The Name Change and Momentum in 2017
The name change and more
Kia ora all.
Well, it is March already and I’d like to say to 2017, slow down! Maybe this full-throttle beginning has something to do with the number of productions that were well into substantial pre-production before the end of the year and have pretty much launched into full production in January and February. Needless to say, only nine more months until Christmas.
But hey, the industry is busy and appears to have great momentum for upcoming months and with a great number of you presently employed, at the end of the day, a happy technician is a working technician.
One issue which has arisen in these early productions is weekend turnaround and how this is being misinterpreted. There has been a trend over the years of applying the daily turnaround to weekends, which effectively deprives crew of 24 hours in any weekend. The President’s report has expanded on this issue further so it is worth reading and getting your head around in the event that you are faced with this scenario on your next production.
Back here at the Guild Mothership there has also been a buzz of activity. Mid-February saw the beginning of the physical work on the new website. This followed months of consultation and discussion as to the best route for the Guild to take. The new website will double as a database and allow us to get rid of a fairly old and labour-intensive database system which required double handling at our end. This new site will also allow you as members to update your details, check your payment status, and much more. It is exciting to see this fresh look evolve, but boy, what a lot of work is involved.
As you may be aware by now, members recently voted to change the name of the organisation from the New Zealand Film and Television Technicians’ Guild Incorporated to ‘The Screen Industry Guild Aotearoa New Zealand Incorporated’. All members were given the opportunity to vote throughout the multiple steps of this process. Steve King, the chair of the Name Change Committee very vigilantly sent regular notifications out to all members so if you didn’t get the notifications, has your email address possibly changed? We really wanted all members to be part of the process and have their say. The first step was back in August when you were all asked to vote on whether you wanted to explore a name change and here we are in March with a new name. To ensure you are all up to date with the process and how we got there, Steve has written an article for this issue of NZTECHO. Still left to complete the process is the branding. This will be passed by our very efficient Name Change Committee and should be finalised within the coming month.
So as we roll out a new name, new branding and new website over the coming months we will also have canvased and had feedback from SPADA and the Advertising Producers Group so we can re-release an updated Blue Book. Obviously it would be naive to expect no possible worms as we transition, but the optimist in me would like to quietly believe it will smooth sailing. So thumbs up to a well overdue facelift.
More from the Guild desk, earlier this year I had the opportunity to discuss at length with Iain Lees Galloway, Associate Minister of Immigration the issues the screen industry faces based on the changes to immigration.
We covered a range of issues from the 14-day rule, (whereas no approval is now required for jobs running 14 days or less from guilds or unions to employ non-NZ residents). Approval in Principle (whereas approval is given for large numbers of workers on an estimation of contracts for a coming year with no specific projects attached), and the Major Event Status (whereas all approvals are not required to go through the guilds or unions with regard to employing NZ residents as happened with the 20/20 Cricket World Cup where only approximately 20 positions went to NZ residents in a pool that employed 200+).
He was particularly open and understood the myriad of issues and flow-on affects created by these policies which were introduced in 2012. An interesting fact that came out of our conversation was that the decision to change the policy is done by executive order, a phrase we have heard a lot over the last few months in reference to American politics. What this means is that the Minister can in fact change policy with just a signature and fairly little consultation. At the time of our meeting, Iain pulled up a press release from parliament which came out six months before the policy was changed which said that over two and a half years, 4800 applications had been made in the film industry and 14 had been disputed by the Guilds. These 14 were ultimately granted by the by the minister who at the time was Jonathan Coleman. So 14 out of 4800 applications was reason for the minister to introduce the 14-day rule and the AIP application process. This full press release can be viewed at: www.beehive.govt.nz/release/immigration-changes-support-screen-and-entertainment-industries
