Joe Carini,

I just received some info about that long term rental I was out bid on and thought you might be interested in reading about it. I found out from a very good source that the line item in the budget for that South American shoot was $2000 a week for twenty weeks for the Jib rental. Because one of us made a deal for approx. $8000 for the whole twenty weeks, an already rich Line Producer was able to pocket $32,000 on just the rental of the JIb. You see the money is generally there for equipment and labor, it is the above the lines job to not pay it. Every dollar they save in a particular area puts more money in their pockets, or for additional items in other areas. That is why they drive the fancy cars and live in the big mansions. After all, like you said, "This is not art, it's business".

Did you know that when the ten hour flat work day was introduced a few years ago it was only supposed to be just one special time. Now it seems to happen all the time. Once something gets introduced like that it doesn't go away. Look at taxes, how often have you seen the gov. take away a special tax once it is incorperated into society, It does'nt happen.

This is why I am afraid of the reprocussions of this one rental, and others happening to like it. The show is not even over yet and I have heard other producers talk about how cheap equipment went out on this network show. After all it wasn't only the jib deal, I heard the production company made lots of crazy deals.

Lets hope this doesn't become the new trend.

Shane