lucastalent.com

November 19, 2008

RICHARD’S RANT

After many of you have worked hard for years to establish your rates and quotes we are now playing the game of “how low can you go”. Budgets and time are getting so compressed these days that a few of the recent 2 hour MOW products are being shot in as little as 9 or 10 days. Projects that qualify with less than 2 million dollar budgets are getting discounts on union rates and don’t think just the actors are getting this treatment. An experienced and talented director may be working on the same project and getting discounted up to 75% of their union minimum! Like you, many directors, producers, writers and editors are working on projects that are…how can I put this politely…are perhaps not projects that would have held the same interest a few years back. And if you have an off-the-record conversation with a casting director you might find that top houses have rolled back their rates to what they made 15 years ago in order to be competitive and land a job. In addition, many of them are also now expected to provide the cost of the audition space as part of that lower fee. (click ‘more’ tab to continue reading Richards Rant)

We are even having challenges getting decent dressing rooms for the leads in these projects. The lowest budget projects are sometimes getting just two good rooms and everyone else, yes even the other “leads” are in a honey wagon. And on a recent SAG film in the prairies a high profile client sat in his first honey wagon in years…ALL of the American and Canadian cast were favoured nations sitting in their honeywagons…there were NO star dressing rooms, it was a deal-breaker. YIKES…if we are getting less money, at least we hope to have you respected by having a nice dressing room and some (it doesn’t cost ya guys) billing!  And don’t think this is just about Vancouver. Many recent LA studio features, for example, will pay rates for the “star” talent and everyone else is at scale.

These are challenging times for ALL of us in this crazy business and here at Lucas Talent, we are sincerely doing what we can to insulate our clients the best we can. Our battle cry is “We’re here…we care… and we’re sober” or something to that effect. But here is the good news…traditionally in a depression or recession the entertainment industry does just fine…and if the lower Canadian dollar combines with good film scripts and scripted television coming back into fashion, we shall be off to the races!!

There…my rant is done now…I feel better…if I hadn’t quit smoking; I think I’d have a cigarette about now…
Can’t wait til next time to “rant”…I look forward to telling you all about the insurance health forms that ask questions like have you ever had any disorders of the menstrual variety?” or “have you ever ingested an illegal substance?”. Does nobody but me know about the fricking laws of the Privacy Commissioner of the province of British Columbia…Betcha can’t wait for that!