My husband does leather props and costume accessories. He's got several movies that feature his work prominently coming out within the next year (notably Skinwalkers, The Chair and Outlander), and it was looking like his courageous decision to leave the IT world and do this work full time was finally paying off.
Things aren't looking so rosy right now.
First there was the eviction of Cinespace, one of the largest studio complexes in Toronto. Then ACTRA went on strike. Now the producers are preparing to go to court to prove that ACTRA doesn't even have the right to go on strike since it's not an actual trade union. Meaning this could be tied up in court for months and months.
Just to make sure we all understand that this is truly the end, there is this in the Star. The article raises the seemingly obvious point that ACTRA going out on strike is destroying the careers of everyone involved in the film industry in Ontario, including the actors, and is harming the producers not in the slightest. Not exactly the desired result of a strike. I guess someone forgot to tell them that a production is just a script and a bag of money, and if it's even slightly difficult to shoot here they will just move it to B.C. Or Chicago. Or Prague.
Meanwhile, the governments of Toronto and Ontario are doing exactly... nothing.
I'm sorry, that's overly generous because what it really looks like is that they are deliberately sabotaging the industry on all fronts. But that couldn't possibly be true, could it?
My sister is also involved in the film and television biz, but happily she's out in B.C. where the worst trouble they've had recently is shooting around the snow. Unfortunately she's does post (compositing) instead of pre-production, so her contacts aren't going to help my dear struggling husband. Our only hope at this point will be if all of his Ontario contacts move out west and get him to ship his work to B.C.
It's either that or put our monumental amount of crap in storage, rent out the house and go camp out on my sister's couch.
< /rant >
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