Union regulations and all that.

Discovery is now a non-union production.

After a lot of research into the extra fees that come with unions, specific regulations (a lot of which make sense and DO do a great job of protecting the worker/employer) and various hiring policies, it just ended up being far too much money for an independent production to bare. All in all it looks like union workers add a good 10% to my budget. That's, well, kinda hard to cut when a lot of this might have to be guerilla filmmaking.

I finally got a chance to hear back from ACTRA and was VERY pleased with how much money I could have saved. For the first production it cuts a huge chunk of the union fees of and even cuts 45% off the actor salary. Unfortunately, it also requires me to be CFTPA certified, which requires two recommendations from CFTPA voting members and a lot of money. Money which I'm going to have to used to incorporate so I can get the tax breaks an safeties that come with that.


So now I'm wondering if this is going to cause me any issues, long term. I mean, non-union actors aren't too hard to find, but good ones are. On the plus side, a paycheque promise would probably bring me a better selection of applications. Well, we'll see how it all goes.