The fact that I work on a film set It's not easy, we've known for a long time. However, it's about the realities of film production in perspective We know relatively little about people other than actors or actresses. A film work is the result of collective work of representatives of many professional groups. In fact, dozens, if not hundreds of people, sometimes have to work together to successfully make a film or series. As part of one of the PRO INDUSTRY panels at the OFF Camera festival, Witek Płóciennik – chairman of the Filmmakers' Trade Union, Natalia Grzegorzek – president of the Polish Producers Guild, and Iga Bałos, PhD, met.
The discussion pointed out in a very orderly and transparent way to the difficulties Polish filmmakers struggle with in their everyday work. Preliminary results of research on working conditions in the Polish industry conducted by the Filmmakers' Trade Union show that filmmakers complain about too long shooting days, which usually last 12 hours (which does not result from any legal acts, but is only a previously accepted practice) and the repeated myself the need to work beyond normal hours, i.e. colloquially known as overtime.
As many as 20% of surveyed creators, as well as members of technical teams, indicated in the study that that they did not have a single day off a week during the implementation of a given project. 30% of respondents had to work every or most Sundays during the shooting period. There is no need to explain that such a work system leaves absolutely no chance of leading a functional personal life. We know that the work of a filmmaker is a difficult job, but still the situation described above has obvious signs of absolute dysfunction.
This is the state of affairs the result of the lack of legal acts regulating working time in the film industry. Lawyer Iga Bałos believes that “regulations in Poland are not adapted to the work of filmmakers and there is a great misunderstanding of the essence of this work – hence there are no appropriate regulations. One of the first questions I receive from filmmakers during training organized by trade unions is how I can protect myself against overtime, whether I can refuse to work if it significantly exceeds a twelve-hour working day. Filmmakers often do not know what their legal situation is when working.”
The above-mentioned challenges result, in large part, from the fact that film production in Poland is dominated by three main forms of employment: contract for specific work, contract for mandate and the most common so-called self-employment. This is due to the characteristics of the Polish industry – project-to-project work, most of which are time-sensitive projects (six weeks for the average feature film) – and the small number of film studios permanently employing professionals. Therefore, the work of most people employed on a film set, as well as in the entire film-making process, is not regulated by the Labor Code, but by only 12 (in the case of a contract for specific work) or 17 (in the case of a contract of mandate and self-employment) articles of the Civil Code.
There is no employment relationship in any of these forms of employment, which means that people operating in the film industry based on such forms of employment are not formally employees and therefore are not covered by the rights regulated in the Labor Code, guaranteeing medical care, regulation of working time, leave and a sense of security provided by payment of remuneration in the event of sudden indisposition.
The topic is not new, as conversations and discussions about the working conditions of people employed in the film industry have been going on for over three years. The Filmmakers' Trade Union is convinced that if a large part of the community actually joins the union, it can gain an advantage in potential negotiations and thus gain the opportunity to build an agreement between creators, film crew, producers and producers, and thus develop solutions that will organize work in film production and improve employment conditions. Work on the document is currently in progress, which will contain guidelines on general rules of work in the film industry, not only work on the set, but also the work of off-set crews, i.e. employees of the set design and production departments.
The most important demands are to define the length of the shooting day as a 12-hour working day with an hour break during shooting or a 10-hour working day without a break, to provide two Sundays off per month, and to introduce a limit on overtime to two per day and five per week. Additionally, there is no standardization of contracts in the industry and each production has its own rules: overtime is counted differently in each production, sometimes someone gets extra money for reading the script, someone does not, some may be paid for the rework, others may not, and they may be invoiced travel to the shooting location. The Filmmakers' Trade Union also intends to systematize the above-mentioned issues.
Witek Płóciennik from the Filmmakers' Trade Union believes that “Shortening the working day will have consequences for the health and well-being of filmmakers and will ultimately contribute to increased creativity at work. If we start work at 7 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m., we have two additional hours for ourselves and our family. Not every day can be achieved by working ten hours without a long break, but you can, for example, introduce a mixed system, where sometimes we work for 10 hours and sometimes for 12 hours.”
Consequences of the postulated ones producers will bear the greatest burden of regulation by trade unions. According to estimates, there are approximately 300 entities in Poland that deal strictly with the production of films and series. Representatives of the producer community are open to talks with trade unions and joint development of a document regulating good practices.
Natalia Grzegorzek, as a representative of the Polish Producers Guild, described the consequences of the proposed changes in a very empathetic but firm way: “Making cinema, especially auteur cinema, is very difficult today. On the one hand, production costs are rising, which is influenced, among others, by inflation, but also by claims from film crews. On the other hand, it is increasingly difficult to find financing for auteur cinema and ensure distribution for all films produced in Poland. Returning to rates and claims – so far it has been customary that the amount of daily wages of film industry employees included certain additional work necessary to prepare for the shooting period, such as script reading or documentation. Today, we more and more often encounter representatives of a specific professional group issuing an invoice for such services, for example for 50% of the daily rate for reading a script, and this is where a conflict arises. There is a growing disproportion in earnings and approach to work between authors employed under contracts for specific work and employees employed on daily wages, most often on B2B contracts. Today's reality is that the sense of being a producer is questionable, because producing a film is almost impossible. The rising costs of film production, including the growing financial requirements of employees, are increasingly beginning to exceed the production break-even point.”
It is worth noting that the proposed change in the system and working conditions of people employed in the film industry is certainly possible and we would all wish it, viewers, filmmakers, and also producers who, like the photo crew, work under full pressure not only on shooting days, but sometimes also on days off. The problem is that relaxing the work schedule may change performance factors, which may mean increasing production costs and potentially reducing the number of projects, causing partial unemployment.
Another solution to amortize the reduction in daily productivity may be to reduce the amount of earnings – because a significantly shorter working day may ultimately result in a greater number of shooting days, and thus with a higher cost of rentals and the cost of operating the set. The situation is neither simple nor binary, but what gives us hope is the fact that we are witnessing a new chapter in the Polish audiovisual industry, where we are looking forward to not only a new director or director (sic!) of the Polish Institute of Audiovisual Art, but also a new person as the Minister of Culture. The ideal scenario assumes that people in these positions will not only have a good understanding of the dynamics of the Polish audiovisual industry, but they will also be able to manage it effectively to reconcile the interests and needs of various professional groups.
This is why you have to love film festivals for panels like these. It is thanks to such discussions, which are not always easy, that we learn about… the human face of creating films and series and the difficulties faced by employees of the Polish industry. I consider such knowledge to be the foundations for understanding the process of creating a film, which is not only a closed audiovisual text, but above all, the result of industry realities, the result of human work and the fruit of the involvement of dozens of passionate Polish filmmakers, whom I often forget abouty. Such a perspective should also more often become a part of the workshop of a Polish film critic who, from the comfortable position of his armchair, too often accuses Polish creators of opportunism or lack of creative courage, completely failing to understand that making a film in Poland, as Iwona Morozow, a film expert from Wrocław, says, simply “it hurts”.