[Fmpro] AFM Union Threatens $50k Fines Against Composers and other AFM Members for Seattle Recording

[Mark Henderson]

The issue is whether or not union musicians in Seattle should be  
doing non union scoring sessions. I know some studio musicians in LA  
and I know a few from Seattle. Seattle has become a runaway  
production center for scoring large Hollywood film projects. The  
problem has been that there are many union players who are working  
non union sessions, for buy-out fees (now here's something that we on  
this list can perhaps relate too.... giving up performance rights).  
No doubt that the union is strong arming here, but a friend of mine  
who is a first call LA player (on a first name basis with John  
Williams and James Newton Howard) told me in May when I was visiting  
LA, that in the last two years, the under the table recording going  
on in Seattle was starting to impact the business in LA. The A-roster  
composers still work in LA or London, but a lot of small and middle  
size productions are doing non union in Seattle.

It's not the first or last time someone has done under the table work  
to bypass the union, but if you consider the union may not only be  
looking out for its own financial welfare, but might also have the  
performance rights and residuals of its own members in mind, then  
maybe it's not such a mafia style tactic.

I visited with an orchestrator friend of mine in May also, who had  
been asked to come and conduct some of the scoring sessions in  
Seattle for a film he had been orchestrating, and he told me he had  
to decline as it would have been a death knell to maintaining his LA  
clients and relationships.

Top quality players should be able to maintain some performance  
rights too.....

Just my two cents.....

-mark

On Aug 17, 2006, at 7:01 AM, fmpro-request at nxport.com wrote:

>  Re: [Fmpro] AFM Union Threatens $50k Fines Against Composers
> 	and	other AFM Members for Seattle Recording



Mark Henderson


mark at dirtydogproductions.net
952.210.4801