Balancing Work and Life
With Richard Bluck having adventures in China, it falls to past president Alun Bollinger to offer us some thoughts for the year to come.
Christmas is nearly here, where did the year go?
It seems it’s been a fairly busy year for most people working in our industry. The new financial incentives for large-budget off-shore productions coming here to shoot have definitely had a positive effect on the amount of production activity, thereby increasing the amount of work for many (if not most) of us who work in screen production.
This is all good; or is it?
It does concern me that we give financial incentives to off-shore productions without also giving them a clear set of guidelines as to how we do things here in Aotearoa.
It seems that hours of work in the United States of North America are out of control (that’s certainly how it appears to me from a distance when I hear they’re trying to get their shooting days down to 12 hours).
American companies coming here to shoot talk about a blend of US and Kiwi ways of working. I have no objection at all to a blend of our ways of working, that’s almost inevitable if we’re working alongside each other. But I have no wish to see us moving towards longer shooting days and weeks. For one thing I think it’s generally less efficient, and for another I believe that regardless of how people earn their income, they deserve to have a life outside of their work. Sure, for many – if not most – of us in this biz we’re in it, at least in part, for the stimulation of the work, not just for the money. But we shouldn’t have to exhaust ourselves completely for the sake of the work. It does tend to take away from the joy of creativity which filmmaking can bring.
I know it’s not just off-shore productions pushing past the limits of sensible and acceptable working hours. Weta Digital has a reputation for working longer and longer hours as a project approaches its delivery date. Those longer hours add up over the weeks until people appear to be walking zombies. I don’t know how that benefits anyone. It must become less and less efficient and less cost effective for the production.
There’s always the lure of the money when people are asked to work long hours. More hours generally means more money, especially if there are overtime penalty payments involved. But, after a long and arduous production schedule that lure of money can come at considerable cost in personal terms: near death experiences, relationship breakdowns, drug rehabilitation.
I’m sounding like a cynical old codger, I know, but the thought of the threat of longer hours becoming the norm in our working world does bother me.
Recently I’ve bumped into a couple of techos who have – or are planning – to move out of Auckland, and I wonder if this might become a trend given the outrageous property and rental prices in that city. Several colleagues and myself moved out of the city to live in the country back in the 1970s. We were finding it too hard to survive financially in the city with young families and slim pickings when it came to film work.
The industry is of course much busier these days but then the cost of living in the city has increased enormously, so it may well again be a practical option to get out of the city.
Having lived away from cities for most of my working life I have found it a distinct advantage in many ways. For one thing, it’s easier to afford to buy a house. It’s cheaper to live in between jobs, and anyway you never know where your next job might take you. You may live in Auckland and find your next job is in Wellington. Or China for that matter.
Mind you, I don’t get as many offers of work these days but there is so much young talent around doing what I do – and doing it well– and the likelihood is they don’t live in the sticks like me.
Right, I’ve had my rant.
May you all have a very pleasant and restful summer break. And may you all have plenty of interesting work come your way in the coming year, without having to work ridiculous hours for the sake of making a living.
Albol
