Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Corporate welfare for Hollywood films
are causing massive problems in the visual effects industry.
For example, in the province of British Columbia,
taxpayers there have to pay US producers 60 percent
of the salaries of resident VFX artists that move there.
This is unknowingly costing BC taxpayers hundred of millions of dollars each year.
What US studios are essentially trying to do
is game various governments against each other,
in the hopes of initiating a bidding war,
where they can maximize the amount of free taxpayer money they receive.
All this, while making record-breaking billions at the box office.
This is hurting both VFX companies and workers,
forcing some to go bankrupt,
others to have to move to countries where subsidies are much larger
while ignoring the important issues
such as vendor standards,
overtime, credits, working conditions
and burnout.
ADAPT,
the Association of Digital Artists, Professionals, and Technicians
wants to end this race to the bottom.
What we’ve done is hired a Washington-based law firm
that specializes in international trade law.
They’ve proposed that we challenge international subsidies
in the US Court of International Trade.
if the Court’s panel of judges
and the Department of Commerce agree
that we have the support of the domestic industry
and that the visual effects industry is being injured
by international subsidies here,
they will require the US studios and producers
pay a mandatory tax on subsidized visual effects.
This will help level the playing field.
By ending the studios’ reliance on subsidies in the visual effects industry,
we can help facilities survive
and become more profitable,
and help improve the working conditions throughout the industry.
So join us.
Let’s begin to help solve these problems.
Let’s adapt.