from buenos aires with love

If you receive a TV commercial project that has double digit principal talent with no speaking parts and a network national media buy, the chances are very very good this will be an overseas production. Why wouldn't it be? The difference in residual payment of domestic actors versus international actor buyouts can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. The actual amount varies depending the country of production and the size of the media buy. Regardless, the savings is substantial. 

The SAG strike of 2000 removed the mystery of overseas production through necessity. Technology made absence from the home office less troublesome. And you thought outsourcing was limited to telemarketers, car manufacturers and IT guys. I accept that it's a global economy these days but there are still a few things I find irksome about the regularity of exporting production for talent reasons.

The check bid. We are often asked to supply a bid to shoot in the US even though it has been mandated to shoot overseas. The reason being if SAG audits they job the signatory must supply back up to prove the reason for shooting abroad is for savings on production numbers not on talent. Of course it's about talent costs. There is no other reason to go overseas unless it's a specific creative reason like, "We open on a couple on an African safari". Which brings me to pet peeve number two.

The client, cost consultant and agency want to shoot overseas to save money on talent. It's a business decision not a creative one. Let's embrace it and accept it for what it is. Yet, once the decision is made the creative and marketing needs rear it's ugly head. 

Can we find a generic suburban American looking neighborhoods? American looking talent? There is only one line of a dialogue, can we get an actor who can say it without an accent? The answer is primarily, "Not really but we'll make due with what we have". 

You ain't finding Peoria in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. It's hard enough to find it in LA. The talent works fine but it's hardly ideal especially for diversity. As it relates to accents, forget about it. Needle in a haystack. Despite the obvious, there is inevitably a location and casting crisis. 

These two things are part of the game. There is little we can do to change those facts other than frame expectations accordingly. However, SAG can and should be doing a lot more to help us help them to help us. 

There are many companies that shoot overseas almost exclusively. Because Epoch does a lot of dialogue spots its less common for us. Regardless, I'm sure we'd all prefer to keep our jobs in the US. Our crews working. Our vendors busy. Our money staying at home. I'm not an expert on the SAG rules but they seem as big an obstacle as anything to keeping production in the US. 

If you're an extra that gets upgraded to principal on network national for Toyota you can make 50k. If you're the hero character in an ESPN spot that carries the entire campaign you may make less than 10. That doesn't seem logical.  Unlike overseas, in the US you are either a principal or an extra. There are no featured extras creating a more equitable payscale. 

I don't have a suggestion on how to revamp the pay structure and category of actors but I do know the current one doesn't work. For every actor that had their big pay day protected my guess is there are countless others that have lost work because of it. There has got to be a way to create a pay scale where compensation is equal to creative contribution. There has to be a way for talent to become more competitive with foreign markets. There is something wrong when pay is determined by luck of the edit or media buy. 

I'm sure there are others out there that have a better grasp of this topic then I do - casting agents, agency producers, talent coordinators, actors. Love to hear from them.