Every year, during the bureaucratic lightning round that is Utah’s legislative session—from 2017–2020—there has been a designated “Film Day on Hill” held in the Capitol Rotunda in Salt Lake City.

Film Day 2018 image courtesy of Utah Filmmakers Associate Marshall Moore

Coordinated by the Motion Picture Association of Utah (MPAU), it was always a fun time for friends and colleagues in the local film industry to gather to support Utah’s Motion Picture Incentive Program and the Utah Film Commission—the agency tasked with implementing it.

Film Day is often commemorated with a group photo!

Film Day 2020 image courtesy of the Utah Film Commission

The group photo from 2020 reminded me of a classic horror film, inspiring a short homage to the late director Stanley Kubrick.

Video by the author

Because of the pandemic, in 2021 and 2022, Film Day was an online event.

Coincidentally, February 17 is also the author's birthday.

Since 2023, Film Day has become part of “Cultural Industry Advocacy Day,” so the MPAU joins several other organizations and entities like Hogle Zoo, the Professional Outreach Programs In The Schools (POPS), the Utah Cultural Alliance, the Utah Museums Association, and Salt Lake County’s Zoo Arts & Parks (ZAP) Program, making for a more engaging public experience.

Film Day 2023 image courtesy of Utah Film Studios

I remember registering for Film Day last year and looking forward to it more than usual after two consecutive virtual gatherings—I even preordered a box lunch.

Alas, I was struggling with some intense anxiety and couldn’t make it—2023 had a rough start for me. Thankfully, UFA™ VP Mario DeAngelis could go, so the Utah Filmmakers™ Association was represented, and the lunch I had ordered didn’t go to waste.

Cultural Industry Advocacy Day 2024 presented an opportunity for the UFA™ to connect with more of Utah’s film community, as well as other local nonprofits. We enlisted the services of Associate Member DB Productions Utah to answer a call from the event organizers at the Utah Museums Association to have an “interactive exhibit” in the Capital Rotunda. We were given a prime location between the Salt Lake Film Society and the Sundance Institute. Unfortunately, no one from Sundance was at their table. As we said in our Instagram post, “...we were happy to step up and make sure their allotted space still represented them. We happened to have a piece of Sundance Film Festival history... displayed on their table: An authentic Sundance Film Festival Rejection Letter. They don’t send those out anymore.”

Dare I ask if the Utah Filmmakers™ Association stood out among the other exhibitors? Images courtesy of the author

In addition to the novelty of DB Productions Utah’s signature photo kiosk—book them for your event today!—we gave out official Utah Filmmaker™ buttons.

Images courtesy of DB Productions Utah and Utah Filmmakers™

We also presented two slide shows: One featuring our Associate Members and the other highlighting the organization’s engagement with the community, production support, and other contributions since its founding in 2002.

The slideshows were presented silently on the day, but the versions we’ve made available through YouTube—now featured on our website—have incorporated licensed soundtracks courtesy of Associate Organization Amphibious Zoo Music.

We also want to express our gratitude for the assistance of two of our Community Liaisons, Justin Kwan and Jared Palmer.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and—especially where guest posts are concerned—do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Utah Filmmakers™ Association, its Officers and/or Associates.

Attempting to create a database—to say nothing of maintaining one—is demanding work. Trying to formalize a “blacklist” of ostensibly suspect filmmakers—in addition to being legally and ethically problematic itself—would not be practical in part because it would always be subjective. Most people in the workforce at large have had enough negative experiences with others in their fields that they probably already have a personal blacklist.

Narrow them down to a selection of filmmakers, picked at random, in a common market, and this author is reasonably confident that their individual lists would be practically identical, consisting of the same “faux-professionals” and “working amateurs” that most in their community already know, have dealt with, and perhaps continue to deal with anyway—better the devil you know.

"Wearing all the hats" Prompt by the author. Image by Adobe Firefly

It should also be considered that there’s a good chance that everyone reading these words—as well as the person writing them—is probably already on somebody else’s blacklist, perhaps even placed at the very top. Were anyone to ask why they’ve been blacklisted, the initial reason may have been forgotten or grossly misremembered. Still, their names will undoubtedly trigger an emotional justification not to remove them from said list.

While legal recourse exists for blatantly illegal behavior, witnessing exploitation and the fear of being exploited can motivate people to try and find solutions to prevent it. Subsequent actions, however, can be subject to implicit biases rooted in local culture, its political climate, personality types, and whether the root cause of a problem can be discerned from its apparent symptoms.

This author believes that the most pressing issue for workers in most sectors is stagnant wages that can’t keep up with a perpetually rising cost of living. Within the context of the film industry, the perception of these issues can vary considerably. A simple “Studios” vs. “Auteurs” or “Above” vs. “Below-the-line” analogy may superficially resemble the conflicts between management and labor.

Like any business venture, the decision to greenlight a film is heavily influenced by its projected return on investment (ROI). While most novice filmmakers tend to limit their budget estimates to the cost of production—i.e., just making the movie—investors require a more detailed and long-term prospectus. A comprehensive budget doesn’t just go beyond the wrap party. It starts with everything from development costs to rights clearances, option agreements, preliminary contracts, marketing analyses, securing distribution, and many other line items with associated costs, salaried employees, contractors, and consultants, all of which must be paid before starting PRE-production.

Another major factor is where production will take place. This is where regional tax waivers and rebates, like Utah’s Motion Picture Incentive Program, come into play. While production incentives are an excellent means to attract feature film and television series productions to markets like Utah—employing local talent and strengthening infrastructure—effectively communicating how it benefits the local economy often proves challenging.

When some local filmmakers have discussed these matters in Utah Filmmakers™’s official forum, this author has noted the use of some troubling talking points and misinformed justifications that—to put it politely—are counterproductive. While the film incentive practically sells itself to prospective film productions, some local filmmakers also emphasize Utah’s status as a so-called “Right-to-work” (hyphenated) state as an additional selling point—often without fully understanding what “Right-to-work” legislation is intended to do, beyond reinforcing the deliberately vague and politically motivated stigmatization of labor unions.

The phrase “Right-to-work” sounds benevolent because one may infer its purpose is defending a right. As if the Founding Fathers somehow neglected to include it in the Bill of Rights.

The concept of “...the right to work”—note the absence of hyphens between each word—as a right of all individuals that should be protected was defined in Article 23.1 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948 thusly:

“Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”

In 1966, the “right to work”—as well as the “right to health,” the “right to education,” and the “right to an adequate standard of living”—was recognized in human rights law in the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. An international treaty in which the United States is a signatory but has yet to ratify it.

Meanwhile, 27 out of 50 states in the Union have taken it upon themselves to enact their own “right-to-work” legislation, which—at least superficially—may seem like a noble effort to make up for an unfortunate oversight by the federal government. In reality, all these laws accomplish is codifying an individual’s “...right to refrain from paying or being a member of a labor union.”

They have nothing to do with protecting workers’ rights to employment, protection from unemployment, and their ability to achieve “an adequate standard of living.”

They have everything to do with undermining the effectiveness of trade unions to advocate for workers—regardless of whether or not they are members—without explicitly outlawing organized labor. And yet, its wording creates a false impression that union membership would otherwise be compulsory without such legislation.

With the ability of unions to negotiate contracts impeded—not by the specific wording of the legislation itself but by the confusion it sows in the minds of workers—employers, including film production companies, feel that they have carte blanche to offer lower rates to local below-the-line workers. It’s not even as if the wages offered are only marginally lower than current rates, equivalent to those guaranteed by previous contracts. In the case of entry-level cast and crew—background actors and production assistants—rates can be tied to what any employer can legally get away with paying. In other words, the federal minimum wage, which, as of the publication of this article, has not been adjusted in any way—not even for inflation—since 2009!

Cast and crew positions with greater responsibilities and obligations and require specific skills don’t fare much better. Actors represented by local “talent agents”—operating in a state requiring no training, licensure, or professional oversight—will often agree to predatory rates and terms with little or no negotiation.

These issues are no secret because some of the worst perpetrators are local producers. Suspect business models and ethically questionable practices are regular online and in-person discussion topics in the local film community and film industry. Still, most people feel helpless to do anything about it. They are leery of trusting anyone in a position to affect real change—because systemic reform is needed most, addressing root causes would need to be implemented through government legislation.

This lack of trust and frustration with the status quo leaves some filmmakers believing they must take it upon themselves to change things. They feel that local talent agents can’t be trusted because they’re not accountable to anyone. Still, instead of advocating for government oversight, they think they can fix it… by becoming talent agents—who are also accountable to no one.

Because casting directors work with agents, they can’t be trusted either. So, some of these filmmakers, having also become talent agents, decide to be casting directors. This has resulted in the rise of some “one-stop-shop” production companies/agencies/commercial-semi-fiefdoms, insisting they alone can be trusted to meet all their clients’ needs. Unfortunately, their lack of trust in others and the absence of genuine oversight can blind them to conflicts of interest and the ancillary effects of compromises they make to remain competitive. Their efforts to affect positive change in how their local industry conducts business are compromised by systemic flaws that remain unaddressed. More often than not, they just perpetuate existing problematic practices, albeit with newer, friendlier-looking branding.

Image by Canon USA

In the latter part of the 20th century, professional videographers paid a premium to invest in their equipment. They dedicated themselves to learning how to use it and honing their skills on projects for which they appropriately charged premium rates. With time and experience, the services provided by skilled professionals in any field can earn them a return on their initial investment multiple times. As the commercial videography market transitioned to digital video and non-linear editing, there was a brief honeymoon period where the investment in new technology was still prohibitively expensive for most people—even when the end product was typically optimized for interlaced Standard Definition analog broadcast.

With the introduction of “Prosumer” digital video equipment in the late 1990s, the quality of entry-level equipment started to improve, blurring the line between “producers” and “consumers,” it also saw an increase in “professional” videographers whose primary business strategy was to find out how much the veterans were charging for their services and just offer the same thing at a lower price, what they lacked in experience, skill, or even basic business acumen, they made up for by lowering potential clients’ expectations and standards while undermining the work’s value for everyone else.

Meanwhile, in the world of cinema, independent filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, and Kevin Smith were breathing new life into the artistic and commercial potential of independent film. However, after “The Blair Witch Project” premiered at Sundance in 1999, anyone with a camcorder seemed to think they could be a filmmaker. Those who didn’t give up when they realized how much work was involved or satiated their interest by making a “Blair Witch” parody because they couldn’t come up with an idea of their own suddenly found themselves rewriting their business plans—usually just in their heads or in early social media posts.

With a limited portfolio of “student” or “hobby” video projects—often “inspired” by the work of indie-film darlings like those named above—they may or may not be willing to share with the world, another common mistake is to talk enthusiastically about their plans for success. It’s always so brilliant because it's so simple: “We’ll shoot weddings and commercials cinematically and use that money to fund the production of short films that we’ll send to festivals, then pivot into making features.”

Most go nowhere, hopefully with a newfound respect for the amount of work it takes to start and run a new business, to say nothing of trying to produce a motion picture. Some figure out how to make a living at it; a handful even learn to become professionals—finding a comfortable niche in their corner of a particular market; a few among their cohort even manage to make and occasionally sell a feature film. When it comes to the day-to-day production work they rely on to pay their bills, they still have to compete with working amateurs who underbid projects and devalue the market.

Advancements in technology over the last few decades have continued to lower the cost of digital filmmaking equipment even more significantly. Cameras, computers, nonlinear editing software, and visual effects tools have become increasingly powerful and available in form factors so small and inexpensive that they can be combined into a single, pocket-sized device. Still, having a tool and knowing how to use it are two separate things. As I’ve described, the democratization of digital filmmaking technology has proven to be a double-edged sword.

Whenever working amateurs get a creative itch to produce a narrative project—usually a short but, occasionally, even a feature-length film—perhaps with an eye toward breaking out of doing corporate gigs to achieve their real goal of becoming a “serious filmmaker,” their amateur habits tend to undermine any potential they might have for that kind of success. Just like the faux-professionals, a lack of planning and resources is downplayed when recruiting cast and crew by overemphasizing how much “fun” there is to be had and that they’ll “...submit it to festivals.” For reasons previously mentioned, these “community films” are of little benefit to the local film industry—to say nothing of the industry as a whole. The immediate economic impact is essentially non-existent for most people who agree to work on them.

Some amateur filmmakers have attempted to take a “community theatre” approach to filmmaking. However, Such a concept is problematic in practice because community theatre aims to produce a limited number of live performances with a mostly volunteer mix of professional and amateur participants—at least when licensing an existing play. Unless the licensing agreement entered into by community theatre allows it explicitly, recording any of their performances must be requested separately, in writing, and may include specific restrictions on how such recordings may be used.

Producing a film aims to create an ostensibly unique intellectual property asset, recorded with the intent to be distributed and for which legal ownership should not be ambiguous. The amount of creative input that goes into the production of any film is so wide, varied, and extensive that any questions about ownership, management, roles, and compensation for the same must be clearly defined—in writing—before the start of production. 

While their efforts behind “community films” have not resulted in anything that can be seriously considered commercially successful, I doubt that any of the due diligence needed for standard distribution outside the community(ies) in which they are produced can be sufficiently met which could result in legal liabilities if, through some fluke in the system, such a motional picture were actually to make a profit.

The production of community films, as defined in this treatise, can’t even be called a “cottage industry” simply because it is not self-sustaining. In the long run, unsaleable assets, by definition, will never see a return on investment. The quality of  “footage” promised for actors’ reels can also be disappointing. Yet, faux-professionals keep making community films, paying for what they can out of pocket—the source of those funds may be their day job, either as working amateurs or being employed in another industry entirely. They rely on crowdfunding for the rest—despite unrealistic funding goals, which can be too high to be taken seriously or too low to be practical. The willingness to settle for whatever they can get—i.e., “flexible” funding—leads to further compromises on their productions in an attempt to make up the difference. Despite continuing to make these “movies,” their IMDb catalogs get longer, but community films don’t get much better.