Who will kill filmmaking first?

[Andrew Reid]

17 hours ago, good_1da said:

I realize there is plenty of scorn and derision around.

The reason I am more optimistic than some, is the opportunity English devolution represents for an area like the North-East. The region now has directly elected Mayors with devolved powers and a budget for Transport, Infrastructure, Skills and Jobs. This has helped to address the demographic deficit that was long felt in the North after Scottish devolution in the 90s.

My area elected a Mayor who campaigned to buy back the local airport which was about to be lost for housing

We now have an investment plan for the area...

• Buy back the local airport.....completed (now 75% owned by the combined authority)
• Upgrade of airport............on going
• Modernise the railway station to include first link to London in decades.......on going
• The compulsory purchase of the defunct steel works site from Thai banks........completed
• Investment to clean up the site after 100+ years of steel making.......on going
• Investment in transport infrastructure around the site.......on going
• A Freeport........to be decided.

The result will be a very large plot of land for new businesses and new jobs in green energy, renewables, offshore wind-farm production, etc.  As well as upgrades to key transport links. 

I think this approach represents a better way forward. To move away from centralised Westminster decision making and the two party system that form of governance has tended to favour.

So red wall voters in the North East have turned to the neo-nazi Conservative party because they are promised a more direct form of democracy and devolved decision making, a Northern power house, a 'charismatic' say it like it is leader in Boris and a way to push back on the globalised Neo-liberal EU...

It's a complete sham and a lie.

Local airport could have been bought back regardless of Brexit. The upgrade of it could have benefited from EU funds. The railway can be modernised regardless of Brexit. Since most of the infrastructure and rolling stock are German or French however you may need to keep an eye on the supply of spare parts from Jan 1st. Got your defunct steel works, check. Great news. Now you can haemorrhage tax payer's money as well as Thai bank contributions. Investment in transport... again, nothing to do with Brexit whatsoever. Large plot of land for new businesses, new jobs, green energy, offshore wind-farms, etc. again nothing to do with Brexit, in fact the EU would have contributed a lot in terms of green energy, Germany being one of the most prominent countries for that, again not something most people are discussing down the pub but still true, and as for the move away from centralised Westminster London-centric decision-making, one of the reasons for devolution (and soon the break-up of the entire UK, with Scottish independence and 1970s Berlin / Northern Ireland style land border checks with military presence) is that the Tories are in favour of a small government, massive cuts to public spending, cuts to social care, public funding of the BBC and the arts & cinemas, and more things just too numerous to mention here.

[Andrew Reid]

Aside from a small government, the other reason the Tories want devolution is so they can enrich the private sector via less-centralised, less-accountable, easily bribable local government.

Some sham of a private company will come along and gobble up the money, making big profits for the Tory cronies involved in it.

Look at the sham of the school meal packages recently - supposably £30 for 5 days of food, and what the mums got was £5 of baked beans. Where did the £25 go?

This is OUR tax money. We pay our taxes, only for 90% of it to get syphoned off into the pockets of dodgy incompetent private sector Tories.

[Oliver Daniel]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Look at the sham of the school meal packages recently - supposably £30 for 5 days of food, and what the mums got was £5 of baked beans. Where did the £25 go

The Covid contracts have had similar treatment. Same old story. 

Im still waiting for somebody to give me a simple explanation as to why they voted Leave or jumped onto the Tory vote. I guess it doesn’t help when the low educated gather their news from memes. The sharing of “information” is a shit shoe of the truth. 

Some people don’t like to admit it, but I think it’s immigration. Foreigners taking their jobs and all that. 

Will Brexit / Covid / Dominic Cummings’ eye test kill filmmaking? No, because artists are going to get more pissed off, grab their cameras and make films to either document the carnage, or help us escape through utter joy. 

[good_1da]

 

In the words of writer Dominic Sandbrook (who voted remain)...

"As for my fellow Remainers - well, where do you start? Snobbish, sneering, risibly prey to conspiracy theories, many ardent Remainers made complete fools of themselves. They didn’t try to understand their fellow Britons, and refused to accept defeat with good grace. And if they had succeeded in subverting the referendum, as they hoped, they would have dealt our democracy a very heavy blow."

[IronFilm]

15 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Look at the sham of the school meal packages recently - supposably £30 for 5 days of food, and what the mums got was £5 of baked beans. Where did the £25 go?

You *know* government spending is hopelessly inefficient and yet you want more of that?? Don’t know how that logically makes sense at all. 

 

 

 

 

[Oliver Daniel]

10 hours ago, good_1da said:

 

In the words of writer Dominic Sandbrook (who voted remain)...

"As for my fellow Remainers - well, where do you start? Snobbish, sneering, risibly prey to conspiracy theories, many ardent Remainers made complete fools of themselves. They didn’t try to understand their fellow Britons, and refused to accept defeat with good grace. And if they had succeeded in subverting the referendum, as they hoped, they would have dealt our democracy a very heavy blow."

I agree with the behaviour from the Remain camp, who in a lot of ways were just as bad as the woefully dishonest Leave campaign.

It muddied the waters - which I believe is a strategic technique used by Dominic Cummings, called the Ooda Loop. But the bigger culprit in this “muddied waters” is technology, namely the truth twisting on social media. 

What is actually true? What is right? Honestly, I think these days a lot of people can’t speak for themselves and will just recite a series of memes they’ve seen and base their truth on that. 

I went the Remain route, as brushing all the political structuring and ideology aside, I looked at the simple things. I understood what Leave was trying to do, but I couldn’t relate to it at all. Nor was there any simply set out information on exactly what it meant for the everyday person. 

I do hope it wasn’t all an unnecessary  nostalgic pipe dream and that a lot of the issues are resolved, and that we start seeing an everyday benefit to it all. 

Then, a Leave voting or Remain filmmaker can make a Netflix film on how it all turned out, and say “hate to say I told you so.”

It might have to be a comedy. A dark one. The villain of which is the monstrous brain imposter, the snarling, cunning and hungry Social Media Beast. Then the world blows up, because y’know, climate change? Did we forget about that? 

 

[Andrew Reid]

9 hours ago, IronFilm said:

You *know* government spending is hopelessly inefficient and yet you want more of that?? Don’t know how that logically makes sense at all.

What does a NZ guy know about UK politics... My country founded the NHS. It had a strong social welfare system long before many other countries. That is something to be proud about. Not everything should be left to the private sector and competitive free market capitalism. Unless you want to pay astronomical amounts of money into the pockets of private insurance companies that is. Have you seen the price of health care in the US and Germany?

The school meals stuff you are so ill informed about it hurts. This was a campaign by a British footballer to help out during corona times with free food for children, and the government was tasked to come up with a fair scheme. Looks like nearly all the public funds used for it went into the pockets of a dodgy private company.

That is not about government spending lacking efficiency... It is about an incompetent, corrupt, borderline criminally negligent Conservative party, the misuse of public funds and an overall party philosophy that favours capitalism over starving children.

A functional, competent government that does not run a country into the ground, invests in peoples lives rather than profiteering from them at every opportunity, can actually spend money efficiency and encourage a lot of growth.

[Andrew Reid]

3 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

I went the Remain route, as brushing all the political structuring and ideology aside, I looked at the simple things. I understood what Leave was trying to do, but I couldn’t relate to it at all. Nor was there any simply set out information on exactly what it meant for the everyday person.

Yeah so did I, there was a lot of ideology and feelings wasn't there in the run up to the referendum and very little fact. You had to brush it off and do a character judgement on those advocating for which direction to go. My character judgement on Farage, Gove, Boris, Cummings, Arron Banks, Tice, etc. was that I didn't like them. Unintelligent dilettantes from Eton. Privileged little fixers and opportunists. All middle aged white men with an axe to grind. Probably all racist too.

If this puts me into the category of "snobby" then fair enough, it's a label that was pinned on the remain side because we were painted into a corner by people like Farage holding a pint down the pub, and enough people believed it. We are liberal elites apparently!! When a culture turns against intelligent thinkers and well travelled people with an open minded view of foreigners then you know your country has a racism and class problem.

[BTM_Pix]

5 hours ago, Oliver Daniel said:

What is actually true? What is right?

In fairness to Remain, the basis for their position was the established rules that apply to 3rd countries with regard to their relationship with the EU and contrast that with the status quo of what our current membership of the union meant to the UK.

Those rules were and remain facts for 3rd countries whether its to do with trade, immigration or other regulations and have always been easily verified.

In contrast, the Leave campaign was largely based more on feelings than it was facts.

Which is fine, I suppose, as we're all human so feelings matter, but unfortunately trade agreements and established rules for 3rd countries can't be overcome by three word nebulous slogans such as "Take Back Control".

So from 1st. January 2021, the only thing that has and will matter is the factual reality of being a 3rd country to our nearest major trading partner.

The UK could've negotiated to leave the EU but still be part of the single market, like Norway for example, and this option was actually stated as an intention by this journalist below shortly after the referendum.

I mean, I know its just the statement of a journalist who had previously been sacked by another newspaper for lying and I'm guessing he's probably faded into obscurity since but, still, he was one of the leaders of the Vote Leave campaign so that intention does seem at odds with everything that has happened since and what they have attempted to negotiate.

The Government's repeated bleatings that they would seek an "Australian style deal" was just an absolute nonsense as, with Australia not actually having a deal with the EU, it was actually code for no deal.

It was often stated that the Government might as well be saying "Afghanistan style deal" or "Mongolian style deal" but even that wasn't accurate as both of those countries have more favourable arrangements with the EU than Australia.

Its happened though so we are where we are with the agreement they eventually did negotiate and have to deal with it.

One major obstacle is the lack of preparation time for it whilst the Government ran the clock down and the lack of experience to deal with the practicalities.

Prior to the single market, when we exported gear either for sale or for touring, it was the same level of pain in terms of documentation and shipping/customs agents whether we were sending it to Munich or Miami.

After the single market, sending gear to Munich suddenly became indivisible to sending it to Middlesbrough and UK businesses have had almost thirty years of trading that way.

Not only does it mean that new processes like JIT manufacturing have evolved to benefit from it but there are an enormous amount of companies who have never had to deal with all but the scantest import/export procedures for their goods or supply lines.

The procedures involved now to send something to Munich requires the same specialist skills that were last needed almost three decades ago and they just aren't there.

When the mitigation work for the Millennium Bug was happening, there were a lot of systems that were created using COBOL that necessitated a lot of retired programmers being brought back to earn serious cash as those skills had left the workforce as they hadn't been required any more.

I think it might be the same story for a lot of UK pensioners who had the experience of how to navigate the hoops to jump through to get machinery from London to Paris in the 80s !

The impact of being a 3rd party trying to get goods into the EU across its land borders is well known and isn't Project Fear, its just the reality of it.

This site is used by transportation companies to show real time info on waiting times at borders :

https://www.transporeon.com/en/expertise/corona-update/real-time-overview-international-traffic/

If you look at Poland and compare the waiting times at its border with its EU neighbours such as Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic with its border with Belarus then the difference is clear.

What is also clear from that are the delays at the channel ports of the UK.

The mitigation of the UK authorities in using holding areas away from the ports themselves means that the expected media coverage of endless queues at Dover hasn't happened but oddly enough that actually demonstrates something even more concerning.

Namely that the amount of traffic is down as companies can't get the formalities sorted but also because EU transport companies are now reluctant to send trucks to UK as the delays both way are costing them too much money to make it worthwhile.

Importing and exporting goods is one of those things that a majority or even a sizeable minority of people don't have any direct experience of but it is something that because of the supply chain processes that have built up since we joined the single market we are all impacted by, whether its for buying a book off Amazon or a lettuce from Tesco.

Disruption to those supply chains, by which I mean delays rather than flat out stoppages, will eventually trickle down to everyone but, like anything, its only when it gets personal that it hits home !

Nikon UK have today had to act in this regard 

The salient point in this is not if they get it resolved or even necessarily how long it takes them but in terms of how they resolve it.

When you had frictionless trade and now you've had a lot of friction put back in then the only way to remove it will likely to be to polish it away with money.

If you can't get your cameras imported efficiently or without variable delays because of admin then you have to hire dedicated staff.

If you can't get them brought in by ship/lorry due to the penalty cost of shippers having to deal with the customs procedures then you'll have to fly them in.

If you can't get reliable lead times for re-supply then you'll have to hold more stock to mitigate it.

All of that costs money and its inevitable that it will find its way to being added to the retail price.

Even when Covid goes away, when all the companies have caught up with training their admin staff to deal with the processes, when the government have tarmacced over the rest of Kent to accommodate the lorries, we will still not have frictionless trade because no 3rd country can have frictionless trade with the EU.

So it means more cost to export and more cost to import.

The EU aren't punishing us with some new rules, we punished ourselves by not understanding them when we are a part of it.

Still, those fish are much happier now so there's that.

 

[Andrew Reid]

Short term it may hit home when our economy does a full on flop to the floor like a big stack of cards and supermarkets run out of fresh produce. Project fear! At what point for a Brexit fanatic does project fear become project real. For younger generations who have grown up making use of the freedoms they were born with (freedom of movement) pretty much immediately, but Project Fucking Facts has even been known to impact the people right at the top and the richest of society - pity them - for project fear has been enough for Boris Johnson's cunt father to get his French passport sorted out and enough of a reality for Rees Mogg to move his business to the EU (Ireland).

Apparently man of the people and the enemy of bureaucratic rules everywhere has moved Somerset Capital Management to the EU because Brexit risks a section of its investment prospectus.

[Emanuel]

Generation loss. No. Several of them. A setback.

[BTM_Pix]

36 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Project Fucking Facts has even been known to impact the people right at the top and the richest of society - pity them - for project fear has been enough for Boris Johnson's cunt father to get his French passport sorted out and enough of a reality for Rees Mogg to move his business to the EU (Ireland).

Lest we forget that Farage couldn't even convince his own kids that losing their freedom of movement was a great idea.

Then again, they have actually met him so are less likely to fall for his bullshit.

Quite the volte face too for such a devoted Spitfire shagger as him to say in that same article that Britain lost the Second World War.

Wonder if his ilk amongst the England team's fans will now have to modify the lyrics to their favourite chant to German fans to "One World War and one World Cup doodah doodah" now then ?

[Emanuel]

Strange times these ones we live nowadays, I never thought to ever see this happen in the XXI century... did I say XXI century? : D

[Chxfgb]

On 1/10/2021 at 7:55 PM, good_1da said:

You propose a star chamber of 'excellent minds' to make the right decisions on our behalf.  To me this such a scary concept. It's the road totalitarianism.

At what pont will the 'excellent minds' decide regular people can't be trusted with any decisions?

Who would decide what an 'excellent mind' was or is? Who would watch over these superiour beings with their 'excellent minds?' 

What a chilling, Orwellian, nightmarish, dystopian world that would be.

I don't have it all worked out but similar works well in various countries. Don't let past mistakes make you biased against new ideas.

The 1984 totalitarian thing is an easy excuse to brush new ideas aside. The current 2 party system is idiotic and full of useless career politicians.

There has to be a better way. Perhaps a no party system which works a bit like a company seems better to me. There is the board of directors who help the CEO make the right decisions and replace him or her when needed. All these people must be elected of course. Just different levels: The public shouldn't decide on the prime minister. Its a ridiculous popularity contest with propaganda, bickering and mud slinging aided by the biased media. 

Obviously strict freedom laws to make sure we don't get oppressed.

Basically, the best people for the job not the Eton lot who were born and bred to get cushy jobs in politics.

For example, everyone nominates someone they think would be good. Someone not far right or far left. For example, David Attenborough might be a suitable person to play a role. Maybe just on the board of directors.

A particularly good university professor might be another, like Jordan Peterson or Bret Weinstein who are both centrists and intellectuals who make good moral common sense decisions. These are the sort you would pay more to quit their job and take up a role in government. 

[Andrew Reid]

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

- George Orwell, 1946

[Oliver Daniel]

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Yeah so did I, there was a lot of ideology and feelings wasn't there in the run up to the referendum and very little fact. You had to brush it off and do a character judgement on those advocating for which direction to go. My character judgement on Farage, Gove, Boris, Cummings, Arron Banks, Tice, etc. was that I didn't like them. Unintelligent dilettantes from Eton. Privileged little fixers and opportunists. All middle aged white men with an axe to grind. Probably all racist too.

If this puts me into the category of "snobby" then fair enough, it's a label that was pinned on the remain side because we were painted into a corner by people like Farage holding a pint down the pub, and enough people believed it. We are liberal elites apparently!! When a culture turns against intelligent thinkers and well travelled people with an open minded view of foreigners then you know your country has a racism and class problem.

I don’t agree that the Remain argument was snobby either. We’re certainly not snobs. I just found it to be more factual, basing most of its argument on what will go wrong (Project Fear). 

The Leave argument is like a feeling of patriotic inspiration experienced after a speech by Farage. “We can make our own laws” blah blah. What laws? What laws do you so desperately need in your life that the evil EU have stopped?

Then the response.... “we want our country back”. Back from what? Why can’t they tell us, factually, what they want back? I just want a simple, everyday explanation of getting “back” these incredible benefits. Anyone? No? 

Alas, I do believe it was immigration. People are so misinformed that they believed leaving would result in saving our jobs from Khalid the neurosurgeon and Łukasz the male nurse. There was a saying, not all Leave voters are racist, but all racists voted Leave.  
 

p.s Jacob Rees Mog (the haunted Victorian pencil) and company are full of shit who don’t care about anyone but themselves and their bank balance. 
 

Anyway, who will kill filmmaking first? Climate change will. 

[Tim Sewell]

"We want our country back!"

Heard on the streets and airwaves of both the US and the UK during a large part of the last decade. I've rarely heard any person of colour say that in either of those countries, I think because the country those using the phrase want to return to is the one where being a white British/American man gave you an inbuilt advantage even greater than that which we (I'm a white British man) still have. People who have had privilege and preference (even when they would vehemently deny having had them), when they lose them, feel that they're being badly treated and oppressed. So they want *their* country back.

[PannySVHS]

German TV already killed filmmaking twenty years ago. :)

[Tim Sewell]

I had a bloody good go at killing it in 1994/5: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111151/

[BTM_Pix]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Or as Mike Tyson put it when asked if he was concerned about his upcoming opponent's plan for the fight...

 

 

 

*ironically, though, he then went on to lose that particular fight after his own response to being punched in the mouth was to bite off a piece of his opponent's ear..