Economic impact of local productions - Symposium Reflections - Part III

How much of an impact can a film project have on the local economy?

The Motion Picture Association of Utah (MPAU) commissioned an Economic Impact Study of Utah’s film industry, emphasizing the benefits of the state’s Motion Picture Incentive Program (MPIP)—colloquially referred to as the “film incentive.” The MPAU summarized the study in an explainer video.

In short, the state—through the Utah Film Commission—invites filmmakers worldwide to produce their movies and series in Utah by highlighting local resources such as unique filming locations, support services, experienced crew members and actors, etc. The film incentive—a 25% rebate—is available to qualifying productions that spend a defined amount of their production budget within the state. For example, if a film production spends $1,000,000 in Utah—a claim that has to be verified by a third-party audit—they may receive a rebate of up to $250,000.

The impact of money spent on film and television production in Utah is not limited to the local film industry; it’s also advantageous for ancillary industries and sectors as well. Fees for location permits benefit municipal, county, and state governments. Hiring local crew members and actors, catering and vehicle rental, hotel accommodations, renting equipment, and studio space benefit local businesses, enabling them to pay their employees. Employees pay local taxes; they buy groceries and pay for their housing and transportation, and myriad goods and services for their personal needs, benefiting even more local businesses, who have their own payrolls to meet. They may not even realize that the film industry’s economic impact also works to their advantage.

This begs a more specific question: How much do film projects by local filmmakers affect the local economy?

The answer depends on whether or not—and to what degree—those local filmmakers understand and accept that the business of filmmaking cannot be separated from the art form.

As I’ve previously discussed, in the Venn diagram showing how creative industries and their adjacent communities overlap, local filmmakers may find themselves in one of three archetypical roles: Industry professionals, working-amateurs, and faux-professionals.

There are indeed a number of Utah-based film industry professionals. They understand and respect that filmmaking is as much a business venture as it is one of artistic expression. They have established effective and sustainable business models. They understand that prioritizing people with fair compensation is essential to creating a quality film that can see a return on investment. One important characteristic they all share is knowing that no one person can do it all. They know their professional strengths, have the integrity to acknowledge their limitations and respect the varied, complementary talents of those they work with, trusting them to do the same. They embrace the standards and best practices of the industry, maintaining due diligence through all stages of production and effectively managing assets and required deliverables from concept to distribution. This is what professional industry filmmakers do: employing themselves and others, doing their part to sustain the industry, and making a quantifiable difference in the economic landscape.

The working amateurs are those filmmakers who have managed to corner a niche within the local market that’s technically part of the larger industry, embracing business models with a modicum of sustainability—at least for those above the line. Their priorities are in the saleability of the finished product with a maximum return on a miserly investment. They don’t embrace industry standards so much as meet minimal requirements. Best practices will almost always be substituted with whatever they can get away with legally, if not ethically. If a loophole will save them money on production, they’ll find it and exploit it. They understand the business well enough to know that a mediocre film—with a built-in, albeit less discerning, audience—that’s done its due diligence has a better chance at distribution and profitability than an otherwise flawless work of art that can’t produce a chain of title, signed contracts, and/or other deliverables that reputable distributors will ask for.

Faux-professionals are well-versed in the jargon associated with their craft. They take themselves—if not the art form—very seriously, an unfortunate and potentially volatile combination of the Dunning-Kruger effect and unchecked narcissism run amok. More often than not, the responsibility for the unsaleable nature of many local productions—I’ll refer to them hereinafter as “community films”—rests squarely with faux-professional community filmmakers. Having never let go of amateur thinking, they prioritize the completion of a film over its distribution, assuming that the completed project will be so good that it will sell itself—grossly underestimating the importance of basic business planning and the necessity of due diligence. They are so focused on getting to say “That’s a wrap” to the applause of an exhausted and under-compensated crew that every decision they make leading up to that point is rooted in a scarcity mentality. Problems that can easily be avoided by not starting preproduction until proper funding is in place are simply dealt with along the way. Lacking any practical means to hire the professionals needed to do the job right, they cut corners just to get the job done, starting—most often—by requiring most of their cast and crew to waive or defer payment and convincing those above-the-line to accept rates that aren’t just below industry standards but even fail to meet the federal minimum wage.

Faux-professionals like to refer to themselves as “in the industry” because they sincerely believe that they are. Actual film industry professionals may beg to differ. Finished “community films” exist only on the outer-most fringes of the film industry—assuming someone remembered to create IMDb entries for them, as promised to many a cast and crew, in lieu of a paycheck. This speaks to the economic impact of such projects; there is none—people can’t pay rent or buy groceries with deferred salaries.

Despite the excitement they tend to engender in the local film community—I don’t think community films actually benefit anyone. To be frank, I think that they do more harm than good. Exploited actors and crew are prevented from learning the actual value of their time and talent. They become so accustomed to “donating” or underbidding their services and paying the “passion tax” that when they’re presented with an offer that industry veterans would scoff at, they accept it without question or even any negotiating on their behalf by their so-called “agents”—because 15% of a lousy offer is still better than 15% of a client’s “experience” and IMDb credit. This undermines the income potential for other local actors and crew. A desperate labor market attracts predatory employers. While some may be quick to point fingers at incentivized productions hiring local background talent for less than half of what SAG-AFTRA deems as an acceptable minimum day rate, some Utah-based producers, including the working amateurs described above, also exploit that desperation. While it might be good for their bottom line in the short term, the practice is simply not sustainable.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and—especially where guest posts are concerned—do not necessarily reflect the official policies and/or practice of the Utah Filmmakers™ Association, its officers and/or associates.

Lindsey Watson on going back to work

Things to consider when going back to work.

Liability waivers.

I can’t believe I even have to write this, but there is no more important precedent to set with the industry than our refusal to sign away our lives (literally) for the privilege of having work.

The “standard” 60-hr workweek has to go.

More hours does not equal more output. And more importantly, the harder we work, the more compromised our immune systems become, and the more likely we are to not only contract but also spread Covid-19.

Kit fees should be standard for everyone asked to work from home.

If you provide equipment that the production or a facility would have provided before, you should be compensated accordingly. This isn’t just about your main workstation, this includes your laptop, your phone to manage calls (and endless text messages) all day long, and also includes stipends to cover faster internet, electricity, printer toner, etc.

Additional Reading:

https://optimizeyourself.me/dear-hollywood-normal-wasnt-working/

https://www.wikihow.com/Know-if-You-Should-Sign-a-Waiver-of-Liability

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/stanford-study-longer-hours-doesnt-make-you-more-productive-heres-how-to-get-more-done-by-doing-less.html

https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6617405/

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The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and—especially where guest posts are concerned—do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the Utah Filmmakers™ Association, its officers and/or associates.

Utah Filmmaker(s)™ and UFA™ are trademarks registered with the Utah Department of Commerce Division of Corporations and Commercial Code, Registration Numbers 10706542-0190 , 11025542-0190 and 10502093-0190 respectively.

Thoughts on film budgets

Budget breakdown for "Excursus"
A short film by the author—
with which he proposed to
his wife (who said yes).

One day, I was on the set of a corporate production and around lunchtime I was sitting with some of the crew members, talking shop. A newer member of the crew was asking one of the veterans about budgeting for a production. With appetites growing, catering and craft service was used as an example. Crafty can be budgeted by setting a dollar amount per day per person on the cast and crew. Allot $10 per person on a small 10-person production and your craft service budget will be $100/day. You’ll certainly want to be more generous and flexible when it comes to catering meals, especially if you opt to hire different caterers throughout the course of the shoot to add some variety to the menu. Productions—regardless of what they’re shooting—are often judged by the quality of their craft service and catering. In my budget template, “Comestibles” (Food) is the first item “Below-the-line” for that very reason.

Another question that was asked was, “Where in the budget can you most easily save money?”

Frugality, when budgeting for any film is always wise but I’m of the opinion that before one asks, “where can I save money?” One simply needs to become informed as to what the standard rates and fees are in order to properly estimate the required budget for a production. This is especially true if one is producing a project for a client. The client could be a business investing in a television commercial, or it can be an investor backing a feature film.

Knowing how much production services cost—and not forgetting that one needs to include their own fair wages—is essential to making a realistic budget estimate. When the client inevitably asks, “Can you do it for less?” the answer should never be “Yes.” It should be, “Only if you want to change the scope of the production and lower your expectations.”

Once production is rolling, and one has a defined budget for what they have been contracted to do, opportunities to save money may certainly present themselves. However, the way one saves money on a production and how one uses that savings should be informed by ethical business practices and the law.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for budgeted productions to request “volunteers” in front of and behind the camera, regardless of the fact that the practice is illegal. A producer may justify this practice—called “wage theft”—for any number of reasons, from saying that they’re “saving the client money” to trite appeals to artistic egos but it doesn’t change the fact that the practice opens up the production (and the client) to some severe legal ramifications that could cost much more than the savings envisioned by using unpaid labor.

In the case of productions that expect to take advantage of government-funded film incentives, the motivation to "save money" in the short-term negatively affects not only the people convinced to work for free but the bottom-line of the production itself.

If a project is approved for a film incentive rebate of 25% based on their commitment to spend at least $1 million dollars in the state, cutting corners through wage theft will directly impact the amount of money they would receive for their rebate.

For example: getting 100 people to be free extras for a simple crowd scene might save the production $10,000 for one day but NOT spending that money can, at best, shrink the production's rebate check by $2,500. Or worse. When all the receipts are counted, the budget has been properly audited and it turns out that not paying extras that one time was all it took to cut their in-state expenditures to less than $1 million dollars thus disqualifying them for the 25% rebate.

That $10,000 saved on one day of production would wind up costing $250,000. It's not uncommon for producers to count on incentive rebates to fund or at least supplement their post-production budget. And all it takes to screw it up is a short-sighted UPM or Line Producer to make an unethical and illegal decision because they think they're doing their employers a favor by "saving" them some money on a single day of production.

Bottom line, one should never try to save money at the expense of the people that are working for them. If one has given an accurate and fair budget estimate to a client and the client has agreed to it, there should be no excuse for asking—or requiring—anyone to work for less than a fair rate, especially if it means that a budget surplus is only going to be used to inflate one’s own reimbursement for their services as a producer. I can’t think of any producer that has used a budget surplus to refund their client/investor because they overestimated the cost of the production. Being able to make a reasonable profit for the work one does is an essential factor in making fair and accurate budget estimates.

When budget-saving opportunities present themselves, one needs to ask,

“Will any one person be negatively affected by this decision?”

For example: If one has allotted $2000 in their budget to secure the use of a location—based on typical rates for similar locations—and then learns that the owner/manager of said location only charges $1000 or its use. Before popping open the wrap party champaign, the question must be asked…

“Will any one person be negatively affected by this decision?”

If $1000 is the standard fee, determined to be fair and worthwhile by the owner/manager, then the answer to the above question is, “No.”

Congratulations! That’s a $1000 budget surplus—assuming, of course, that the rest of the budget balances out at the end of the shoot.

So, what do you do with that savings?

One option of what to do with any budget surplus during production is to simply allot it to the contingency fund. Every production should include a “Contingency” line-item equal to at least 10% of the entire production budget. These funds are set aside from the beginning in order to cover unexpected expenses, and any minor differences between estimates and actual rates and fees for the production.

If a piece of equipment is damaged and needs to be repaired or replaced immediately, so the pace of production isn’t hindered, contingency funds can be used to cover those costs and those receipts provided to the production’s insurance company for reimbursement.

If one has fairly estimated the cost of a crew member’s rate and kit fee and the actual cost is slightly more than the estimate, don’t ask the crew member to give you a discount or to waive their kit fee just to match the estimate. Pay them what their knowledge and experience have determined is fair. Contingency funds exist to make up that difference.

If a new contractor has offered the production a valuable service for considerably less than what has been budgeted only because they’re new to the industry and have not yet grasped the value of their work, before just agreeing to their lower fee, ask the question:

“Will any one person be negatively affected by this decision?”

The new contractor would certainly be affected, even if they don’t realize it. One must also consider that agreeing to that lower fee may result in a budget surplus but it would be unethical and potentially detrimental to the segment of the industry that the contractor represents. Undervalued services often result in more knowledgable and experienced contractors having to lower their rates in order to be competitive while hurting their ability to make a living at what they do. So, it isn’t just one person being negatively affected, it has the potential to affect an entire segment of the industry. So, the answer to the above question is “Yes!”

It’s also important to remember that, in this scenario, we’re working within an approved budget. The funds are there to compensate cast and crew fairly so there is no excuse to exploit someone’s naïveté in the interest of “saving money” that's already been earmarked for necessary expenditures. The client has already agreed to the amount, fully understanding the inherent risks involved in such an investment. Worrying about the risk that a client is taking is not part of the producer's job description.

There are already too many established filmmakers that approach budgets with a “scarcity” mentality. Being knowledgable about the value of the work that goes into a production and standing firm with clients/investors about having realistic expectations when it comes to appropriate budget estimates will help ensure that the work is valued and respected.

The contract may still go to the lowest bidder, but at least the difference in cost will be based on reasonable variables in an estimate and not a deliberate effort to undercut the competition and devaluing the work.

Joe Puente
Founder/Administrator
Utah Filmmakers™
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Utah Filmmaker(s)™ and UFA™ are trademarks registered with the Utah Department of Commerce Division of Corporations and Commercial Code, Registration Numbers 10706542-0190 , 11025542-0190 and 10502093-0190 respectively.

There is no such thing as a “half day”

From the "Excursus" movie poster

As I write this, it’s the day after Labeled Fest, where our short film, “Excursus,” was screened in the same theater in which it premiered in 2014. Reflecting on the single day of production that it had under the August sun on top of the “giant reflector”—Mario DeAngelis’ hilarious and accurate description—that is the Bonneville Salt Flats, I’m reminded of a point toward the end of the day when a few clouds were making some unscheduled appearances in the sky, blocking the sun from time to time. At one point, our 1st AC, Jonathan Judeen, looked toward one cloud in particular and said, “That cloud’s going to block the sun in about seventeen seconds.” His tone was matter-of-fact, showing no hint of sarcasm.

I’ll admit, there was a part of me that wanted to roll my eyes or offer some sort of incredulous response to his statement. Probably within the first second following Jonathan’s estimate, I thought, “Seventeen seconds? How the hell did he come up with that number? Why so specific? How could he possibly know?” But instead of saying anything, I started counting seconds to myself, “two, three, four… sixteen, seventeen,” and by that point, the cloud had completely covered our view of the sun. Jonathan called it… to the second. I was impressed.

That same year, I had worked on the pilot for Wesley Austin’s series, “The IP Section,” as a boom operator and witnessed something similar. Almost every time that cinematographer Wes Johnson and his team were working to set up a new shot, the 1st AD would ask for a time estimate for when they would be ready to shoot. As I recall, the response was rarely in minutes—even if multiple minutes were required. It was almost always stated in seconds, “One hundred five seconds,” “98 seconds,” etc. This was an experienced crew that knew what they were doing and knew the capabilities and limitations of the equipment they were working with so well that they could estimate how long it would take them to set-up a shot to within a few seconds.

Productions such as those are a joy to work on. A professional and efficient set—though not without it’s moments of work-related stress—is an atmosphere that instills confidence in all its participants and inspires the best work.

When I was hired for that pilot, I was told, “It’s only $***/day.” A more experienced boom operator may have accepted the role with some reluctance but I was happy for the opportunity, since all of the projects that I was working on that year were going to fund “Excursus” and the bulk of the compensation for my services would turn into paychecks for my crew.

When breaking down a polished screenplay for production, estimating the time it will take to shoot a particular scene or sequence is as much an art form as it is a skill and it requires experience to get any good at it. When I first broke down the screenplay for “Excursus” into a shooting script, I handed it to Mario and Jack Diamond—director and 1st AD, respectively—and said, “This isn’t written in stone. It’s just how I kinda pictured it in my head. Use what you like and what’s practical but if you have a better way of shooting it, then by all means, go with what you think will work best. This breakdown is just a suggestion.”

My breakdown was very much appreciated. On the day of the shoot, I did my best to let go of my role as Producer and focussed on my job as actor but I could definitely see where their decisions deviated from mine and how they worked better to accommodate the resources of the production. When we wrapped the location, Mario said to me, “You had a good shooting script but if we had shot it the way that it was written, it would have taken us three days instead of just one.”

Three seems like a magic number to me. Whenever I’m speaking with novice filmmakers on the subject of estimating the amount of time it takes to shoot something, based on my personal experience, I always tell them, “Take that first time estimate that you came up with and triple it. Because you never know what’s going to happen on the day of the shoot that’s going to cause a delay and there’s always something that’s going to cause a delay.”

I suppose it’s evocative of the exchange between Captain Kirk and Mr. Scott in Star Trek III, when Kirks asks his Chief Engineer, “How much refit time before we can take her out again?”
“Eight weeks, sir,” said Scotty, “but ye don't have eight weeks, so I'll do it for ye in two.”
“Mr. Scott. Have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?”
“Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?”

From time-to-time, I see job posts in our Facebook group that make statements like, “We’ll only need you for a couple” or “a few hours.” If an hourly rate is being offered for such work, that’s fine by me.

However, there are also times when I see posts that call for a specific job to be filled and the posters ask, “What’s your half-day rate?”

HMUA Heather Shelton
transforming the author
into a zombie

I can appreciate being mindful of budget limitations and needing to accommodate them but claiming that a job is “only” going to be a half-day commitment, suggests that the contractor would be free to fill the other half-day with a different half-day gig so they can get a full-day’s rate—which is within the realm of possibility but very unlikely. To suggest that there’s so much work out there that someone could make a living working two half-day gigs a day, for any period of time seriously overestimates the demands of the local industry not to mention ignoring important factors like crew meals and commute times.

No one ever really works for just “half a day.” The preparation time is going to vary from gig-to-gig depending on the demands of the production and for roles and positions beyond those of background actors and Production Assistants, rates are not determined by an hourly minimum but by the nature of the work that’s needed and the talent and experience that a contractor brings to the table. A “half-day” doesn’t necessarily translate into half the work. For specialties like hair and makeup artistry, the amount of work and resources required for it may be no different for a “half-day” shoot than a full day. It’s more likely to amount to the same amount of work but only with an earlier wrap-time. Since it’s unlikely that there will be another “half-day” gig waiting for that one person afterward—for which their energy and supplies can be significantly drained—they should just be paid their standard day-rate and kit-fee. There are other places in a production budget where a producer can be frugal without interfering with someone’s paycheck and—by extension—their livelihood.

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Utah Filmmaker(s)™ and UFA™ are trademarks registered with the Utah Department of Commerce Division of Corporations and Commercial Code, Registration Numbers 10706542-0190 , 11025542-0190 and 10502093-0190 respectively.