Freelancers Union

New Mutualism: Mutual Support for the Information Age

The problems at first seem overwhelming. Full-time jobs are disappearing. Government entitlements are shrinking. We’re even running out of oil. Fortunately, America has a long tradition of fixing big problems with creative solutions.

Freelancing – once a euphemism for unemployment – has grown to be a dominant force in the economy, with 42 million independent workers (more than the total number of autoworkers, teachers, and doctors combined) driving the U.S. economy. Entrepreneurial organizations are figuring it out by developing market-oriented models that build collective solutions to society’s problems. Across the globe, people are building a collaborative/DIY/cooperative culture: online marketplaces like Craigslist and Etsy, peer-to-peer lending like Lending Club, smart food consumption through CSAs and urban farming, and other cost-conscious, socially-minded movements that promote mutual exchange.

We believe that this phenomenon, which we’re calling ‘new mutualism’, is not just a fad. Rather it’s the beginning of a movement that relies on sustainable, community-driven solutions to solve seemingly intractable problems.

Mutual support is nothing new. The first wave of mutualism saw the spread of worker and farmer cooperatives, credit associations, friendly societies, and similar groups. The government-sponsored programs of the New Deal supplanted the need for many of these groups, but as government and business sponsored supports are dwindling, interest in mutualism is growing, and advances in technology make it easier for communities to stay connected.

Underpinning the philosophy of new mutualism is the belief that political and economic life flourishes in social networks, and that social change requires individuals to shift their thinking from ‘I’ to ‘we.’ At the core of this new movement is a culture of interdependence, mutual support, and affinity, with building sustainability, rather than maximizing short-term profit, as a goal. That’s why we’re working with our members to build a new social support system that makes sense now and two generations from now.

For more information about the Freelancers Union, click here.

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.