One of one tweetDonald Trump has just turned the cinema and television planet upset.
But only half of this planet divided into two: producers, directors and artists on the one hand, craftsmen and technicians on the other. If the former love the freedom to work where they want, with whom they wish, others, like any “ordinary” workers, are looking for a stable job with their usual colleagues in places or studios that are familiar to them.
When the disheveled cerberus of the White House announced on Sunday that foreign films threaten national security and that it intends to tax, the 15,000 to 18,000 Californian craftsmen and technicians who have lost their jobs in the cinema for four years have jumped. But not those of Canada. Our thousands of craftsmen and technicians who earn their lives in American productions made in our studios are likely to end up on the pavement.
Hollywood as Detroit
These technicians and craftsmen were also concerned about their future when Netflix, Disney and Cie threatened not to produce in Canada if the law on continuously broadcasting online imposed royalties. For the moment, the American platforms are waiting for the judgment of the Federal Court, before which they have challenged this obligation. The decision must be rendered this summer.
Donald Trump has nothing to wave about the contents of films and series, but Michael Miller Jr, vice-president of Iiatse, the Union which brings together technicians and craftsmen, knew that he would touch a sensitive string in the president when he declared to the New York Timeslast month, “that California suffered with cinema and television the same sad fate as Detroit knew with the automotive industry”.
Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal have not stopped “marauding” in Hollywood and New York to attract American productions. Our major cities have had the unconditional support of federal, provincial and municipal governments in their canvassing, which have all made generous tax credits and many advantages to American producers.
The waltz of tax credits
These still have other reasons to produce with us: our dollar is discount on the US dollar and our teams are extremely competent and productive and they work at a lower salary than in the U.-U. savings that are crucial for film producers who can no longer count on DVD sales, that the platforms have reduced to nothing, not to mention the frequentation of the rooms that has never recovered.
In the hope of straightening the situation, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, doubled the tax credits granted to producers. Donald Trump is therefore not wrong to say that the American cinema and television industry is in danger, but as we will see in my Chronicle on Thursday, the president has other reasons-less adequate, those-to impose prices on films and series produced abroad.
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