Job vacancies at half-staff, professional retraining… The audiovisual sector in Quebec will not be spared the historic strike that has paralyzed American film and television production, industry officials and observers warn.
The summer season, which is usually associated with a successful shooting season, will be very different this year for workers in the film industry, even in Quebec, where workers are not yet on strike.
Production in Quebec offers a certain number of jobs, but many people will apply for the various offers and there will be congestion, expects Christian Lemay, president of the local section 514 of the Alliance québécoise des Technicians de Image and Sound (AQTIS).
This industry is made up of freelancers. The precariousness of their employment is already known.
The pandemic has already ravaged the cultural sector, pushing artists to want to retrain. Mr Lemay adds that this strike action will not help retain talent. “We see people reorienting themselves, but the only thing we hope is that they return to their passion,” he told Tout un matin.
Thousands of workers affected
At midnight on Friday, American actors officially went on strike, joining screenwriters in a mobilization unprecedented in Hollywood since the 1960s.
Like screenwriters, actors are demanding a reassessment of their residual compensation associated with each rerun of a film or series, which has plummeted with the advent of streaming platforms.
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The actors have officially joined the picket line, more than two months after the writers began striking for better pay and working conditions.
Photo: Associated Press/Chris Pizzello
Mr. Lemay estimates that the first strike by American screenwriters affected about 800 workers in the industry, particularly by halting ongoing projects. Other projects simply could not be started.
He estimates that this new extension of the strike will affect more than 1,500 to 2,000 people, workers and technicians, a situation that corresponds to the antithesis to the summer of 2021, when the environment faced staff shortages after the pandemic’s black bracket, he said he said. He remembered. In Quebec alone, nearly half of the 55,000 jobs in Quebec’s audiovisual industry are created by foreign productions, the vast majority of which are American.
The Union des Artistes (UDA) confirms that the strike will have an impact on Quebec’s cultural industry. This will particularly affect actors and actresses who are used to getting roles or playing extras in American productions filmed in Quebec studios, the union writes to Radio-Canada.
The UDA also expects medium-term effects on the dubbing sector: in a few months, productions that should be dubbed here in Montreal will not be dubbed because they were never shot, indicates Tania Kontoyanni, President of the UDA.
From effects to post-production
A sector particularly affected in Montreal is that of visual effects. Over the past decade, more than 6,500 to 7,000 special effects artists have worked in Montreal, mostly on foreign productions, recalls François Lambert, who draws the visual effects for several American films.
According to him, the industry in Quebec will not compensate for the job losses linked to the strike, he warns.
The effects are already being felt in popular Canadian film industry destinations such as Toronto and Vancouver.
On Friday, some 160,000 unionized actors went on strike for the first time in 43 years, denouncing the entertainment moguls’ exorbitant salaries. They spoke about their fears of not getting their fair share of the profits in a streaming-dominated future.
The striking actors joined the 11,500 already striking screenwriters who quit their jobs in May for similar reasons, particularly the threat of artificial intelligence. Actors and screenwriters had not gone on strike at the same time since the 1960s.
With information from the New York Times