Players
Booking a job as an individual contractor is remarkably similar to attracting overseas productions as a national industry.
As individual contractors, we make ourselves attractive to potential employers with our skills, CVs, reputations, and competitive fees. When we’re offered employment, we consider the compensation as well as the opportunity costs, working conditions, potential safety issues, and long-term value to our careers.
As a national industry, we make ourselves attractive with tax incentives, co-production treaties, skilled crews, beautiful locations, and increasingly lax regulation. When a foreign production wants to shoot here, we must consider the benefits to our economy as well as the possible drawbacks of lengthy hours, poor working conditions, unsafe productions, damage to our locations, and long-term impact on our international reputation.
In both cases, we want to be as attractive as possible without allowing the employer or investor to take unfair advantage. It’s a continual balancing act between attractiveness and assertiveness.
Currently, the Government seems to be focusing solely on the ‘attractiveness’ side of the equation. Prior to March of last year, any work application for an entertainment industry worker had to include a Letter of Non-Objection (LONO) from New Zealand Guilds that covered the work in question. This process ensured that the Guilds considered every application and engaged in dialogue with foreign producers before they reached our shores.
In March of last year, immigration rules changed so that work visas could be granted to foreign productions without securing LONOs from the Guilds. Under the current ‘silent approval process,’ the Guilds are given three days to lodge an objection to any given application, and if those three days pass without a response then the work visa is automatically granted. This was an unwelcome change from the point of view of the Guilds – including Techos. While the Guilds objected to only 14 applications out of more than 4800 received over the previous two years (all of which objections were ignored by the Government), the more important damage was the loss of dialogue with the foreign producers and lack of oversight of their productions.
Next month the rules will change again. Under the 14 Day Labour Market Check Waiver, a screen industry worker who will be in New Zealand for 14 days or less will be exempt from any vetting process. This will further distance foreign production from dialogue or oversight from local industry representatives.
This change is designed to make us more attractive, but runs the risk of the foreign productions being above the law. As Techos president Alun Bollinger said last October, “The government makes the claim that all businesses operating in NZ are bound by NZ laws and regulations. The question remains: who’s going to advise – let alone monitor – an isolated and very mobile sector as it goes about its business, when there is no way of even identifying who is working in the country?”
An often-cited example of the dangers inherent in this situation is the Bollywood production The Players. According to several techos who worked on that production, invoices were paid several weeks late, damage to locations negatively affected relationships between the location owners and local crew. Health and safety rules were either not understood or were deliberately ignored by the Indian producers. New Zealand HODs and production workers felt the responsibility to uphold local laws and industry practices, but often didn’t have the authority to do so.
To be fair, the unprofessional and dangerous situation on The Players is something of an outlier. Bollywood productions have been shooting in New Zealand for over 10 years, and it’s relatively rare for a production to be so problematic. For example, the recent Bollywood production I Hate Luv Storys employed local crew in a safe and professional manner, and promoted New Zealand as a tourist destination to millions of Indians.
With that said, this new relaxation of Immigration requirements will make it easier for slipshod productions like The Players to avoid local industry consultation or oversight.
One potential solution lies in the recent co-production treaty between India and New Zealand. To qualify for co-production incentives, there must be a New Zealand co-producer who has equal authority to the Indian co-producer, and who will be responsible for working conditions and compliance with health and safety regulations. With the local producer’s reputation on the line, concerns would be quickly addressed.
However, not all foreign productions will be under official co-production treaties. Several troubling questions remain regarding non co-production shoots (whether features, TV, or commercials) including who will have oversight and responsibility, who will keep track of foreign production, and what criteria will be used to evaluate the success or failure of the new rules. There are valid arguments to give oversight to the Department of Labour, Immigration, Film NZ or the industry Guilds, but currently, the lines of communication and authority are unclear.
In an international marketplace with increasingly limited resources, it is in our best interest to make ourselves attractive to foreign investment. However, we can’t become so accommodating that our laws can be flouted and our crews mistreated without consequence.
(Many thanks for their help on this article to Mladen Ivancic and Jasmin McSweeney of the NZ Film Commission, Sue Thompson of Film NZ, and several Techos who chose to remain anonymous.)
