Rebranding the Techos Guild

I’m going to jump on an old hobby-horse, one I haven’t ridden for a while…

Recently the Guild received an enquiry from the developer of our Government’s “Career Services” website, wanting advice about job descriptions for camera ops and lighting techs. Exploring their website, we found that they have a link to our Techos website that says “NZ Film and Video Technicians’ Guild website – information about working in technical roles in the film and television industry…”. That’s fine – except that it is yet another example of the widespread misconception in our industry that the Techos Guild is only for so-called “technicians”!

This misconception is the major illusion we find ourselves having to dispel when we visit film schools to promote the Guild. We usually find that only so-called tech department students even turn up to meet us – because even their tutors have told them that the Guild is for camera, lighting, sound only…

This misconception is the first issue I find I have to deal with when I try to promote Guild membership on the sets where I work... When I mention the Guild the immediate response is almost universally “But I don’t qualify for the Guild, I’m not a techo.” I’ve lost count of the times this has happened…

Which is why I have in the past campaigned for a change of name for our Guild. (I’m not the only one… President AlBol favours it too!)

A couple of AGMs have voted unanimously for a name change – but the task has then foundered on the consequent need to alter the Constitution – and our Constitution also needs a drastic overall rewrite. This rather huge task has fallen by the wayside temporarily in the face of more urgent issues.

My point is that we have always had a major problem, in terms of expanding our membership and therefore our influence. That problem is that, no matter what we may think our name means, there are zillions of location, design/art, FX, safety, make-up/hair, wardrobe, production office, AD, runner and post-prod and other people who all believe that they cannot be Techos’ Guild members because they think “technicians” means only camera, lighting, grips and sound. They even think they’re not wanted by us, which is even more tragic! Nothing could be further from the truth. (We have some directors and producers as members too!)

I strongly believe that we could vastly increase our membership if we were able to dispel that notion – we could possibly double our numbers, perhaps more. Imagine what that would do, to our finances, and therefore to our ability to do things for the wider industry and (especially) for our members!

Tony F.