Posts by Rob Stowell
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Thanks once again Jolisa- for a great and entertaining review, and just in time for Christmas. Since I want to read it myself, it'll have to be a family member :)
Totally agree much of the best writing today is in YA category. I think one reason is most literary fiction is scared of 'too much emotion.' It's all so ironic and self-referential not only do the basics of story get lost, but the basics of emotionally connecting to a story go west as well. Strenuous efforts to avoid the sentimental seem to suck all sentiment out.
You don't get that in YA (or romance, I suppose, though I'm not able to comment knowledgeably.) Give me a bit of teary-eyed sentimentality over dry-as-bones cleverness any day. -
Genius, Jolissa. Thanks. And great as the ad-linked sermon from Ian Fazier is, I swear unto you by the toenails of Socrates, your epistles are finer!
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Edging back on topic: Josh at TPM sums up the mood of the 'Tea Party' election talking of Sharon Angle's run in Nevada:
she was frightening. Captures as well as anyone the concept of militant ignorance. And there are so many people doing their best to capture it.
Militant ignorance. Victorious- for the moment.
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*all axolotyls.... their adventures - in a tank anyway- are exceedingly boring. Non-existent actually-
This cannot go entirely unchallenged.
Jump to about 2 mins. -
Some neat signs "Hitler was Hitler!" and "God hates FIGS" are a couple of my favourites- at Comedy Central's "Rally to Restore Sanity/Promote Fear. More than 200,000 people.
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it was due yesterday.
What Sacha said. I should read all those fascinating pamphlets that come out, and take note of actual dates, shouldn't I.
Still. If it's post-marked tomorrow, a day or two's latitude isn't beyond the IRD these days, thankfully. -
Love that 'death dealer' Joe.
It's only minimal tax in-so-far as what you can claim to be expenses related to having to do your job. You have to way that up with the benefits of holiday pay, etc.
Yeah. A lot of mention of the joyous tax deductibles involved in being a contractor, but in my experience it's over-rated. I 'spect if you are in a high tax bracket, have lots to legitimately claim, and the sort of highly ordered mind that just loves filing receipts and filling in log-books, there's a fairly extensive benefit.
Also if you love to push the boundaries and charge shoes, lunches, and half the mortgage to 'the business, cos "it's all business, really."
Otherwise, there may be a mild benefit. But that's offset by: no holiday or sick pay, no help with training or professional development, no employment contribution to your super, irregular income and ahem, the unpaid drudgery of doing one's accounts.
I know what I prefer :)
Still. I'll be up for hours yet, having fun getting the gst done before Sunday. -
The depiction of Spada as the face of the evil boss class
Yes, that's very unhelpful. Some people will take the role of producer on one project, help catering for another, and be an orc in the next. Continuity of work in NZ screen production, outside the major TV channels, is very much the exception.
That's something we need to think about- and nurture- fairly carefully. Because when it stops feeling like 'we're all in this together' and starts feeling like 'them and us'- we've lost something rather intangible that's very hard to get back.
Paying residuals to actors is a step in the right direction: investing them in a project's long-term success. It should be the norm, rather than the exception. -
Which is a union, like the Screen Actors' Guild is a union.
Yeah. Sort of, at least. Sorry, snarkiness isn't helping.
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Yeah Jacqui: under-gunned and if the NZAE executive look 'amateur' it may be because they are, at best, a few part-time positions.
Definitely not a slick, well-run piece of industrial action, on a few levels. Media management and communication, both internally with members and putting their case to the public were... distinctly average.
But if you read between the lines (because there are opposing legal opinions, and the langauge became critically tricky) NZAE wanted to collectively bargain. Because in the end, that's most of what a union can do for its members. I'd be... unhappy if all my union could do was negotiate voluntary guidelines regarding employment conditions :)
I'd be very interested in seeing the legality of collective bargaining by 'free-lancers' tested in court. The structure of screen production employment/contracting is something of an international anomoly- and it probably does need to change.
(But it's about as likely NZAE have the money for a long legal campiagn as they do for a slick PR operation :))