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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.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Maybe AFM should rally all the animators and VFX artists together too…
Why? Do they picket when a movie set in Maine is shot in Ohio? Do they complain when they shoot a movie in a tax free state? No? Well, why complain when they shoot or contribute to the movie where the studio can save some money?
The movie has grossed $782M in foreign markets, but it’s controversial to SCORE the movie outside the United States?
Will there be protests of The Great Gatsby for making the WHOLE MOVIE in Australia?
Save some money, KraziJoe? On a film with a budget in excess of $200 million!
Shooting in Maine, or Ohio is still in AMERICA-with US workers getting the job done.
When you run off to Europe to finish what is an American-made product, something’s wrong. You slap our workers in the face, just in the name of more profits for the movie studio.
Our union will negotiate according to the specifics of the project, taking into consideration the financial risks the producers are taking.
Seems like “working together for the common good” and “compromising” are bad words these days……
Oh, are all the actors in the film American? Great accents.
It’s the American Federation of Musicians, “California”. They just want the work done domestically. Because No, they don’t complain when a movie shoot in Ohio or Maine.
Maybe the studios figure they could get the same result overseas without having to pay thru the nose for union folk. I like “buy American” as much as the next guy but when it comes to union pay it’s more like “get ripped off American”. I don’t blame the studios one bit.
It was scored in London, which is even more unionized than anywhere in the US.
Good point. You get the impression from the AFM that they’d scored The Avengers in some non-union Eastern European sweatshop.
If Marvel didn’t want to “pay through the nose” then they wouldn’t have hired the London Symphony Orchestra. It’s pretty clear that this was a conscious decision because they are happy with the quality of work LSO produces, not because they’re “cheaper” than an American orchestra (because trust me, they’re not).
How is this different from hiring a foreign director? cinematographer? actor? screenwriter? producer?
Is there no end to the constant complaining about the domestic vs. foreign hiring practices of other American companies? Seriously, if Americans want American companies to buy American, then they had better start improving the quality of their services/products.
Just as in retail, construction or any other industry, Hollywood and its associated guilds need to stop wasting their breath on complaining and start focusing their energy on improving their offerings – and lowering their fees – to compete with the foreign market.
While I am not sure what business you are in, I think anyone that gives you money would happily stop if they could get the same service or product cheaper. Do YOU want to lower your income permanently right now?
No one wants to work for less, but when they’ve collectively bargained themselves out of the market, that can be a consequence.
NO…I don’t…but I have to, as do just about everyone else in America these days. Wake up and look around…the world has changed, and your Union CANNOT protect you much longer.
When the Hollywood Studio Symphony was established, the AFM did renegotiate their pay rates and lowered them significantly. Even the non-union musicians in places like Seattle didn’t get the work, because wages in Eastern Europe are, frankly, offensive. On the shoot for “Cold Mountain”, the US Civil War film shot in Romania a few years back, it cost more to rent a goat for a day than it did to pay an extra. True story. Bottom line, the states should all re-write their incentives to forbid any portion of production spending leave the nation. They don’t need to require it all be spent in their state (because, hey, North Carolina doesn’t have VFX houses), but they could require it stay in the nation.
**Avengers was scored in London. I was generalizing, because many projects are also scored in Eastern Europe.
It’s no different than manufacturers shipping jobs overseas because it’s less expensive. It may no be right, but it’s not illegal, so it will continue.
Unions can suck it. That is all.
Thank you, Scott Walker.
I used to be of the the opinion that unions suck, but my mother is having heart surgery, and she has come to realize that if she wasn’t married to someone with union insurance, she would have to sell her house to save her life.
This is a fact. This is not an opinion. On Medicaid alone, my mother would have to choose between her house and death.
I get pretty good insurance through my employer presently, and it’s not a union shop, so I don’t get the comparison you’re trying to draw here.
WTF does her husband being in a Union have to do with it? What a moron…and people like you still get to vote!
If her husband didn’t have a good insurance plan due to his union affiliation, she would have had to sell her home to pay for her life-saving surgery. Get it now?
does anyone complain about everything being made in China?
Yes. All the time. Films are one the only things left we make in America. Union or not, these people want to keep it that way.
Actually, a lot of things that were made in China are back to being made in the USA. Rising wages in China, vastly superior productivity in the US, quicker turnaround times and lower transportation costs are contributing to this trend.
Yes and by that logic let’s all of us SAG actors picket the networks for hiring so many Australian and Brit actors for their pilots and tv shows.
It sucks for us American actors, but they have a right to hire whoever they want.
You can complain about Unions or blow off American companies hiring overseas if you want to, but no other foreign based corporate culture exports jobs/money like the United States. Eventually that practice could weaken this country beyond repair.
Instead of totally blaming unions ask yourself how many workers in American owned foreign factories are earning a living wage for their day? Because a business can pay meager wages in a system that allows it doesn’t make it morally ethical. What is going on in many of these countries that would allow their population to be working poor?
Many Americans know what working poor is already and many more, who aren’t used to it, will find out too at this rate.
Union jobs are what helped create the greatest growth in the American middle class in the decades following WWII.
Now, when we protest yet more of our jobs being outsourced, some of you slam the union. EVERYBODY benefits when unions help set working conditions.
The companies that run the studios are not sacred cows. Why is it that everything they do is ok, but when working people complain, we’re the ones demonized as being lazy and greedy.
They are entitled to their profits, but remember when MADE IN USA really meant something?
GOOD! This is the only way to give the RMA a reality check. Don’t blame it on Marvel or big corporations either because this is the only way we, not so famous composers, can actually make a living writing music.
This is easy.
These films shouldn’t get tax breaks if they outsource production jobs.
Alan Silvestri was fine with it…. he has enough clout to record stateside.
-RnsW
Looking at the posts on Deadline, you’d think that it has a straight-line into the Drudge Report.
All the posts are anti-worker pro ripping off the people who actually make the product. I guarantee none of these people who are anti-worker know the first thing about musician residuals and the hard fought battle to get a decent wage for creating a very important part of a movie, tv show, play or internet production.
Union bosses are far more anti-worker than the studios or anyone else. You certainly don’t see any of the union big wigs sharing their millions with the little guy, do ya?
The members of the LSO probably consider themselves to be musicians and workers also. This stance is thus less “pro-worker” and more “pro-specific-worker.”
Perhaps more to the point, they and they fellow countrymen are also big time consumers of American products, both Hollywood and otherwise. If we are going to take the stance that American companies should not be hiring European symphonies, what’s to stop Europeans from eventually concluding that perhaps they shouldn’t be watching American films in the first place?
I believe Hollywood is a net exporter. Having access to a global market for our products is very much in our interest. Spreading some work to the countries that make big contributions to total revenues hardly seems unfair, or unwise.
You can’t have a system where workers demand decent wages for their work, yet demand the lowest price as consumers . It is unsustainable.
The greed of the American consumer has set up this situation. Blame the ones responsible.
People didn’t start demanding the lowest-price possible until after their wages became among the lowest in the industrialized world while the prices of everything was going up faster than inflation.
Can’t blame consumers for that.
The pamphlet makes it sound like Marvel hired the non-union Mexican equivalent. I’d hardly equate using the London Symphony Orchestra as “hiring foreign musicians under the table and on the cheap”.
I didn’t notice a thing when I watched the film. So they got the same result with for less money. That sounds like a solid business decision to me.
Maybe the AFM should charge more competitive rates. It’s likely that the European musicians are just better.
Haven’t the LSO and others been hired for US films for decades? Has the picketing been going on since the 1970s or did they just realise this?
Exactly. They’ve provided the score for all of the Star Wars films.
Lolz! As of May 31, THE AVENGERS has grossed 60% of its BO revenues overseas. Foreign markets are a boon to Hollywood and American industries in general, sounds only fair to share the wealth with foreign talent.
If the commenters are so happy with scores being recorded overseas, then why shouldn’t the studios film totally overseas, use unknown foreign actors because they’re cheaper, and all crew people to save some money? Eventually they’ll figure out a way to do it as cheaply as possible, with computer generated actors replacing real people (wait, that’s already happening), filming in right to work states and overseas (wait, they already do that), robots replacing crew, scoring by computer, outsourcing effects and animation (of course, they already do that). If they don’t want to pay anyone, why then don’t they also waive huge fees to producers, profit participation, and studio bonuses? Oh wait, they want to create an even bigger buffer between the working serfs and the entitled, and leave money only to a few.
If a robot or computer is a better actor what reason can you possibly come up with that paying Brad Pitt MORE money is the better way to go?
If a foreign national is a better actor, why should I hire the American?
Protectionist jingoism much?
Maybe the foreign national is just the wrong color…
I’m a lot less rich than Brad Pitt, and I’d like to have quality acting in my films. I don’t know if by trying to put films together I’m automatically one of the “entitled”, but I make less than 6 figures a year so you can go jump off a well-entitled cliff with your “serfs”.
Stop hating strangers for imagined motivations. Start minding your own business.
One wonders how many of these AFM members have multiple products in their homes that were made overseas.
Probably near all of them, because its pretty universal to want to shop for the best product or service at the best price. The answer is in winning that competition, not in seeking artificial barriers to hinder it.
Yes, because there are no top composers in L.A.
Just the Facts: Marvels “The Avengers”-shot in Ohio and New Mexcio-The “Avengers Production Company received about $30,000,000 (30 million) dollars) in tax rebates and subsidies together from those states. Tax rebates and subsidies are monies NOT collected from the company so as to incentives the employment of Americans on the film project (30 million equals 600 $50,000 p/y American jobs) So the double whammy- instead the producers save huge Tax dollars and then Reduce (not increase) the American Employment on the same product. Both Ohio and New Mexico have state laws on the books about taking state money on false pretenses. So much for “bring it home, hire American in an Election Year.
Cry me a river, AFM and Nikki. Unions are a double-edge sword: They can net higher pay and better benefits for the jobs they secure, but they can also drive prospects away when those extra costs outweigh their perceived value. That’s the risk of unionizing, and people need to understand that. It’s neither a good nor bad thing on either end.
Frankly, I applaud employers empowering themselves. Failure to do so leaves our industry open to the same vulnerabilities that crippled the America auto industry a few years ago. If unchecked, unions can get tyrannical and be bad for business by driving up production costs, just as out-of-control employers can damage the quality of their product by investing too little in their employees. It’s about achieving a balance and the fact that the Avengers score sounded just fine shows that Disney/Marvel did not disrupt that balance.
“Frankly, I applaud employers empowering themselves. Failure to do so leaves our industry open to the same vulnerabilities that crippled the America auto industry a few years ago.”
Yeah, Chuck, it had nothing to do with the fact that the suits at the auto companies were years behind the trends with regard to what types of vehicles Americans wanted to drive.
It’s weird, even with all the “crippling” labor Ford and GM seem to be doing just fine now that they’re making smaller, more fuel-efficient, modern cars.
But, no, you guys are right, it’s the working class that’s destroying this country.
And it’s OK for Disney/Marvel to take the tax incentives and export those jobs, you are saying? No ethical problem here?
I am so damn sick of these billion dollar companies whining about this penny or that penny go ahead take your tax credits and your outsourcing but how about taking a penny off the ticket price for every penny you get by looking for ways to screw the american worker and the american public to make something you want them to pay to see
It’s not like they farmed the music out to China or something. Alan Silvestri went with the London Symphony Orchestra because they’re the finest musicians in the world, and Disney’s #1 tentpole didn’t need to settle for Hollywood musicians.