The Supply Chain Of Movies

Will:
And we are back with another episode of Safety Stock. It is Dan Magida. On the other side, I am Will Davis, and we are excited to talk to you about today. And Dan, you know why?

Dan:
Enlighten me. Indulge me.

Will:
We’re talking, we’re talking about the supply chain of movies in the movie business,

Dan:
Love, love movies, who

Will:
Doesn’t, we’ve taken a

Dan:
Trip to Georgia, to some film studios or Vancouver, Canada, where everything happens these days?

Will:
We can, I’m, well, obviously you skipped Hollywood, but we know that.

Dan:
Yeah. But nothing gets filmed there as often as this

Will:
Later. No, I’m I’m with you. Look at you. You’re up on your game. Dan, the interesting thing is, is that for movies, the interesting thing specifically though, about movies is that while the summer is officially here, we typically don’t see a ton of movies getting released because people are traveling and do that, but it is even more of a dearth of movies than anticipated. And it’s mostly because certain things are affected in the space such as special effects, visual effects, and even just the ability to get people on set

Dan:
The visual effects, like surprise me on how much like that industry has. I don’t know if it, if it’s strength, that’s the right word or just in general of how they’ve, I guess, got poached by like meta other

Will:
Amazon,

Dan:
Which has bought MGM, which would be interesting what they’re gonna do with movies. But it, I, I just find that fascinating that there’s just been this talent transitioning out of like the, the virtual effects community and that’s stalled production, but you also have, I don’t have seasonal workers as the right term for people who like volunteer on set, but even that’s taking limit just because of, you know, wage increases as well. Not always paying for, for workers to come, come to set. Yeah. It’s, it’s crazy how much the, the market has gone down for new movies. Like, I mean, I, I saw what was that new Netflix movie recently? The, the gray man it’s all right. It wasn’t like it wasn’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t pay for it in theaters. It’s all right.

Will:
Well, you would pay for it via a subscription.

Dan:
I couldn’t even tell you how much I pay for Netflix. I, I have every movie subscription. I have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Disney, apple, HBO, max. I mean, I’m not gonna say if I’m password sharing or not, cause I don’t wanna get in trouble by anybody here, but I can’t even tell you what I’m paying per month.

Will:
Well, the interesting thing is is that, you know, the angle and how we’re kind of bringing this back to, you know, people who are listening to the podcast is how, how can you plan your hiring and how can you plan your scheduling around these instances? When there is a lack of workforce that is available to actually do what you need them to do. And so specific to the special effects houses, they’ve gone remote in a lot of cases. And so what they’re seeing is that some of the efficiencies that they had pre pandemic are now taking them longer than anticipated and they’ve had more work than they anticipated. So therefore that’s adding to the backlog. So Dan, I think what we see a lot of times when people are looking to hire, they, they tend to rely only on themselves for too long. And that they say, Hey, let me tap into my network.

Will:
Let me tap into a couple of people that I know. And then they’ll look to handle that while I think the biggest thing that we see successful companies do. And they’re looking to bring people on is that they reach out to a lot of people in a lot of different ways that they’re, if you’re a place where you’re looking for temporary labor, they’re looking and talking to temp wager or temp, labor houses, and they’re getting in contact there. If they’re recruiters that they can get for special niche job, they’re tapping out to the recruiters. If they are looking to place their for higher ads on digital sites, whether they’re using monster or indeed they’re doing that. And I think the important thing to realize here is that you have to get your job operating out to people, to where they see it and they can see if they’re interested in coming on.

Dan:
Yeah. Also what’s fascinating as well. We just think, you think like special effects and the actors who, and, and actresses who are in the movies, but the one part that kind of you, you kind of forget about, and you see this in New York city as just the, the giant like RVs laying displays, they have to use a lot of steel and lumber just to build these movie sets. Well, those prices have skyrocketed in the past year. I mean, we talked about inflation for, but just setting up like a sound stage has gone up at least is the cost has gone up 30% since the start of this year. So like a sheet plywood that was $40 a year ago is now just under $80. So sets itself or rising costs. And then when those rise, it’s not like money is unlimited resource here for these movie and production companies. So where are they going to decrease costs? And that also goes in the factor of why the supply chain of just movies is, is disrupted right now, just rising production cost.

Will:
Yeah. And, and I think, you know, the movies need to be profitable. You know, they have the same you know, they have kind of the same profit process as other companies and that, you know, Hey, have investors or people that are paying to front the movie and then they have certain ownership in it. And if the movie is a dud, people lose money. And if it’s a success, you know, obviously there’s big financial reward and it’s a pretty visible industry to where you like being successful in the movie business.

Dan:
Yeah. And the best way to have a successful movie, if you’re looking for two additional cast members is myself and will we’re visible eye candy for any movie that needs to get released in the upcoming years.

Will:
Yeah. And you know, the, the other thing too specifically about that is that we don’t command some of the high salaries that certain other movie

Dan:
I’ll pay you guys for, to be in the movies.

Will:
Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. I think the other thing Dan is we’re kind of wrapping this up is that if you’re taking anything away from, you know, this episode is that you can’t only rely on, you know, your certain tactics to get people in the door. People need to be incentivized. People need to know about your position. And you’re competing against a lot of different industries to try to get people in. So on top of that, once they’re in, what are you doing to make sure that you’re retaining talent, I’ll give you a hint. You know, if you randomly throw a pizza party or a taco party on Fridays before a long holiday, you know, chances are, people are gonna remember that.

Dan:
Is that, is that your way to retain people? Just taco parties,

Will:
Taco parties, dragons, love tacos, pizza parties. Absolutely. Yeah, no. Dan, I think the other thing is that if you have any fun way that you’ve recently gotten someone hired that was out of the box, but it worked well for you. Or if you have interesting ways of retaining talent and making sure that you’re properly staffed, reach out to us. You know, our email is open at hello@anvyl.com. A-N-V-Y-L.com. What about you, Dan? How about you? End on what’s your, what’s a good movie you saw recently outside of the gray man. Don’t

Dan:
Get me started on top gun. Maverick. I can,

Will:
There you go. If you haven’t seen Tom Maverick, Dan suggests you go see it now in the theater before

Dan:
Unreal. Imagine if they couldn’t get those planes for that, maybe cuz of supply chain joys. Ugh.

Will:
We’d be in trouble

Dan:
Or not. Can’t even just Tom cruise ageless. Wonder you go see you guys next. Time’s see you next week.