The entertainment industry is bogged down by the weight of inflation, which is exacerbated by continued supply chain disruptions, says physical production executives and studio operators. Hollywood Reporter.. In a record year of production levels after recovering from a pandemic, the studio is working on ways to build sets on time within budget.
“The accessibility of steel and wood due to supply chain issues has increased material costs by at least 25-30%,” said Herb Gaines, Executive VP Physical Production of Legendary. In a recent movie, he states that the same set of the same plan was twice the price four years ago.
The materials and parts needed to build the set were almost unsafe due to soaring prices. Inflation has hit everything from fuel to electrical equipment to cloth tape. “Overall, we are facing increased costs,” says Bryan Cooper, a partner at soundstage company S2CO, which is building a one-million-square-foot production facility in Georgia. “I was able to build a $ 3 million stage five years ago, and now it’s $ 8 million.”
Last year, most production executives and set builders said they were primarily facing delays and weren’t able to procure certain set equipment. It is said that the inability to meet the demand for the same materials, equipment, and parts nationwide in the record demand for content has an impact on the making of sets. “If you need a bathroom in your scene and nothing happens there, you can’t cut costs,” says a top production executive at a major studio. In California, where gas costs currently average 6.34 cents per gallon, the executive said: “For the first time, I’m asking how to reduce fuel costs.”
Mark Binke, Executive VP Production Director at NBC Universal Gas light, Girl in plain building When Queer as FolkAmong other titles, one of his most difficult challenges this year was to mitigate the effects of soaring costs. “Inflation has affected every area of production,” he says, explaining that the studio is now “preparing all scripts in advance.” [to] We crossboard multiple episodes, cluster shooting locations, and rush to “volume discounts with major vendors.”
Julia Roberts from Starz’s “Gaslit”.
Starz / Courtesy Everett Collection
Some stage operators who build sets from scratch say the cost of raw materials, including timber, metal, and certain fabrics, is at least 30 percent higher than at the beginning of the year. The price of some materials has more than doubled. A piece of plywood sold for about $ 40 a year ago, but is now just under $ 80, sources say.
Manufactured parts and gear are also immune to inflation. Owners of soundstage rental companies say they had an estimate of $ 85,000 to install a discreet lighting grid. This is a surge from the $ 42,000 paid just two years ago. Another electrical device, transformers, has jumped from $ 2,800 at the beginning of last year to $ 5,800 today.
Many stage owners are willing to pay a premium if they don’t have a huge lead time. “I recently ordered the lights, which usually take two to four weeks to complete,” said Luis Guizar, co-founder and foreman of stage rental company A Very Good Space. “It’s said to be 16 weeks now.”
One of the most difficult parts to fix is switchgear, a key component used to control the electrical systems that are in high demand in all industries. This can take up to a year to deliver, depending on the quantity. Cooper says he was told that if he paid another $ 100,000 for a component worth $ 300,000, he would be able to process the order within 30 weeks.
Research addresses inflation in different ways. Some are in a good position to absorb costs. Representative of Trilith Studios, a business based in Atlanta, home of Disney + Ms Marvel When She-Hulk: Lawyer Not only features like Black Panther: Wakanda ForeverCurrently, it costs about 15% more to build a stage than last year. What’s more, studios face lead times of 8-10 months for critical components and consumables such as electrical boxes and stage doors.
Rendered by an artist on the virtual production stage at Trilith Studios. This allows you to perform VFX work in real time as a set.
Courtesy of the Prysm stage at Trilith Studios
“The other stage you need will be online,” says the person in charge. “There’s a team, a bulldozer, but we don’t have all the electrical boxes we need, and we don’t have all the doors.”
Still, Trilith describes inflation and supply chain disruptions as thorns on the side, albeit expensive, rather than a crisis that forces major changes in the business. Studios aren’t building more elaborate sets to offset rising prices, especially in record demand for content. Shooting in Los Angeles increased by 40% from 2021 to the first quarter, and competition is more intense than ever to boost subscriber growth. The person in charge details: “No one in the industry is shrinking construction. The demand for content is higher than ever. We can’t keep up with the demand and the amount of content we produce As consumers continue to consume more content, no one can imagine slowing down or shrinking the process to meet that demand. Now it’s all about avoiding all these challenges. . “
However, in other studies, the higher costs incurred by inflation combined with the already bloated budget from COVID-19 address additional 5-20% of costs for PPE, test, and safety personnel. I can. A major studio physical production executive, for example, states that in some productions, two scenes scripted for different locations need to be combined into one area. “We are asking” This scene is 7/8 page. Need a set that costs $ 500,000? “He explains. “It’s not a large list of cuts, it’s the limit of how you can trim.”
Incentives have made tax incentives an even more important part of the calculation, insiders said. The studio is shining lasers on the most generous credit jurisdictions such as Georgia, New Mexico and Ireland. This can reduce costs by 15-40%, ignoring certain risks and potential infrastructure issues, depending on the shooting location. You can save enough money. Amid inflationary pressure, production executives were more pleased to shoot in incentive-rich areas like Vancouver, after production executives issued a formal strike notice in April after the director’s guild of the British Columbia branch of Canada issued a formal strike notice. Say you are having fun. (The Director’s Guild Chapter officially settled with the producer on June 23.) After all, the magic of the movie can only go this far.
In a move that could contribute to the shortage, studio and production facility executives are buying materials and parts together for later use. In a market that is at the forefront of negotiating with dozens of bidders from different industries, vendor relationships are more important than ever, they say.
“We have a great general contractor working together every week to plan everything from concrete and steel to electrical boxes, and we’re ready to pre-order everything,” says a Trilith representative. “Advanced planning is a broad answer, but it’s really about relationships. We have a lot of important relationships for us. If you need something ridiculous like concrete, it’s very important. is.”
One stage foreman recalls cleaning an office building that was to be demolished. What are the prizes? Due to the cost of the effort of stripping the building, in addition to thousands of luminaires and other spare parts, there is approximately $ 200,000 of insulation. “Unless our competitors ask us to let go of some of those things, it’s only a week,” he says. “It wasn’t just the cost that scared us, but the length of time it took to secure those materials.”
Bulk purchases represent a logistic nightmare, as some major studios need to create sets of movies that are shot thousands of miles away. Procuring large amounts of timber to Atlanta does not make sense, even if it is available, for example, if you are turning around and trying to ship to Africa or Australia where you need it. Not only is the supply burdensome, but it is too costly.
Despite inflation hitting the entire US economy, the competition to build sets to accommodate studios trying to unleash content during a lack of stage space is even more competitive. With Disney planning to spend $ 33 billion, Warner Bros. Discovery $ 23 billion, and Netflix planning to spend about $ 17 billion to $ 18 billion, the Studio Conglomerate has allocated a huge content budget for this year’s programming.
Private equity continues to surround sound stage operators, but soaring prices are raising the question of whether it can be profitable to build right away. “Building a stage in a particular area may start to cost more,” Cooper says.