To Anyone Who Enjoys Movies

[lazynok]

http://www.savethebiz.org/
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Saw this in a news article, and it said they were spreading it through viral marketing. So I thought I would do them a favor and spread it to Prime. Ahhh

 

[GreyHoundSteve]

I don't know about all of that. I have been hearing allot about this subject lately and to be honest i find it laughable as much as i find it disgusting.

It reminds me of the baseball strike. What a waste of time and all it accomplished was to turn people off from the sport and this strike would accomplish pretty much the same thing.

Now i am sure that plenty of little guys are getting next to nothing for very hard work but then you have the big guys making 20 million plus for less than 50 days of work on a project? If anything those actors need to find better ways of redistributing the wealth to the other people working on the film. Does anyone really think that these guys should be paid that kind of money for such a simple and short term job? I sure as hell don't. Thats more money than most people earn in a lifetime of very hard and important work so until they trim the salaries at the top i don't want to hear "we need more money or we will strike" because theirs plenty of money being thrown around already.

As far as the little guys are concerned... i'm sorry but i don't feel sorry for them either. I know we have a few guys here who work in the industry and so i'll refrain from being too harsh but honestly i'm sure 90% of these little guys would be working for free if it kept them in the industry.

Its kind of like assistant coaching in the NFL. Most of these guys started working as assistants to the assistants doing god awful grunt work for less than minimal wage but they do it because they love the game and hope some day to be in a position to maybe get a head coaching job somewhere and the big payday thats comes with it.

A good friend of mine moved to Nashville and runs a Lowes there. He says that more than half of his work force are aspiring musicians. Do any of these people make any money playing music? Not really but it is their dream and they aren't above working in a hardware store to pursue it. You have to admire people like that because those are the only people who have a shot a making it in life period. Now what would happen if you paid every person who played open mic night a fair salary for doing it? Well, no one would be working at the hardware stores anymore and you would have allot of horrible music everywhere.

Almost every industry in this country is hurting right now and most of us aren't pursuing any kind of dream but rather just trying to get by and provide for our families.

So i say if you aren't happy with the money your making in the film industry then GO DO SOMETHING ELSE! Most of us had to do that long ago and I for one could do without 80% of the crap Hollywood churns out these days anyway. If less jobs equal less crappy movies then fire half of Hollywood now please.

Just like the auto industry Hollywood needs to trim the fat and get rid of the people who think they should be making big money to do a monkeys job. Because i have news for you guys .... there are hundreds if not thousands of people who are capable and willing to do your job right now for less money than your already making and maybe just maybe they will bring the kind of passion back to the industry and increase the quality of the product again.

The NFLPA needs to tread lightly on this subject as well. They have been threatening the league with a work stoppage for some time now and i can't think of a dumber thing that they could do. Is there a football fan out there that wouldn't gladly take the pounding that these players do for a fraction of what they earn to do it? I know i would be the first in line to get my ACL shredded for just one chance to play football for a living no matter how long it lasted. These whiney actors need to think about that. WTF other skills do they posses that they think would pay them better? Because last time i checked the hostess at Chillis aren't getting rich doing that job!

 

[gleibig]

Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. :biggrin:

 

[Midnight_Raven]

IMO no one should be paid more than 2 million a year... it's rediculous, if I earned that type of cash I would just start to give some of it away... whats the point... usually people that get that type of money buy stuff that is totally useless and a complete waste to society.

For example there was this rich couple that had a 50 million dollar yacht.... seriously... you spent 50 million for a boat when you already have a house and pretty much anything else you could ever "need" in your live but no lets waste more of it on a boat that I will use like 20 days out of the year and take about 500,000 dollars a year to maintain.... seriously things are so whacked out now a days and we wonder why people are homeless robbing and killing each other. I believe it's because the system of distribution of wealth is pretty severely broken imo. basketball players that get paid more in 1 year than a person who works in a factory for 30 years of his life producing things that people need is really effed up.... when all the basket ball player is doing is playing a game.... seriously it's all broken....

 

[0ctan3]

Saw this in a news article, and it said they were spreading it through viral marketing. So I thought I would do them a favor and spread it to Prime. Ahhh

The giant ant near the greenscreen was hillarious. :biggrin:
I really hope things are resolved quickly.

 

[NetViper]

I agree. Actors are WAY WAY WAY overpaid. Makes no sense. So are professional athletes. Maybe instead of paying Brad Pitt 20 million alone for a picture (probably more than all the other people involved in making the movie combined) they can pay him 1 million and spread the wealth around.

I think it is also INSANE that the football coach of the Florida Gators is paid 3.5 million a year. Give me a break!

 

[Stephen@NCAutoUSA]

Yeah. Don't get me started. I think athletes in general get paid to much.

Stephen

 

[ca2822]

Yeah. Don't get me started. I think athletes in general get paid to much.

Stephen

I second that

 

[96 NSX-T]

Yeah. Don't get me started. I think athletes in general get paid to much.

Stephen

No sh!t!!! These people are making MILLIONS and what are they doing---
they are PLAYING I would love to make that kind of cash for PLAYING! GGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

 

[lazynok]

......

I don't know if most of your post was concerning actors or just people in the movie pipeline, in general.

"As far as the little guys are concerned," is that meaning the actors not getting paid much... or the other people involved in the projects? Like me. I'm concerned because the actor's wont resolve this so I CAN'T WORK. =[

And yeah, we do work for free cause WE love this industry. I still believe it is the best industry on earth.. and I'm not an actor.

Sure they're paid a lot, and some are overpaid. But some are under paid... I believe in what they're doing, its just right now is NOT the right time to do this. Even actors believe that.. most of them don't even want to go on strike... they're hurting like the rest of us... we just want to go back to work. My NSX needs new goodies!!

And about your comment about people doing the same job for less money... I hope you're talking about actors. We, technical positions, we've seen when production companies try to hire people who "cost less"..... they suck! But actors, yeah, haha. You can pull in an average joe, and he might be AMAZING, and he might suck. But the sad reality is, people are dumb, and they want to SEE actors they know in movies... and producers, thus pay the big name actors big bucks because more people will feel the need to see it if the actor "they like" is in it.

I just want to get back to work, so my NSX doesn't suffer =[ Oh, and I need to eat =] but that comes second to my NSX! haha.

 

[AdnanVCS]

I agree. Actors are WAY WAY WAY overpaid. Makes no sense. So are professional athletes. Maybe instead of paying Brad Pitt 20 million alone for a picture (probably more than all the other people involved in making the movie combined) they can pay him 1 million and spread the wealth around.

I think it is also INSANE that the football coach of the Florida Gators is paid 3.5 million a year. Give me a break!

3.5 m a year is nothing compared to what football players (soccer) make in Europe.

 

[NetViper]

3.5 m a year is nothing compared to what football players (soccer) make in Europe.

I don't know what they made over there, but when a football coach makes mulitple times more than the person in charge of the ENTIRE school, someone's priorities are not right. No wonder this county is in such poor shape for education.

The reality is that if these guys were not football players making $5 million a year they would have a hard time finding a job as a janitor in the real world. Not all of them mind you, but most.

 

[GreyHoundSteve]

I don't know if most of your post was concerning actors or just people in the movie pipeline, in general.

"As far as the little guys are concerned," is that meaning the actors not getting paid much... or the other people involved in the projects? Like me. I'm concerned because the actor's wont resolve this so I CAN'T WORK. =[

And yeah, we do work for free cause WE love this industry. I still believe it is the best industry on earth.. and I'm not an actor.

Sure they're paid a lot, and some are overpaid. But some are under paid... I believe in what they're doing, its just right now is NOT the right time to do this. Even actors believe that.. most of them don't even want to go on strike... they're hurting like the rest of us... we just want to go back to work. My NSX needs new goodies!!

And about your comment about people doing the same job for less money... I hope you're talking about actors. We, technical positions, we've seen when production companies try to hire people who "cost less"..... they suck! But actors, yeah, haha. You can pull in an average joe, and he might be AMAZING, and he might suck. But the sad reality is, people are dumb, and they want to SEE actors they know in movies... and producers, thus pay the big name actors big bucks because more people will feel the need to see it if the actor "they like" is in it.

I just want to get back to work, so my NSX doesn't suffer =[ Oh, and I need to eat =] but that comes second to my NSX! haha.

I know some of you guys work in the industry and i appreciate that you love your job and want to keep doing it. I respect that.

My point is simply that ANYONE who is in Hollywood and thinks that they should strike because they are under paid is completely out of touch with reality. If they would just travel out of lala land every once in awhile they might realize that you can get a nice home for under $300,000 almost anywhere else in the country and no matter what you do in the film industry i am confident in saying that YES, your job could easily be outsourced for much less than what your making now... JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE at almost every other job (ask my brother in law whose in IT about that, he's pretty "technical" and has been out of work for nearly 2 years now and he has a masters degree).

If every actor disappeared tomorrow i don't think it would take 2 years for the industry to fully recover, create new "stars" and begin again fresh with people who might not take their cushy jobs for granted. The same goes for professional athletes and the refs and the camera crews and the announcers and the half time analysts and all of the other people who make way too much money so that the average fan has to pay hundreds of dollars to go see a game anymore. News flash; WE DON'T NEED YOU, YOU NEED US! Strike and they will find that out very quickly (Question; Whatever happened with the writers? Answer; NO ONE CARES!).

Reality TV is already biting at their heels and do you know why? Because EVERYONE wants to be famous and they will work for free (or a small prize) and people will watch just about any crap you put on TV or the big screen. And they will probably watch even more of it if it can be delivered to them cheaper. :wink:

I was an extra on the film Any Given Sunday and do you know what i got for standing in the 100 degree heat for two days at Texas Stadium? A tie pin and do you know what? I didn't even expect that and just did it because a friend asked me to and i didn't have squat else to do that day. There were about 20,000 of us standing out in the heat and not everyone got a pin, i was one of the lucky ones.

In all seriousness though. It is human nature to feel that whatever it is that you do is so important and that the world would stop turning without you doing it but the reality is that in this economy the very notion that the actors are under paid is insulting and if they think anyone in this country would send them one red cent of their hard earned money as a donation to that cause then i would personally like to smack that person in the face with an iron skillet and sentence them to a year in Detroit.:biggrin:

But since your money goes to such a good cause like the NSX then tell me when the telethon is and i'll work the phones for you.:tongue:

p.s. .... this is all a joke, don't get pissed.:wink:

 

[GreyHoundSteve]

I don't know what they made over there, but when a football coach makes mulitple times more than the person in charge of the ENTIRE school, someone's priorities are not right. No wonder this county is in such poor shape for education.

The reality is that if these guys were not football players making $5 million a year they would have a hard time finding a job as a janitor in the real world. Not all of them mind you, but most.

Example; Tatun Bell was cut from the Detriot Lions this season and what did he do after football? Well he worked at a cellular stand at a mall in Denver. I bet he wishes he didn't duck out of bounds so much and maybe put a little more effort into blitz pickup.

 

[docjohn]

If you really don't want actors and athletes to make thousands of dollars a minute for actual work performed,,stop paying 7-10 dollors to go to the movies.Stop wearing your big head football hat as you scream at the game on TV.They make this money because they can.If Brad Pitt can get people to watch a movie about a guy growing young then more power to him,but again don't hate the player...

 

[GreyHoundSteve]

If you really don't want actors and athletes to make thousands of dollars a minute for actual work performed,,stop paying 7-10 dollors to go to the movies.Stop wearing your big head football hat as you scream at the game on TV.They make this money because they can.If Brad Pitt can get people to watch a movie about a guy growing young then more power to him,but again don't hate the player...

Well said. But it's not hating the player, it's hating what has happened to the game.:wink:

 

[NsXMas]

The reason and problem the actors / athletes are getting paid the obscene amounts is two-fold: the elite have egos the size of the solar system, and producers / sports team owners & general managers want every possible edge to have a best-selling movie / winning team, to get as much revenue as possible.

This is why in sports there are salary caps for teams to avoid salaries from being even more obscene that they are now. I don't think the same salary cap exists in movies.

When you're betting hundreds of millions on a film project or a sports team, you tend to start to believe that by paying for that marquee actor / super athlete, you'll win in the long run.

I believe in capitalism so I don't hate the game, but nor do I pay $8-$10 to go see movies on a regular basis, or have bought tickets to a sports game in many many years.

 

[NsXMas]

By the way I despise the film industry for forcing the "region code" on the DVD players. They can go to hell for all I care.

My parents travel to Asia regularly, and buy and watch movies there. Last time they asked me to help fix their PC, I tried to test out the DVD player on their laptop they own, and it complained about the region code not set to US and asked me to set it to US to play a DVD here. I left it alone because I did not know how many region code changes were left.

Ridiculous crap thanks to the film industry to cripple hardware that have legitimate use by paying consumers. Fark you film industry!!! This is why I'll consider ripping your movies and strip out the region coding. You want to protect your revenue? Hah, you force paying consumers to turn to piracy instead.

 

[derelict]

This pretty much sums up my reaction to some of the posts here:

:biggrin:

NsXMas-- please don't equate "out-of-touch studio executive" with the entire "film industry"... I work in the industry and I can promise you... 99% of us had absolutely nothing to do screwing up your parent's DVD's!

 

[derelict]

GreyHound-- I'm not sure if I fully understand your points, but it sounds like you are mainly ranting against high-paid actors? Or you are lumping all of us in the industry into the category of "Wants to pout because they don't make enough." If so, I think you are missing the point... not all of us are actors, not all of us want to strike, and certainly not all of us make millions of dollars a year!

Listen, I'm not trying to be offensive, but from your posts it's obvious you don't know much about the industry.

This strike (or any strike in this business, really) is merely a brute-force tool to try and get the studios to change their payout model. Which, yes... the studios are very old-fashioned and kludgy in the way they approach business and maybe that needs to change. Maybe if they paid Brad Pitt 2 million instead of 20 million there'd be more to spread around.

But the point of the video is that NOW is not the time to be making those statements. SAG should have gotten in on the negotiations during the last round, they didn't, which was selfish, and now they threaten to affect thousands upon thousands of jobs in a downturned economy. Jobs that have nothing to do with acting.

If your point is simply that striking in general is stupid, then yes I agree and sorry for misreading you :tongue: But again, that is an argument for another time and it COMPLETELY misses the point of lazynok's post.

As a side note...

My side of the industry (visual effects) experimented heavily with outsourcing a few years ago... we are not protected by any kind of union so the studios had free reign to ship jobs overseas. And guess what? That trend is now reversing, because the quality coming back was TERRIBLE. So now it's basically reserved for "budget" productions.

Point being, there are many skilled and hardworking people in this business and no, it's not cool that the actors wanting to strike should kill that many jobs.

 

[NsXMas]

NsXMas-- please don't equate "out-of-touch studio executive" with the entire "film industry"... I work in the industry and I can promise you... 99% of us had absolutely nothing to do screwing up your parent's DVD's!

I know that, but these studio executives affect your lives and our lives as consumers in every single way possible.

If you don't agree with the studio executives, you need to speak out and form your own studios, and offer region-free DVDs. But you guys let the studio executives talk for you and we as consumers have no choice but to lump everyone together because we don't have a (legal) alternative like you folks.

 

[naaman]

IMO no one should be paid more than 2 million a year... it's rediculous, if I earned that type of cash I would just start to give some of it away... whats the point... usually people that get that type of money buy stuff that is totally useless and a complete waste to society.

For example there was this rich couple that had a 50 million dollar yacht.... seriously... you spent 50 million for a boat when you already have a house and pretty much anything else you could ever "need" in your live but no lets waste more of it on a boat that I will use like 20 days out of the year and take about 500,000 dollars a year to maintain.... seriously things are so whacked out now a days and we wonder why people are homeless robbing and killing each other. I believe it's because the system of distribution of wealth is pretty severely broken imo. basketball players that get paid more in 1 year than a person who works in a factory for 30 years of his life producing things that people need is really effed up.... when all the basket ball player is doing is playing a game.... seriously it's all broken....

I have no problem with someone making a gazillion dollars a day, as long as that's what society values their work at. With the diminishing economy, however, the mega stars and athletes and such are likely to see some pay cuts as people cannot afford to do as many "fun" and "luxurious" things such as go to movies or get front row, 50-yardline tickets.

Capitalism is designed to allow for anyone to make as much money as they can, without any kind of imposed limits. Once you start forcing people to spend their money in a certain way or limit how much they can make for their work, you cross the line into communism.

 

[lazynok]

p.s. .... this is all a joke, don't get pissed.:wink:

I was really hoping to have an intelligent conversation on Prime, just like 95% of the conversations that go on here.

I guess if you took away all of Hollywood\Independent\Professionals and "outsource" them like you say.... and then what do you have? Take the quality of a home video and compare it to even a made for cable TV movie... It takes a lot to make these things that people just do not understand. JUST like for the life of me I don't understand why it takes a pharmacist 20 minutes to fill my prescription and get paid over $100,000 a year. Okay, I wasn't 100% serious about that... but I am semi serious.. why? Because I don't know exactly what goes on in their jobs so in MY eye they are overpaid... just like we are, in your eye.


So it's human nature to feel your job is important that the whole world would stop? Hmm, I don't think thats the case. Maybe you think the world would stop if you stopped working your "important" job. But for us, we're just trying to make an honest living. And the world would not stop without the entertainment industry. And that is not a world I would like to live in. (heck, I don't even watch movies too often and I can't stand TV. But I'm sure you do.)

Now if Internet Message Boards were taken away from my life... man I would go nuts.



Also... everybody.. this guy has the answers. Let's all move OUT of California so we can live in $300,000 mansions. Yeah right.. for me, there is a reason why they are so cheap.. and most Californians know this.. cause we wouldn't want to live there (majority).


PS screw DVD regions =]

 

[derelict]

I know that, but these studio executives affect your lives and our lives as consumers in every single way possible.

If you don't agree with the studio executives, you need to speak out and form your own studios, and offer region-free DVDs. But you guys let the studio executives talk for you and we as consumers have no choice but to lump everyone together because we don't have a (legal) alternative like you folks.

Don't make me bust out the LOLWUT picture again!!

Seriously though... your logic is flawed. If you think it's that easy to just start a "studio" and become a world-wide distributer of media content, why don't you do it yourself? Because trust me, you probably have as good a shot at it as I do.

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about just how complex the film industry is, I'll give an example of my own job to illustrate:

Level 1.) I do Visual Effects, or VFX. I sit behind a computer for 10+ hours a day creating things on screen that are impossible in reality. (occasionally they let me out into the daylight and I get to go supervise a shoot. Those are the fun days )

Level 2.) I work for a "studio". We are a VFX studio, and we are one of the bigger, more successful ones in the whole industry. SOMEDAY, if I'm lucky, I hope to own a studio like the one I work at.

Level 3.) Each TV show we work on is also run as its own "studio"... and we work for them directly. Our "studio" is being contracted out by this "studio".

Level 4.) Each TV show is the property of one of the larger Studios. This is the level most people think of when they think of "studios". For example, the show I work on now is owned by Universal. They are responsible for the ultimate flow of money, and for all distribution, etc.

So that is a gross oversimplification, but it illustrates my point. Look how many levels of command there are! Look how many people are involved in each step of the way. And I didn't even comment about the actual production side... the people that actually shoot the thing, light it, cater it, etc etc etc.

My only recourse in fighting things like DRM is the exact same as yours... don't buy those things! I haven't bought a physical CD in almost 7 years.

 

[0ctan3]

lazynok, and derelict, where do you guys work?