Posts by Eleanor
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True that Gio.
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hamishm, you do not have a grip on the facts it is clear! The production has been held up for the past month (wasting many, many, many thousands of dollars) because NO CASTING COULD BE DONE WHILE THE MEAA BOYCOTT WAS IN PLACE. This was completely instigated by the union. Actors themselves were hamstrung. An entire pre-production was wastefully and expensively halted, for a flimsy and miniscule cause that the union could not seem to articulate clearly to anyone, at any point.
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"“Today, our sister union New Zealand Actors Equity issued a statement recommending all international performer unions rescind their member advisories on the feature film production The Hobbit. In light of this recommendation, Screen Actors Guild will be alerting its members that they are now free to accept engagements, under Screen Actors Guild contract terms and conditions, on The Hobbit.”
Pity JWL and the others took so long to do this. It was urgent a couple of weeks ago, and precisely what was suggested.
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Again, just for the record, despite the anger felt by film industry workers at last night's protest, the mood was unceasingly good humoured, civilised, and jovial.
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Just for the record, the protest last night was very civilised, and there was a lot of laughter (between tears) in the crowd.
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when they have their own spokespeople.
Who exactly are they, though?
The Whipping Boy? Never once to be seen.
Robyn "nudity clause" Malcolm? Craig "actors are business people too" Parker? Bruce "poor me" Hopkins? Ian "it's only spent on tax and in restaurants anyway" Mune?
Or Jennifer "never mind that my husband directs Spartacus" Ward Lealand?
Better to get the good old union woman to keep fronting the lot of them.
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Islander, Peter Jackson's film companies from frack to bunt have POLICIES to support NZ grassroots film. This plays out in all sorts of ways... for small budget films that get shuffled through pre, shooting, and post production on goodwill and because the people working there support NZ film making, and they can make it a priority to do so - and they have PJ's infrastructure, resource and facilities to back up the small local stuff. It's not prioritised for a profit. You are setting up PJ as being unsupportive to tiny projects, and quite frankly, he is not. My husband has been employed in the film industry as well as a contractor, and "helping to support local film" has even been a condition of his employment! Therefore he has been able to help support many local productions, and yet here on this forum, you are bagging his employer, who pushes for this. Islander with respect you are not informed about this issue! Please do not be presumptuous about the film industry and how it can support its own people.
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When I watched Jennifer Ward-Lealand say on TV3's The Nation to the effect, "Why would a union want to drive work away from its own country?!"
I thought, cripes she doesn't even seem to know about Global Rule One... let alone that it is being used to manipulate her membership base...
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When did principles become a popularity contest?
Perhaps when the MEAA decided to single out The Hobbit on their blacklist?
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Kyle you are being disingenuous if you think that the boycott / whiff of an actors' strike or industrial action isn't enough to scare the production company off-shore, to a country with fewer worker rights. Regardless of whether the legitimate union members didn't call for this and don't even agree with it. So of COURSE it really matters.
Did the membership get polled first?
Not to my knowledge, Craig... it's the nub of why I want NZ Actors Equity to state their position on MEAA's boycott, but they just don't mention it in their communications. The heart of what I suspect is that they are arm-twisted into showing solidarity with MEAA, without having an official diplomatic mandate to do so from their members...