Devoted to show business and the entertainment industry

Hey, who says outsourcing is all going to ? In the last 10 years, has had a combination of over 1,500 film and television productions.

While there are a lot of things that make this move workable, let’s not kid ourselves; it’s all about money! The union rules make it extremely difficult to afford to shoot outdoors in southern California.

One of the main expenses is that they can only shoot for 14 hours a day for regular overtime and after that it is double time. Along with that they have the requirement to hire Teamster drivers of all things to bring the actors back and forth to the locations. And that’s even if they’d rather use their own drivers. They aren’t given a choice.

It’s even worse for independents as they are railroaded into paying almost 9 percent more if they are not part of the National Term Agreement that the studios and the unions have. The result is that more than ever the independent films need places to film that they can get a much steeper discount.

While there are unions connected to the industry in Canada, they still get large reductions in costs, as high as 35 percent several years ago. Of course this was done by paying in Canadian dollars. 

The Canadian Federal Government has its act together as it pegs its subsidies to the rise and fall of their dollar. It was 11 percent a little while ago, but with the rise of the Canadian dollar it was raised to 16 percent to offset it. 

Then if you want to film in British Columbia the take off another 18 percent on labor, but that’s still not all. There is another 20% reduction on the digital effects, if they are made in . The catch is that one of the two highest paid actors or Actresses must be Canadian, which probably explains the recent demand for actresses like Alison Lohman, Rachel McAdams, and Alexz Johnson.