A death on set, the tragedy of Halyna Hutchins and Alec Baldwin also concerns us
The dramatic accident on the set of a western, which led to the death of the cinematographer, comes amid increasing pressure on the production of films and series. To feed in particular the streaming platforms whose novelties we are gobbling up
The succession of events is striking. Last Sunday, the association which brings together Hollywood studios, TV broadcasters and Netflix, reached an agreement with a union of technicians. Camera operators, set builders, costume designers, make-up artists and many others demanded improved working conditions, which their representatives said were deteriorating rapidly. Which evoked 16-hour working days, the absence of breaks, threats to the quality or even the safety of productions.
Four days later, on the set of the western Rust in New Mexico, Alec Baldwin fatally shoots cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, injuring the director. On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times reported concerns raised by the team shortly, including over security issues.
A request that panics
This drama comes against a backdrop of soaring demand, increasing pressure on the deadlines of films or series - and in general on costs, except for star fictions. The new audiovisual players that are the streaming platforms Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max and Hulu in the United States, and even Apple, are ogres with an insatiable appetite. Their shareholders grant them an almost unlimited credit card to satisfy their gluttony. Their expenses for original productions are increasing dramatically.
If the global calculation could be done, the audiovisual sector, and especially series, would undoubtedly constitute one of the world sectors with the highest growth rate in recent years. In the United States alone, the volume increase is at least 8% per year. Even the pandemic has not brought the industry to its knees: in 2020, the decline was only 7%. Modeled on the concept of peak oil exploitation, the notion that panicked professionals, that of "peak TV", that is, the moment when the volume would increase as long as all the players would lose by overflow of supply, turns to ectoplasm. With the entry of new players into the fray, pushing everyone's acquisition budgets upwards, the counters are continually in the zone of maximum expansion.
In 2019, John Landgraf, the boss of FX Networks (Disney group) which has an authoritative market analysis center, spoke of "unsustainable growth." How not to hear this word thinking of that fatal second Thursday in New Mexico?
This bulimia is also ours
This bulimia is ours. This is not about indulging in global guilt, just pointing out that our thirst for new movies and new series, all the time, is fueling this economy driven by limitless supply surges.
The appetite for new products, and the need for platforms to quickly vary their gondola heads, is shaking up the sector and leading to shoots where it is necessary to produce more and more usable minutes per day. At the other end of the optical fiber, consumers voluntarily place themselves in a position of dependence on their web taps such as the old TV channels like TF1 would never have dared to imagine.
This greed comes at a price. The audiovisual industry is an incredibly complex sector, with a mix of professions that are as creative as they are difficult to manage. To shoot a minute of a movie or series requires upstream, in-moment, and downstream effort that we have no idea when we curl up in front of our screens. At a time when every Western consumer wants to know which farmer produced the swede that he buys on Saturday morning at the market or in his organic shop, it is time to also think of the little hands who make the fictions devoured that same Saturday evening.
