Industry News
| INTERESTING – AND SOBERING |
| OUR WORLD – Hollywood or Bust |
| This 22m 56s BBC News story is recommended viewing. Please click here to watch..... |
| Sept to Nov 2009 |
| RESEARCH – INFORMATION UPDATE – CALLING ALL FOCUS PULLERS |
What kind of Depth of Field Calculator do you use? |
| Please let the Guild office know as soon as possible |
| THE DAILY TELEGRAPH ARTICLE – “THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN” |
| There was a great article on 11 September about the filming of the Battle of Britain. It mentions what the great aerial cameramen, Skeets Kelly and John Jordan, did to make the battle scenes look authentic. Rod Marley (thank you for letting us know about it) has passed the information on and recalls that he was at school in Seaford in 1968 when they were filming the various exciting dogfights over his school’s playing field. I’ve since read the article and urge you to read it too. Either google The Daily Telegraph and then type in Battle of Britain film into their search box. |
"MANAGED MIGRATION" How we must all help to protect our livelihoods Right now, when a film producer wants to bring in a crew member from outside the UK or European Union, they usually have to get a Work Permit - permission from the Government for a named individual to work for a named employer in a defined job for a defined period of time. Traditionally, this situation arises when producers want to bring in someone from (say) the USA on the basis that they have some unique creative talent. More recently they have also used the "continuity" argument - e.g. Person A (say, a DoP) is working on a film, and they want to work with their favourite Person B (say, an Operator) - not because there are no world-class Operators in the UK, but because they want the comfort zone of familiarity or "continuity". For many years, the Work Permits office has consulted BECTU on Work Permit applications. They are not obliged to consult, or to follow BECTU's advice, but the inner workings of the film industry can be pretty obscure so they find it helpful. On the whole the arrangement has worked well. But it's all about to change. Very soon, Work Permits will be replaced by a new system called "Managed Migration". This is part of a broader Government policy of making the UK into a high-skill economy by actively encouraging highly-skilled workers to come here. It means that approved employers will no longer need case-by-case permission to bring people in. This may be fine for IT consultants or City institutions. But for the film industry, which is certainly highly-skilled but which relies overwhelmingly on insecure freelance contracts, this approach could spell catastrophe. This is why industry organisations - BECTU, Equity, employers, and the UK Film Council - have spent the last three years negotiating with the Government to achieve a special Code of Practice for the film industry. This Code of Practice will give us valuable rights to receive information and track trends - but only retrospectively. We will not necessarily know that an employer is bringing in an Operator, or a Focus Puller, until they?re already here. The Code of Practice is therefore a real achievement - but by itself it?s not enough. If we are going to protect the world-class skills and talent that we have in this country, we need a bush telegraph system, a monitoring system, across the industry, to identify cases of abuse where people are coming in unnecessarily and displacing UK technicians. We need to mobilize all our networks, union and guilds working together, because we?re all on the same side here. We therefore suggest that if you know of a production that is either employing or considering employing somebody from abroad that you consider is, or will be, doing a job that could and should be done by a British technician or supervisor, then please contact the Guild office with as much detailed information as possible. That information will be forwarded, via BECTU, who have graciously offered their support and resources in this matter, to the relevant Government office. (T) 020 8813 1999 BECTU RATES OF PAY The current Rates of Pay have recently been revised and will emphasize the parity between Script Supervisors and Focus Pullers. UK FILM INDUSTRY CONTRIBUTES £4.3 BILLION TO UK ECONOMY The UK film industry contributed £4.3 billion to UK GDP in 2006, up from £3.1 billion in 2004, a 39% increase in two years according to an independent report by Oxford Economics published today. The full report is available here BBC TELEVISION CENTRE - ASBESTOS REGISTER The BBC's Television Centre studios were constructed in the 1950's, with some materials containing asbestos. The studios affected are TC2, TC3 and TC5. Although the level of risk is negligible, the BBC is asking anyone who worked in these studios between the period of 1990 and 2005 to register themselves with the BBC and obtain further advice. |
