Variety: If the federal government shuts down after midnight Monday, TV and radio stations will see the process for pending license approvals ground to a halt, national parks will stop issuing film permits and a smattering of upcoming congressional hearings will be postponed or cancelled. Plans by theater owners to lobby Capitol Hill on Tuesday were in doubt.
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I hope other people end up commenting on this, because this may be the most important topic on this blog. It is issues like these that this blog could be considered important for students to go into this part of the entertainment industry. Yes, this may only be relevant to one section of our industry, but it is important to note the role the government has in our world. For example in western Europe, the government is a much larger patron of the arts. With the shut down of the government television networks seem to be hit the hardest.
Wow. In our little Carnegie Mellon private-school bubble, it's easy to forget that so many arts organizations and individuals rely on government funding or government permission to do their work. I never thought about the impact that closing the copyright office or many passports offices could have, but it's certainly not insignificant. On a more specific note, I wonder how many films will be affected by this. It seems the options for the filmmakers in question would be to either find a new location, postpone filming on those scenes and then have to funnel in a lot of money to get them shot and edited in time once the locations are available again, or postpone filming on those scenes while also postponing their film's opening. Any decisions to postpone will affect everyone working on the film, in that they will either have to be out of work until they can return to location, or they'll have to put in a lot of extra work to reschedule the filming of the rest of the movie in order to keep moving forward while not being able to film in locations that require government- approval.
So many organisations have been affected by the Government Shutdown thus far and so many workers are home, unsure about when their next pay check will be. Also any events which were to occur in any Government run facilities had to be relocated. I wonder how much longer this will last. Also I wonder how many organisations will have to cancel any future events if the grants and loans are permanently stopped. Hopefully there is a solution to this which can be agreed upon in congress sooner rather than later.
I wonder what would happen if I walked into a hospital and stopped production. Or a bank. Or a law office. How angered would those people be? Nevermind the fact that productions in entertainment will be postponed, but what about the people who are in limbo because they are supposed to stay home because they won't be compensated for showing up to work. Are the congressmen taking deductions from their pay for everyday that this goes on? It's selfish to just think "how does this affect me?". Even though I understand that is the instinct. But the fact that there are larger issues at stake here is extremely terrifying. Film productions can lose money daily, and more importantly MOMENTUM. How can they recover financially, I think, is a smaller issue compared to how they will recover enthusiasm and urgency to follow through things that have been put on hold or the back burner.
The government shut down gets worse and worse each time I read about it. I never realized that there were so many arts organizations that depended on the support of the government. It's really unfair that these groups now lack the resources they need to carryout their individual missions. I really hope that our government is able to get it together and fast! There is no good excuse for this and it really needs to end.
A lot of these things are things I point to when people advocate extreme measures to limit our government. The last I checked, many of those who are convinced that slashing government spending without heed is a good plan still like to do things like go camping, have access to safe medicine when they're sick, and drive along roads.
I thought this article in particular did a great job highlighting ways in which the entertainment industry depends on the government aside from grant funding. National parks, museums and government buildings are huge sources for movie and television locations, in part because they are cheap or free to get into. The visa office also is critical for productions of all kinds of international entertainers who are contracted to perform in the US. I will be interested in hearing about how productions deal with these setbacks, particularly if the shutdown continues much longer.
I read this article last night and am glad to see so many more comments today. This is something that affects everybody greatly, including our field. People are always surprised at how involved the government and its services affect our lives. And in terms of the number of people who are out of work or can't get paid, I can't say that I'm surprised that congress gets paid while everybody else doesn't. Honestly, it should be the other way around because it is congress that would be able to survive even if they went without pay for a while, but all the other employees, I'm sure most of their lives have been flipped upside down. And moving back to our field specifically, like the others have said, what are movies and television shows going to do? It is definitely hard to get people interested and excited about upcoming things when they are delayed to an indefinite date.
This entire government shutdown is pretty ridiculous to begin with, and as much as I didnt fully realize the impact of the shutdown on the entertainment industry, i dont think this is one of the highlights of the problem. There are people in the country who rely heavily on the government every day for such necessities as food and shelter who are going to be losing their help. I do however acknowledge that many people who get funding from the government or have federal jobs may soon be placed in a position where they are much needier than in the past. However these people are effected, I think the government needs to realize that they are affecting people's real lives and they need to figure this out soon.
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