Musicians Mad at Marvel

electric_mayhem

EXCLUSIVE … UPDATE: I’ve just learned that the American Federation Of Musicians is picketed Marvel Studios in Manhattan Beach until 3 PM today to protest studios going overseas to score their movies. It’s a commonplace practice, but that doesn’t make it right. Marvel went overseas to score The Avengers, and the AFM is rightfully pissed. Accordig to the ‘Film Musicians For Fairness’ pamphlets distributed by AFM at the protest, “The Avengers was filmed in New Mexico and Ohio, with $30 million in U.S. tax rebates. But the music was scored in Europe, hiring foreign musicians under the table and on the cheap, robbing U.S. musicians of their jobs. We don’t think that’s fair. We ask this of Disney CEO Bob Iger and Marvel head Kevin Feoge: How many billions must your companies earn before Marvel will score its film music here at home.” Going to Europe to make The Avengers score means the production didn’t have to make contributions to American musicians’ pension and health care as well as residual payments. These contributions and payments were receive by all the talent and production crew that worked on the movie, according to the AFM. Marvel is scheduled to start filming this month on Iron Man 3 in North Carolina, another state with generous tax credits and rebates. Let’s hope that the music scoring doesn’t get sent overseas on that film, too.

http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/musicians-picket-marvel-over-the-avengers/

Is okay for a company to do as it got tax credits to be made in the U.S.? Or is this a comic company looking to save money buy using cheaper but as as talented people, ala the Flipino invasion?

BlackUmbrella

Captain America wouldn't like it.

On one level, having some understanding and experience with how impossible unions can sometimes make things, I could sympathize with this. Unions get greedy, too. But it doesn't look great and I wish they wouldn't do it. The whole practice of companies raking it in and doing everything possible to get out of paying U.S. taxes or decent wages makes me want to throw up. Since Marvel took tax rebates, that's even worse. Did it really do a ton for Cleveland to have the film shot there?

If you found out you could buy something you need on a regular basis for 1/4 as much as you usually pay by ordering it from another country, would you? I'd like to say I wouldn't, but I'm as surprised as anyone when I buy something and it's actually made in the USA. Throw a rock in the air, you'll hit someone guilty.

I remember when, for a whole year (maybe longer), union projectionists stood outside our local cinema because they had fired them all and were using their concession people and whoever else (one of my friends went from concessions and janitor to projectionist). I felt pretty bad for them, but I had no illusions that they were getting their jobs back.

Eric_C

I feel like this is more the US governments fault. If their taxes weren't so high, maybe it would attract more business

SolitaireRose

I feel like this is more the US governments fault. If their taxes weren't so high, maybe it would attract more business

It's more that they give huge tax breaks for moving jobs overseas. Our tax rates are the lowest they have been since the end of WWII.

Well, that and with the use of digital, more and more jobs are going to people who will cost the least. The country is engaged in a race to the bottom...which is why all of our stuff we buy in stores falls apart in a few months.

BlackUmbrella

I can remember when my stepdad, back in the mid seventies, would deride stores as selling "Hong Kong junk". If you walked into a store and things weren't American made (or made by countries known for quality, like Italian shoes), it was considered a second rate store.

Eric_C

I feel like this is more the US governments fault. If their taxes weren't so high, maybe it would attract more business

It's more that they give huge tax breaks for moving jobs overseas. Our tax rates are the lowest they have been since the end of WWII.

Oh, I am aware of that. Even going back to WWII, taxes were too high. But yes the tax breaks are the big incentives

JohnathanConstantine

But isn't music a creative choice, do a degree? If someone else is the better musician then don't you go to them? I've got a lot of soundtracks and a lot are recorded by the London Sinfonia or Prague Orchestra or etc. If you look at a lot of soundtracks you'll find quite a lot of 'foreign' orchestra and so on. But I would have thought there would have been enough decent orchestras in the US to score this.

phansford

I am pretty sure the actors were not thrilled to be in Cleveland. Just saying..... and I'm an Ohioan. :))


http://youtu.be/oZzgAjjuqZM

DoctorDoom

I am pretty sure the actors were not thrilled to be in Cleveland. Just saying..... and I'm an Ohioan. :))


http://youtu.be/oZzgAjjuqZM

Oh snap!

Flintlockjaw

You go wherever you get a) Quality and b) cost effective. It's a business.

Eric_C

You go wherever you get a) Quality and b) cost effective. It's a business.

Thats how Disney/Marvel got so successful, being smart, why would they stop now

Flintlockjaw

Although, having said that...I'm currently responsible for an animation pilot and I decided to stick to the US...even though other countries are a less expensive.

Go figure!