Any DGA Directors here?

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Just curious if there are any directors here in the DGA. I'm still trying to gather up my three signatures for my DGA application; I turned in the rest of the application without them and they gave me an extension but it's tough finding DGA directors and having them follow through, haha. Anyway just thought I'd see.

 

[Shawn Booth]

You already have your 600+ days?

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Haha, no, you don't need 600 days to join the DGA as a director. You just need to be the director of a DGA signatory film with at least two other DGA members, which I already shot, our UPM, 1st, and 2nd AD were all DGA and we are a signatory company. I just need the three signatures to get the application finished. Already wrote the check and gave them the rest of the paperwork though, on the plus side!

 

[Rob Gardner]

DGA

DGA

My advice is to be careful what you wish for. The DGA is good if and when you need them, but they are very limiting and frighteningly punishing if you need to go outside of the guild to do non-DGA work. The trend is for more (not less) of production work to be done outside of the guild, IMO.

Haha, no, you don't need 600 days to join the DGA as a director. You just need to be the director of a DGA signatory film with at least two other DGA members, which I already shot, our UPM, 1st, and 2nd AD were all DGA and we are a signatory company. I just need the three signatures to get the application finished. Already wrote the check and gave them the rest of the paperwork though, on the plus side!

 

[Larry Gebhardt]

Jonathan...pm me. I'm DGA...be glad to help if I can.

Larry

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

I've already joined by shooting a DGA film Rob, so I appreciate the advice but I'm happy to be joining! It's a powerful guild and while I'm typically not a union guy, there is no good reason for me not to join. I wouldn't even want to direct a film that isn't DGA frankly as the rules and regulations they set for films I demand for myself anyway. That and I intend to write and direct my own films from here on out, probably not very interested in being a director for hire. I'd rather continue running my media company, we do work for corporations like Web videos, commercials, training videos, etc., and I serve as producer on that work, then when I'm directing have it be DGA features I write. We'll see though how it all plays out! It's exciting and fun times.

Larry that would be amazing I'm going to write you now, thanks so much!

 

[Rob Gardner]

DGA

DGA

God bless you and good luck, Jonathan. But try not to don't piss them off...

I've already joined by shooting a DGA film Rob, so I appreciate the advice but I'm happy to be joining! It's a powerful guild and while I'm typically not a union guy, there is no good reason for me not to join. I wouldn't even want to direct a film that isn't DGA frankly as the rules and regulations they set for films I demand for myself anyway. That and I intend to write and direct my own films from here on out, probably not very interested in being a director for hire. I'd rather continue running my media company, we do work for corporations like Web videos, commercials, training videos, etc., and I serve as producer on that work, then when I'm directing have it be DGA features I write. We'll see though how it all plays out! It's exciting and fun times.

Larry that would be amazing I'm going to write you now, thanks so much!

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

haha

haha

Haha, well yeah I think it'd be bad to piss off any union, they tend to get pretty edgy I have to say that from what I know, and from the people who are in the DGA and helped make it happen for me, I like the Guild quite a bit. I was raised very anti-union and I still am frankly, when it comes to most things, I think unions get in the way of productive business and slow down the economy. But when it comes to ones like the DGA, that's really not true, it's not like it's a government job or something, it's making movies, and the DGA protects the rights of directors and assures them certain minimum standards, which I think is fantastic.

I got two signatures now! Just need one more, and I'm going to Toy Story 3 at the DGA tomorrow so maybe I can pick it up then.

 

[Bruce Allen]

This is the same JonathanLB who previously posted that grips should only get $100 per day and that editors shouldn't get more than $250 per day, right?

Or has your viewpoint on that changed?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

What do you mean by "should"? There is no such thing as should when it comes to labor or supplies -- a grip should get paid whatever they can get paid, as much as possible for the project. A producer should pay as little as possible to acquire the best possible talent. That's the nature of the beast. A good grip is worth a lot more than $100/day, but that doesn't mean a good grip always gets paid more than that. It depends on your budget and I never said anything to the contrary. The reality is if work is slow, you may get people you can't usually afford, which is amazing and you should appreciate that. But if you have the budget, I mean it's a big budget type of film, everyone should get paid their full rate.

I certainly don't pay my corporate editor more than $250/day, no, there are a lot of good editors out there who you can get for reasonable prices. Everything depends on your budget. If I was being paid $15,000 for the same thing I am being paid $5,000 for now on the corporate side, I'd share the wealth with the people I work with. I just want to maintain a certain profit percentage, so I'm always happy to share the wealth. But if the budget is smaller there are two options 1) Don't work for me, 2) Work for what I can afford to pay.

I have no interest in arguing with you though, Bruce, I don't even know who you are. All I know is there are a lot of idiots on a lot of forums online who have, along the way, given some pretty terrible advice and made some pretty retarded comments that certainly didn't help my career any. And there have been some pretty awesome people who have been kind enough to give amazing advice that I have taken to heart. You should strive to be the kind of person who is a positive to rising filmmakers, not a detriment.

 

[Bruce Allen]

I am positive to rising filmmakers. Neill Blomkamp is probably pretty pleased with the Key Art Best in Show and Golden Trailer-winning theatrical / AV campaign I worked on for District 9, for example.

Another guy has made an awesome film and I am helping him out for free right now with his trailer. You'll see it soon on RedUser. My friend has a feature I'm color-correcting for a very reasonable price.

I am pretty libertarian myself but I just find it ironic that the guy who a while back also called paying an editor $1000 for a day "ludicrous" (on an editor's guild rate with OT that can happen quite quickly) is now wanting to join the DGA rate card club.

I was wondering if you had changed your mind, that's all.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Martin Weiss]

Please don't make this personal. There is a PM button for that.

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Why would me wanting to pay an editor $250 a day have anything to do with me wanting to join the DGA? They are two completely unrelated things. First off, those are two separate compartments of my professional life -- one I do corporate work for small to mid-level companies that don't have Coca Cola type of ad spending, and two I'm a feature film director who finds the benefits of the DGA worth the while!

If I'm directing a $10 million film or a $50 million film or whatever, why would I care what the editor is making? That's not my problem, haha, I'm just the director. I can tell you on a low budget film, though, no editor is going to make much money. For that matter nobody working on it is going to make much money because the money simply isn't there to spend.

I'm not accusing you of being a negative influence, I'm simply saying that a lot of people on forums (mainly DVXUser, which is full of amateurs) are talkers, not doers, and they further discourage everyone else from pursuing their dreams under false understandings of the way things work. I remember back in the day here basically being told if I couldn't afford to pay grips $500/day then I should just sit home and do nothing. Anyone who says something like that is a complete moron and shouldn't even have the privilege of posting on the Internet. There are MANY very professional productions where there is not the luxury to pay everyone what they are really worth. But you beg, borrow, and steal to make your movie and you treat people the right way, get them excited about the project, feed them well, and don't abuse their generosity and you can make something fantastic on a smaller budget.

I think there is also an extreme idiocy to saying that you are somehow abusing crew by paying them minimum rate like $120/day, when they are the ones accepting that pay. If they had better paying work, TRUST ME, they would take it! I just directed my first feature and that was a common gripe, how slow the industry is right now, and a lot of them said, "That's why I'm here," but they still did amazing work and gave us everything they had despite the low pay and I appreciated the heck out of it. Of course I wish everyone could get paid a lot more, get paid their fair rate, etc. Those people worked their butts off for me and I don't enjoy the idea of people working for the lowest wages. It makes me feel bad. But at the same time, I'm just starting out as a director, and that is the budget we had to work with, so if it's between not making a movie at all or making a wonderful movie but having people work on the film more or less as a favor for very little money, well, I'd rather make a movie!!

People are also smart enough to know that if we do well with this film, these are the connections I will have, and if I know they are great at what they do and work hard, I'll keep hiring them and making sure we work together again on bigger budget projects. That's how it works. We actively encouraged anyone with better opportunities not to turn down real paying work for our film, but ultimately there are still a lot of people who would rather go make a movie for two weeks and have fun with a cool cast and crew doing what they love than sit home and wait for better paying gigs.

Frankly I don't consider any amount of payment for a person ludicrous if they can get that payment. If an editor is good enough to be worth $1,000/day for a studio movie, great, good for him! That's totally awesome. A great editor is not to be underrated. They are not just button pushers, they are extremely creative professionals who help shape a movie and can turn mere footage into magic. I can't afford to pay an editor that kind of money, but then again corporate work (which is where most of my editing work is) doesn't require the same type of talent and experience that editing a feature film does, on any budget.

PS: Martin, copy that, sorry I had posted before you wrote.