– Employees laid off by TVA find themselves in a difficult position…
– While Pierre-Karl Péladeau finished several prestigious shows: En direct de l’univers with Stephan Bureau, La Tour with Gildor Roy, Marie-Claude with Marie-Claude barrette, Bien with Saskia Thuot).
– Directors, cinematographers, cinematographers and all craftsmen in the audiovisual field could not get off the ground with American productions.
– It’s not just TVA that’s collapsing.
– It is the entire audiovisual sector…
The strikes by writers and actors in the United States are clearly having a direct impact on Quebec’s audiovisual industry, which is facing American filming being canceled or postponed until further notice. writes Le Devoir.
But even before these labor disputes, some were expecting a difficult 2023. Has Montreal lost its luster in the eyes of Hollywood?
– Which causes all the craftsmen in this industry to break out in cold sweats.
– The situation is serious.
– And for once… Quebec television needs to feel less alone in its setbacks…
– It is the “famine” throughout the North American environment.
“The market was already slowing down. The strikes have just hit the nail on the head there,” summarizes Simon Poudrette, a sound engineer with 30 years of experience, in a serious tone. Summer is usually the busiest time of the year. But because American actors imitated the screenwriters and went on strike in July, the few American productions scheduled to come to Quebec next year were put on hold.
Simon Poudrette, who has worked only on American productions for 15 years, has not worked for several weeks and is far from the only one.
AQTIS 514 IATSE, the union of about 8,000 freelance technicians in Quebec, estimates that between 1,000 and 2,000 of its members were affected by the strikes. The loss of revenue is estimated at 80 million.
If the technicians have managed to return to Quebec productions while accepting much lower salaries, this is not the case for everyone.
“In fact, for someone who constantly works on filming abroad, it is not so easy to work on filming in Quebec. It’s a completely different environment. They are not the same contacts. And they often have a negative attitude towards technicians working on American productions. They imagine that we are asking too much of them, even if we are willing to negotiate,” explains Carl Lessard, who works as a graphic designer on American sets.
His profession, like many others in the arts department, has no real equivalent on the Quebec side. Companies that rent out caravans or technical equipment inevitably suffer from the lack of American filming in the city.
Daniel Moïse, owner of camera rental company Pro-Cam, hopes the industry will at least use this downtime to better prepare for the future and think about ways to make Quebec more attractive.
For several years now, Montreal has had to face stiff competition from other large urban centers in the country such as Calgary, Vancouver and of course Toronto, which are doing everything they can to attract more American filmmakers. Cities like Budapest and Prague in Central Europe are also doing increasingly well.
“Montreal was characterized by a business model established by MELS Studios. But today that model has been imitated everywhere and Montreal has been unable to adapt. The simple answer would be to increase tax credits. But if we increase it, the others will too, and it will have to be done again and again. “Montreal needs to rediscover something special that sets us apart from other cities,” says Daniel Moïse, whose turnover normally depends on Americans for 75%.
Others note that film permits have become increasingly difficult to obtain in Montreal’s boroughs and suburbs in recent years. In your opinion, a foil for Hollywood productions. “We are heading straight for the wall and this has nothing to do with the current strikes. It’s not cyclical, it’s structural.
And the ball is in the politicians’ court,” supports Pierre Blondin, a location director. The mirage after the pandemic Some American productions that were supposed to film in Quebec were put on hold due to the strikes in the United States.
Let’s mention the third season of Ghost, the next Karate Kid or the new Apple TV series The last Frontier, which should start filming this winter.
The AQTIS 514 IATSE feared the strikes would be a good year away, but Le Devoir was able to speak with several people in recent days who did not share her union’s optimism.
Already in 2022, the Quebec Cinema and Television Bureau (BCTQ) noted a slowdown in the industry. At that time, Quebec was used as a filming location for 10 films and 10 series, which is slightly below average. Above all, there were no mega-productions in Quebec last year.
Transformers last came to Montreal in the summer of 2021, after the first lockdowns. After a year of standstill, the industry was back at full capacity.
There was actually a labor shortage on Quebec productions at the time, partly because technicians preferred to work on American shoots.
All of this seems very far away today. If American screenwriters and actors come to an agreement with the major studios, can we expect a strong recovery, as was the case during the pandemic?
“IM not sure. When it starts again, the Americans won’t come to Montreal. We are not competitive. “The Americans will initially go somewhere else and some of the skilled workers will leave Montreal,” fears location director Michèle St-Arnaud. Hollywood Solidarity Around 11,500 screenwriters, represented by the Writers Guild of America, went on strike in April.
Their salary conditions are at the heart of their demands, as the introduction of on-demand listening platforms has completely changed the situation in recent years. The scriptwriters also call for protective measures regarding the use of artificial intelligence. In July they were joined by SAG-AFTRA’s 160,000 workers, who declared a strike for relatively similar reasons.
“We stand in solidarity with them. The pursuit of profit by major American studios and digital platforms is leading to this upheaval in the industry. I agree that the strike has unfortunate consequences, but it is necessary to denounce everything that is happening now,” affirms Christian Lemay, president of AQTIS 514 IATSE, the Quebec technicians’ union.
According to BCTQ, if the screenwriters’ strike continues, Montreal’s previously spared animation scene will eventually suffer. The two labor disputes south of the border could also pose a long-term problem for the National Institute of Image and Sound (INIS), a training center whose funding depends in part on foreign filming.