On Jan 13, 2008, at 11:55 AM, Chuck wrote:
>
> I support the writer's strike but I'm also an anti-copyright/IP
> activist. I think that the writers should be compensated fairly for
> their labor, even more so if the media companies stand to make
> billiosn
> from derivative copies of this cultural work. Writers and other
> workers
> in the cultural industries don't get paid enough as it is--just
> look at
> how much profit these companies make. As Jon Stewart pointed out the
> other night, it's not like the media companies can't afford to share a
> few billion.
>
> In the long run, we really need an anti-capitalist system where the
> corporations are taken out of the picture. I think this will happen
> sooner than we think--if Hollywood is already worried about this
> happening with the disruptive Internet technologies, then it's very
> possible that a big shift may happen. It would be better if thing like
> movies were created by collectives, where all the workers involved
> could
> freely share the risk and the rewards from their cultural projects.
>
> I'd also like to see more critique of Hollywood and the media
> companies
> as cartels. Even with new technologies it's not easy to do a DIY movie
> and get distribution. The situation may get easier for the distro,
> what
> with broadband being ubiquitous, but then the communications
> corporations may institute new restrictions on Internet usage.
>
> Chuck
>
Yes, I think you are right on. I worked in visual effects for quite some time and there was no union for us so all the creative use of my brain benefitted the "owners" rather than myself. All the guilds do better for themselves than visual effects people. My X still works as a visual effects producer/supervisor and there is no union for him yet he contributes enormously to the outcome of a film. He recently worked with Ridley Scott on his remake of Blade Runner, for instance, and the new version looks simply fabulous due to the kind of skills my X husband has. Now he will not benefit from that other than what he was paid to fix the movie.
Later I learned that the visual effects supervisors did have a union decades ago. They were a part of the Directors Guild. But one year the producers negotiated the visual effects people OUT of the Directors Guild. This is the inherent flaw of subdivision of creative effort into all these categories where some win and others lose. It becomes a matter of power, not talent or contribution.
Marta