From London to Los Angeles: a comparison of local labour market processes in the US and UK film industries

Abstract

Original article can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713702518 Copyright Taylor and Francis / InformaAddressing the issue of the embeddedness of labour markets, this paper compares the processes of finding employment in the film industry within two local labour markets. Drawing on studies of freelance film crews in London (UK) and Los Angeles (US), the paper concludes that the importance of social networks in job mobility in both contexts is a consequence of common production structures. However, common labour market practice varies in each geographical space as industry processes and structures are mediated by local institutional contexts

Surviving a Boundaryless Creative Career

“…The significance of social networks is a recurring theme in the careers literature (e.g., Bosley, Arnold, & Cohen, 2009), the creativity literature (e.g., Baer, 2010), and in the filmmaking discourse (e.g., Blair et al, 2003;Ferriani et al, 2005;Jones, 1996;Simonton, 2002). These networks played bridging and bonding (Putnam, 2000) roles in the careers of the 12 directors that we studied.…”

“…In an industry where boundaries are not defined by "employment settings," what are the salient boundaries? Our article contributes a study about two less general and more context-specific boundaries that film directors frequently cross: various media (e.g., films, television, video, theater) and professional roles (e.g., director, producer, actor; Baker & Faulkner, 1991;Blair et al, 2003;Jones, 1996). Professional roles, in particular, are closely tied to mobility in the filmmaking industry for at least four reasons.…”

“…Filmmaking and other creative industries involve high degrees of mobility due to the impermanent employment pertinent to their project-based nature, the shifting tastes of their markets, the demand for creativity in their products, the uncertain nature of the creative processes they involve, the need to (re)combine the creative inputs of various professionals, and the artists' own needs for personal renewal (R. DeFillippi, Grabher, & Jones, 2007;Lampel, Lant, & Shamsie, 2000;Menger, 1999). Directorial careers in filmmaking are by definition "boundaryless" in terms of the physical limits of an organization or a temporary film project (Blair, Culkin, & Randle, 2003;Jones, 1996). In an industry where boundaries are not defined by "employment settings," what are the salient boundaries?…”

“…First, far beyond technical competence, roles are both gateways and portable capsules of two key resources in the cultural industries, namely, social and cultural capital (Blair et al, 2003;R. J. DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998;Menger, 1999).…”

In the Social Factory?

“…The aim of this special section is to bring together three bodies of ideas --the work of the 'Italian laboratory', including Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, Paolo Virno, Franco Beradi and Maurizio Lazzarato; the activist writings about precarity that have appeared in online journal sites such as Fibreculture and Mute; and the emerging research on creative labour being produced by sociologists and others (Banks, 2007;Beck, 2003;Blair, 2003;Batt, Christopherson, & Rightor, 1999;Blair, Culkin, & Randle, 2003;Deuze, 2007;Gill, 2002Gill, , 2007Jeffcutt & Pratt, 2002;Markusen & Schrock, 2006;McRobbie, 1998McRobbie, , 1999McRobbie, , 2003Pratt, 2002;Pratt, Gill, & Spelthann, 2007;Ross, 2003;Gottschall & Kroos, 2007;Neff et al, 2005;Perrons, 1999Perrons, , 2002Perrons, , 2003Taylor & Littleton, 2008a, 2008bAdkins, 1999;Mayerhofer & Mokre, 2007;Ursell, 2000;). It is striking how little connection, until now, there has been between the theory and activism influenced by autonomous Marxists and empirical research (though, see de Peuter & Dyer-Witheford, 2006;Ehrenstein, 2006), and it is this that the papers collected here seek to develop, beginning a conversation between the different traditions.…”