It’s Up To You (Unfortunately)

In the past couple of weeks I have been contacted twice about director terms and conditions. The first was from a director who had worked on a number of projects that required out of town travel and no allowances were paid for per diems, accommodation or mileage for the use of a personal vehicle on the job.

The second was from a director disturbed about the rates being offered for a contract directing position, which from the director’s perspective devalued the creative contribution they would make as an experienced director.

As we all know and I’ve said this before, NZ is a deregulated labour market and in the screen industry all negotiations over contracts are done on an individual basis. We are unable to collectively bargain at this time to set rates and terms and conditions, and any guild standard contracts are used on a voluntary basis by production companies (and usually adapted).

Each individual must try to set the terms and conditions under which they will work. In such an environment, the individual is at a distinct disadvantage.

On the DEGNZ website, we have a guide to pay rates for directors and editors. We are revamping one by one our outdated standard contracts, which is a very slow and involved process. We look to have the first new one available in the first quarter of 2017.

The Blue Book, which is a guide to terms and conditions set by the NZ Film & Video Technicians Guild, is the defacto standard for screenworker contracts in New Zealand.

Funding contracts from the New Zealand Film Commission and NZ On Air expect producers to adhere to the guidelines in the Blue Book.

Te Māngai Paho, the Maori screen funding agency, is the only major screen funding body that does not reference the Blue Book in its contracts. This essentially allows unscrupulous production companies working with TMP funding to avoid what are generally accepted as fair terms and conditions for screenworkers, and has I believe institutionalised what I term the ‘poverty production’ levels of a number of Māori production companies making projects for Māori Television. DEGNZ has specifically requested to TMP that their contracts include a clause requiring producers adhere to Blue Book T & Cs and been turned down.

Essentially contract negotiations fall to you, so here’s what you should do:

  1. Read your contract it before you sign it.
  2. Check the Blue Book here to see what standard terms and conditions are if you don’t know them.
  3. If you don’t understand the contract or are uncertain about it, get a knowledgeable friend, your guild, or your lawyer to read it and discuss it with you.
  4. If there are specific items you want addressed, request amendments, additions or deletions.
  5. If you remain unhappy with the contract terms on offer, decline the work if you can afford to do so. (By accepting, you essentially endorse the conditions.)

John Key resigning is not going to make any difference to NZ labour laws anytime soon.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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What’s Happening to Your Screen Tax Payer Dollars?

I was at the Screen Producers Australia – Screen Forever conference last week in Melbourne. An interesting issue was brought up by highly regarded independent Australian producer Trish Lake, who highlighted the fact that many of the primetime slots on Australian TV and large chunks of Australian taxpayer funding distributed by Screen Australia are taken by non-Australian companies, i.e., companies that once were Australian but have been bought out by foreign entities, an example being one of Australia’s most prolific production companies Matchbox Pictures, which is owned by NBC Universal. Trish feels that foreign-owned companies should not be accessing discretionary Screen Australia funding. She is not alone in this.

In New Zealand we now have five of the largest TV production companies foreign-owned: NHNZ by Fox International, South Pacific Pictures by the U.K’s all3media (who also own 50% of Satellite Media and 51% of Kura Productions), Screentime by the French Banijay Group, the former Eyeworks Touchdown by U.S. studio Warner, and Greenstone by Australian outfit CJZ.

Two Australian companies—Matchbox Pictures and See Saw Films have recently set up here, but not received NZ On Air funding to date.

I decided to take a look at the primetime slots (7 – 9:30PM) across the mainstream TV channels (1, 2, 3, Prime) to see who did what this week (Wed. 23rd – Tues. 29th Nov.). Here’s what I found with the New Zealand-made shows that aired:

NZ Broadcasters
Stripped shows
Seven Sharp, Current Affairs – TVNZ
Story, Current Affairs – TV3
The Crowd Goes Wild, Sports – SKY on Prime

Series
Country Calendar, Documentary – TVNZ
Fair Go, Consumer Affairs – TVNZ
First Dates NZ, Reality- TVNZ
The Friday Story, Light Ent. – TV3

Foreign-owned independents
Stripped shows
Shortland Street, Drama – South Pacific Pictures/all3media

Series
The Brokenwood Mysteries, Drama – South Pacific Pictures/all3media
Police Ten 7, Reality – Screentime/Banijay
Motorway Patrol, Reality – Greenstone/CJZ
Our Big Blue Backyard, Documentary – NHNZ/Fox

NZ Independents
Series
Dirty Laundry, Drama –Filthy Productions
Terry Teo, Comedy – Semi-Professional

The foreign-owned independents certainly seem to dominate primetime this week.

To see what was happening with NZ On Air funding I went back through the last four funding announcements in 2016 to see who got how much across all timeslots, not just primetime shows:

Broadcasters…………………………………………………………………… $4,044,942       11.00%
Foreign owned Independents……………………………………….. $11,403,637       30.98%
NZ Independents…………………………………………………………… $20,732,213       58.02%

Total funding allocated (Mar to Sept. 2016 rounds)………..$36,805,774      100.00%

NB:

  1. Satellite Media received funding so I split it equally between Foreign and NZ
  2. Funding this year does’nt relate to programming this year.

While NZ independents took the biggest slice of the cake in 2016, foreign-owned independents took a not unsubstantial 31 per cent of the money available for shows on 1, 2, 3 and Prime.

I thought I would also take a look at what foreign-owned companies have received from NZ On Air for mainstream broadcast (1, 2, 3, Prime) since they became 100 per cent foreign owned. Here are the numbers:

Since 5 April 2013 when all3media took total control of South Pacific Pictures they have received $29,624,564, and Satellite Media have received $4,080,113, 50% of which is attributable for a total of:$31,664,621
From the time CJZ took control of Greenstone in December 2013 they have received:  $4,566,766
Screentime became wholly owned by its Australian parent in June 2009, and later by Banijay at a date I found difficult to determine. Since June 2009, Screentime has received from NZ On Air:$34,172,527
It looks like Eyeworks Touchdown/Warner has been foreign-owned since April 2006. Since that time they have received from NZ On Air:$22,857,516
NHNZ would seem to have been 100 % foreign owned since at least November 1997, but they only seem to have received from NZ On Air:  $5,563,647
TTL$98,825,647

It’s all a little unscientific and essentially not comparing apples with apples, but there’s no denying that nearly 100 million dollars has gone to foreign-owned production companies from NZ On Air funding, at least 75% of it in the last six years.

So what does it all mean? Here are some thoughts:

With TVNZ a commercially-driven public broadcaster getting $8.5 million from the government for operating revenues and returning an $8.3 million dividend from a $28.1 million net profit in 2015, you have to wonder why they are allowed to dip into NZ On Air’s coffers for production funding.

Foreign-owned independents  took 31% of NZ On Air funding in 2016, and apart from the broadcasters totally dominate the primetime slots in the period looked at. Certainly they employ Kiwis and contribute to the local economy but at what cost? Surely they are stymying the growth of NZ production businesses by being so dominant.

As more offshore entities buy out NZ companies and foreign independents set up here more of NZ On Air’s funding will go to them, leaving less for NZ owned independents. And more of the profits made with NZ tax payer funding will head offshore.

Our situation here is essentially the same as in Australia except they have a public broadcaster and quota and we don’t.

This issue regarding who gets the discretionary screen tax payer dollars is certainly something we should all be giving a lot more thought to.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

NB: I didn’t look at what foreign-owned companies in NZ might or might not take from the New Zealand Film Commission’s discretionary funding (not including the Screen Production Grant).

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Wherefore Art Thou Public Service Content Provider?

10 November 2016

New Zealand On Air’s recent announcement of changes to its funding strategy and to a lesser extent the mooted desire of TVNZ to take over Freeview have brought discussion of public service broadcasting once again to the fore.

Public service broadcasting has had a chequered history since 1989 with both the Labour and National Parties ensuring Television New Zealand’s ability to operate as a commercial public broadcaster.

The doing away of the charter in 2008 by National let loose the commercial beasts at TVNZ forever and public service content has diminished significantly as a result.

NZ On Air was set up to ensure a broad range of NZ content on screen. While they have fought their fight, they do not control the broadcast platforms that operate at the behest of advertisers. Consequently, it is difficult to get a broad range of public service content screened because broadcasters shoot for the lowest common denominator and are unwilling to take creative risks in case they affect advertising revenue.

Now NZ on Air is proposing a new funding strategy that essentially expands the content gatekeeping from the commercially-driven broadcasters to include the commercially-driven online platforms, the likes of NZME and Fairfax Media.

Some look to Radio New Zealand as the great online hope. But like NZ on Air, Radio NZ hasn’t had an increase in funding for the last eight years. Yes, they have developed the Wireless, revamped their website and are now generating screen content with the filming and broadcasting/streaming of Checkpoint. They’re also engaging in providing independently produced digital content with a platform as they did with Christchurch Dilemmas. It’s likely that they’ll start commissioning more independently produced content. But they can’t compete with the media giants of the world in the online space without a lot more funding.

Could Radio NZ be the home for public service TV? Unlikely. Funding issues aside, the shelf life of linear TV is up for debate and the infrastructure costs are high. Without deep pockets, nobody wants to take on the voracious content beast that is a linear TV channel, which has to chew up and spit out content non-stop. Viceland, a new TV channel from digital hipster Vice Media and partners A & E in the U.S. and Rogers Media in Canada illustrates what’s needed for a linear channel start-up: distinctive content, lots of it, and piles of money to make it or buy it and play it out.

It’s clear that a lot of people still watch linear TV as NZ On Air’s recent Audience Report showed. It also identified the significant increase in online services, particularly SVOD, such as Lightbox and Netflix. This trend is reflected internationally as well.

David Abraham, Chief Executive of Channel 4 in the UK, claimed that the future of TV lies “not with either linear or on-demand, but a creative and visual integration of the two worlds, blending the strengths of both into a single brand.”

NZ On Air’s refocusing of its funding strategy is necessary in light of the impact of the digital world. But it doesn’t address the real issue that lies at the heart of screen content delivery in New Zealand—When TVNZ 7 was shut down by the National government, we lost what potentially could have been our non-commercial, public service content TV broadcaster. And now with the growth of digital content providers looking to satisfy the need of content consumers after whatever they want, whenever they want it on multiple screens, we don’t have a non-commercial, public service online platform to guard against the total commercialization of content in that space.

With our current business-driven government, what we need is a bright spark or two to put a convincing case forward that meets the need of public service content on TV and online and the government’s desire for a return on investment that’s attractive–not necessarily a monetary one.

Until we get a public service content provider fit for the digital age, we are going to continue to wince and grimace our way through the majority of what’s on offer just like we’ve done with the US election coverage.

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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An Inspiration

26 October 2016

It’s been a helluva busy year, and I’ve been offshore more than once, the latest in October when former head of the Council of Trade Unions Helen Kelly died of lung cancer.

I never met Helen Kelly. I only knew her from the media as she fought her fights as a fierce champion of workers’ rights.

In the screen industry, she is probably best known for her intense opposition to Warners Bros’ ultimately successful efforts to get NZ employment law changed to have movie workers classified as self-employed contractors.

Perhaps more pertinently for all of us, Helen Kelly’s fight for improved health and safety conditions for NZ forestry workers undoubtedly helped contribute to the H & S changes that came into effect on 1 April of this year, which will make screen industry workers safer on set.

I wanted to acknowledge Helen Kelly because although the passage of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991 effectively rendered unions irrelevant and put most workers into a situation of selling their labour in a private transaction under an individual contract, she continued to passionately pursue an agenda to make it easier for unions to represent workers and negotiate collective employment contracts.

Helen Kelly’s fight is in essence every guild in New Zealand’s fight.

All of our members negotiate individual contracts for their employment, and most often are at a distinct disadvantage when doing so. They have no job security. And are under increasing pressure to do more for less.

As a guild one of our roles is to seek to ensure a fair and respectful workplace environment for our members. We can only look at the Directors Guild of America’s situation with envy.

The DGA as a union negotiates collectively on behalf of its members, setting pay rates for DGA productions. They protect the creative rights of directors and ensure residuals for ongoing compensation for directorial authorship. Healthcare and pension plans are just some of the other benefits of DGA membership.

Like the NZ unions, the DEGNZ’s efforts for worker’s rights are made difficult by our deregulated labour market. And because of this we can look to Helen Kelly’s approach to making unions relevant for guidance in how to move DEGNZ forward: make it a social movement with a set of values and activities that people will want to be associated with.

All of us at DEGNZ—board members and workers—seek the best working environment possible for career directors and editors in New Zealand.

At board level we are engaged now in discussions that have will have a significant impact on future working conditions for our members. And at the Annual General Meeting this weekend, NZ on Air CEO Jane Wrightson will speak to one such topic—the restructuring of NZ On Air’s funding strategy. As we approach this and the many other current and future issues that we will have to deal with, we can look to Helen Kelly’s no-nonsense approach for inspiration.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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Shakin’ It Up

29 September 2016

Last week I was at the No Borders Coproduction market in New York, which is part of IFP Film Week. Across 6 days I mixed with mainly American writers, directors and producers who were trying to get their narrative features or documentaries financed. The way the Americans go about it sits in stark contrast to what most New Zealand filmmakers are faced with.

US filmmakers are entirely dependent on attracting investors to their films—industry investors who put up time, equipment, facilities; cash investors who want a premium on their equity and can make use of Section 181—legislation to make a tax deduction on their investment; or non-profit foundations that want to support filmmaking, often social issue documentary. The idea of earning fees for a US first time feature filmmaker is mostly a dream.

I met three filmmakers from Texas who make a good case in point. They all work in or around the film industry. They and many of their mates support each other in their filmmaking endeavours. One was the director of the film they were at Film Week with, so the other two who were also directors had taken on the roles of producers to help their friend. They estimated that their film was going to cost them north of US$200k to shoot. They were putting up US$60k themselves in cash, and had brokered deals in kind to cover the rest. They were at Film Week to find finishing funds and distribution. The writer/director’s aim for his feature was of course to make a great film, with the hope that his talent shone through sufficiently to attract more money and distribution for his next feature—if not he’s back riding the same bicycle if he wants to make another. In fact, his talent had been noticed with the two shorts he had already made at what we in NZ would consider B & C level film festivals. This was getting him some traction in the market. I don’t know how well the Texans did at Film Week finding funding sources, but they were six weeks out from first day of principal photography when I meet them.

I arrived back from No Borders on Sunday morning in time to attend the second day of the Big Screen Symposium. I had missed the presentation by NZ on Air CEO Jane Wrightson on the draft strategy for dishing out around NZ$127 million in government funding for local content, but was in time to hear Dave Gibson outline the NZFC’s new thoughts around how they spend the more than NZ$20 million of government funding they receive each year for New Zealand feature film development and production. I know that the Americans can get tax breaks, have a much bigger market, and that we have cultural imperatives, but it’s still stark, right?

I have yet to go carefully through the information that has been put out by NZ on Air and NZFC with these announcements, but a few things stand out:

NZ on Air is openly talking about TV producers having to bring investors to the party for anything with a budget over $500k. Those investors will primarily be the broadcasters. But the language signals a change in attitude from government funding to public/private sector partnership. And now the vertically integrated local digital studios such as NZME—with funding, infrastructure, marketing clout and channels, and distribution channels to a large number of eyeballs—can openly compete for funding with bedroom-based production companies. Competition indeed. No wonder the MBIE mantra “Innovation” now sits front and centre in the NZ on Air lexicon.

On the NZFC front, CEO Dave Gibson finally openly declared that dark (read arthouse) drama is going to struggle in the current regime. That of course wasn’t news. Nor the fact that NZFC is looking for lighter, warmhearted fare. What was news was that a new strategy is coming for Māori. With a management change and a few years under the bridge from the failure that was Te Paepae Ataata, NZFC is once again looking at how to bring Māori into the fold, and finally getting Māori telling the Māori stories that have proved so successful in film. Here’s hoping.

The other news of note from NZFC was the announcment of GPS 2026 (another MBIE-like label), a forward looking initiative to imagine what the industry should look like and be doing a decade from now. This is a positive and DEGNZ will take up Dave Gibson’s invitation for the guilds to be involved. Ten years ago, the biggest player in the film industry today, Netflix, didn’t exist and nobody even imagined they were coming, but perhaps a bit of proactive crystal ball gazing on our parts might be prescient.

NZ on Air and NZFC are shaking it up; a necessity to be honest. Digital disruption is usually attributed as the cause for everything in the screen industry these days. And it’s true. Out with the old and in with the new, whether you like it or not. The glass half empty leftie conspiracy theorists would say the neo-liberalists are using digital disruption to impoverish the established screen middleclass and put as many of the young working class as close to the breadline as possible. The glass half full screen industry practitioners would likely enthuse as Cliff Curtis did in his closing at the Big Screen Symposium about what a wonderful world it is now for the young in film and TV to make their mark.

As I sit in my malfunctioning chair at the Guild, however, it looks to me like there is more opportunity than ever in this new era to make even lower wages as a director or editor. I guess that Americans would say we should be thankful to have government funding to help us do that.

DEGNZ will be making a submission to the proposed draft strategy for TV funding. If you have any thoughts you would like to share, please feel free to do so to me and to NZ on Air.

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

 

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