financed, owned, and therefore providing profit to a U.S. company?"

 

How about all of the laid off workers from those factories, and the secondary impact on the various businesses (restaurants, etc.) near those factories that have lost significant numbers of customers as a trickle down effect?

 

Just look at Flint, Michigan before and after GM closed it's factory there years ago - the subject of Michael Moore's first documentary, "Roger and Me," to get a graphic example of what this does to whole communities.

 

Yes, Phil, there is a reason your views are not regarded as "hopelessly obvious," but there's nothing strange at all about the reason why that is.

 

I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got to go to work while I am VERY fortunate to still have a job in the U.S. film industry, on a film that is remarkably still being shot on location in the U.S. Being that it's a story that takes place in California, USA, I'm surprised that the producers didn't take this film to Romania too. ;)

[Mitch Gross]

> So how exactly do these films qualify as having "poured cash back into the U.S. Industry?"

 

Same way anything does - financed, owned, and therefore providing profit to US companies. I'm sorry, is there some strange reason this isn't hopelessly obvious?

And thereby completely missing the point. This is not a discussion about how the US film industry is bigger and more powerful than the English film industry or the French film industry or whatever. This is a discussion of runaway production, where products that may still benefit a certain global conglomerate company no longer benefit the local workers because the production is outsourced. This is similar to the jobs lost by American workers to cheaper labor in Mexico, the Far East and other places where there are lower standards of living and medical benefits and workers rights are either nonexistent or at least substantially lower than in the US.

 

I'm sorry that the British film industry is a shell of its former self. The output of the UK up into the sixties was both prodigious and of great quality, and I can't claim to know the details of how and why that system shrank so dramatically. But here in the US we're simply trying to stop (or slow) it from happening to us. Why is this so hard to understand? Or are you one of those people who is all for Bangladeshi children laboring 15 hour days to make t-shirts at $.05 a unit as long as it keeps the prices down for you?

[Brad Grimmett]

I'm sorry that the British film industry is a shell of its former self. The output of the UK up into the sixties was both prodigious and of great quality, and I can't claim to know the details of how and why that system shrank so dramatically.

Could it be that much of the work there started to shoot in cheaper locations, thereby causing the industry to shrink? Sounds vaguely familiar.....

Of course, I'm not saying that this WAS the reason. I'm just asking.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

>So by this logic, a company like Levi Strauss, which closed it's last one or two U.S. based factories within the last month or two

 

Miramax has not yet completely stopped producing films in the US. Sure, fine, outsourced production is far from ideal if you don't live where they're making films, but it's a damn sight better than no production at all if they ARE making stuff locally as well.

 

Phil

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Could it be that much of the work there started to shoot in cheaper locations,

> thereby causing the industry to shrink?

 

I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Any rather old English people here care to comment? I'd hazard a guess that it's something to do with the politics of patriotism. At some point it begins to tell that American film is budgeted for an audience pool of 250million plus, whereas we've only about a fifth of the numbers; perhaps attitudes have changed enough that people don't sufficiently care anymore here, whereas they certainly do there. In the 60s the UK was beginning to climb out of the hideous post-world-war-2 financial and resource problems and there was much to be proud of. By 1980 most people had realised that it had all actually been a complete waste of time and there were much more glamorous and interesting things happening over the pond.

 

A guess.

 

Phil

[Mitch Gross]

The last three largest Miramax productions and where principle photography took place:

 

Cold Mountain -- Romania

Gangs of New York -- Italy

Chicago -- Toronto

 

That last one's so absurdist that I'd laugh if I didn't want to cry. I also get a real kick out of the argument for Cold Mountain that said it needed the undisturbed wilderness of Romania to recreate 1860s America. There are vast tracts of the Carolinas that would have worked wonderfully. Perhaps a day of helicopter photography in Romania would have sufficed.

 

And how about Gangs of New York needing to go to Italy to recreate 1860s New York City? While I certainly understand that the location needed to be created from whole cloth, no one can tell me that the vast sets couldn't have been successfully built in North Carolina or any of a dozen possible US locations. I suspect that the vast CineCitta Studios complex offered a major sweetheart deal to Miramax to take over all that space and employ their workers for more than a year. And I'm sure that the Italian government bent over backwards as well. And how does an American production of an American story of Irish immigrants wind up shooting in Italy? I wonder if an Italian-American director could have anything to do with it?

 

Meanwhile American craftspeople go unemployed.

[Mitch Gross]

Hi,

 

> Could it be that much of the work there started to shoot in cheaper locations,

> thereby causing the industry to shrink?

 

I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Any rather old English people here care to comment? I'd hazard a guess that it's something to do with the politics of patriotism. At some point it begins to tell that American film is budgeted for an audience pool of 250million plus, whereas we've only about a fifth of the numbers; perhaps attitudes have changed enough that people don't sufficiently care anymore here, whereas they certainly do there. In the 60s the UK was beginning to climb out of the hideous post-world-war-2 financial and resource problems and there was much to be proud of. By 1980 most people had realised that it had all actually been a complete waste of time and there were much more glamorous and interesting things happening over the pond.

 

A guess.

 

Phil

That's some guess. Better not tell the French with their thriving film industry. Or the Italians. And whatever you do don't let India know that they've been fooling themselves all these years.

[guillermo nespolo]

I think we should stage a MAJOR protest the next time a movie that was Runaway. Involve everyone that is directly and indirectly affected by it.

 

We could protest at a movies premeire or several theaters playing the movie.

We could also inform the media. I don't think the general public is aware of the problem and how it affects many people outside the industry.

 

If there is a protest... I'll be there.

 

 

 

 

what is next burning books and chasing people for his last name