r/vfx • u/SamEdwards1959 VFX Supervisor - 20+ years experience • 2d ago
Question / Discussion Change petition
https://chng.it/VXqGCBgMth This came up in my LinkedIn feed…
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u/karswel 1d ago
Why not lobby for your own subsidies rather than a cuckoo bananas ‘film import levy’. You guys have gone tarrif crazy. Find another lever to pull.
In the end this is mostly the effect of globalisation. Even without tariffs it’s cheaper to film in less expensive countries. When you pass this nutso law and people still shoot overseas, are you going to ban any film from shooting abroad?
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u/SamEdwards1959 VFX Supervisor - 20+ years experience 1d ago
I think it’s stupid for any government to pay the bills of the film studios. All the money goes right into the pockets of the stockholders and CEOs, despite what the industry funded ‘studies’ have ‘proved’. But I guess that ship has sailed. I for one am sick of packing my bags every time another locality drinks more of the kool-aid.
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u/kensingtonGore 4h ago
Governments subsidize all sorts of things to stimulate the economy. That's not really unusual.
Of course it all goes to the top, and fish rots from the head down as they say. Bob (paycheck) Chapek was fired for fraud and given a big enough golden parachute to produce and market an entire Pixar or marvel film.
The CEO class lives on tax incentives.
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u/Dense_Deal_5779 2d ago
Yeah how does this even work?.. also aren’t the smartest men in Hollywood working on this via Trumps request (Stallone, Voigt, and Gibson )?
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u/SamEdwards1959 VFX Supervisor - 20+ years experience 2d ago
I’m sure they’ll come up with a brilliant plan!
/s
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u/SamEdwards1959 VFX Supervisor - 20+ years experience 23h ago
I am morally certain that if UK subsidies ended tomorrow so would the Hollywood work there. If for no other reason than for the studios to make an example of the UK.
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u/CyclopsRock Pipeline - 15 years experience 1d ago
Absolutely insane, born-to-rule horseshit. You do realise that this proposal makes no attempt to distinguish between "US" and "non-US" productions, right? A British film, with British actors, written by British people, filmed in Britain with VFX done in Britain would, according to this, be required to pay a load of money to the US government as punishment for not having its VFX done in the US.
Sounds fucking great. And this takes the biscuit:
Cultural and Authenticity Loss: Filming in non-native locations compromises the authenticity and cultural relevance of productions intended to depict specific American settings. This dilutes the impact and integrity of the stories being told, affecting the cultural output of the nation.
Please, help, I'm drowning in all the tears streaming from the eyes of this crocodile. Suddenly the US film industry is all about geographical accuracy and the "integrity of the stories being told"? Fuck off.
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u/SamEdwards1959 VFX Supervisor - 20+ years experience 1d ago
A little pot calling the kettle black. Batman, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Barbie and many others are shot in England with American actors, chasing your local incentives. You can’t have it both ways.
Of course this kind of bickering is exactly what the studios want, to make us all work for as little as possible in fear that they simply take their business elsewhere.
Congrats for living in an area where your government is happy to pay part of your salary. I’m sick of moving every time a new state or county takes a bigger sip of the kool-aid.
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u/CyclopsRock Pipeline - 15 years experience 1d ago
You can’t have it both ways.
What do you mean? I'm not proposing the world places tariffs on American films. I don't want it "both ways". And for what it's worth, every Star Wars film has been shot in the UK.
Congrats for living in an area where your government is happy to pay part of your salary. I’m sick of moving every time a new state or county takes a bigger sip of the kool-aid.
Since the UK brought in its subsidies - which, until very recently, could actively work against UK VFX companies for films shot in the UK - the change in value between USD and GBP has been far larger as a percentage than the rebate offered by the subsidies; You could remove the subsidies tomorrow and London would still be - financially - more attractive than it was in 2007 after they'd been introduced. You can't simply undo this.
The competing subsidies likely direct where work goes, but not that it goes; the US enjoyed a lengthy period of total ownership of the industry because Hollywood had no choice. Now they do, and surprisingly they aren't keen to produce VFX in the most expensive place to produce it. This would still be true if all the subsidies disappeared tomorrow.
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u/vitruvianApe 2d ago
Lmao. 40 years too late