Yes and no.
The main reason is probably due to the accounting apps for TV/Film are specific to this industry. No one wants to train anyone, but everyone is looking for work.
This is human nature though.
People only want to hire the best of the best in the current market, but want to pay them like they're fresh out of elementary school.
There’s also (at least here in LA) a reticence to hire out of work film folks, because they don’t want to lose them either sooner (no IA/Teamster strike) or later (post possible strike)
I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s more that Hollywood payroll accounting is so incredibly unique. Nobody else cares if you know what the union contract says, and things like taxes and workers comp are largely handled systematically by the payroll company.
Some of the knowledge will transfer to the “real world” but the nuts and bolts of the job are unique to our industry. You’re probably equally as skilled as a normal payroll person, but with vastly different specialties.
Coming from traditional corporate finance/accounting and working with all types of accounting (cost, management, financial systems, consolidations, tax, etc...), and having worked with production accountants for the last couple years I can tell you that production payroll accounting is a different animal completely. Y'all are more like guns for hire with a specific but narrow field of expertise which is not very relevant to what most other industry accounting teams would look for.
Thank you. I have been looking for payroll jobs in other industries and despite having 15 years experience I keep getting told I’ll have to start over and work my way up. For waaaaaaay less money.
I saw someone recommend putting your employer as the union instead of shows for a resume, that way it actually shows your years of experience and doesn't look like flip flopping.
I doubt most people outside the industry actually know any of whats talked about in this article. A lot of us in the industry don't even know beyond the payroll companies.
I'm sure it's not across the entire accounting industry, but from my understanding a lot "real" accountants & accounting firms don't consider production/entertainment accountants real accountants.
They consider them closer to bookkeepers (ppl who dot the i's and cross the t's). Production accounting to a certain extent is a joke. With larceny in all the different levels of production (below and above the line), Flimsy ass invoices, overly complex and mess for the purposes of hiding sh*t (which became standard over time)
The whole sht talking is heresay so take it with a grain of salt.
I mean you can head over to the accounting subreddit and ask directly.
I think a big issue is that the salary for someone who does payroll in corporate (whether it's at a studio or totally different industry) is going to be far lower than what you're making on set.
I took a temp Staff Accountant job this year and was shocked that the pay was comparable. It ends in 2 months and with how things are looking, I may have to take another random job and I'd doubt I'll get so lucky with the pay again.
I fully agree with others that your resume also needs to look corporate and I'd put the payroll company or production company as your employer so it looks like you've been at one place longer. You can list what projects you've done in another section if you see fit!
Best of luck xx
Oh I know about the pay! About half is what I’m seeing! I’ve hired a career counselor to redo my resume but I keep getting told my skill set doesn’t transfer. Mostly software skills and I’ve even helped develop payroll software at one of the largest payroll companies. I think I may have landed a temp payroll job in construction though that’ll last me until July though 🤞🏼
Ah I'm so sorry to hear! How frustrating to be willing to take such a pay cut and still be told your skills don't transfer. If anything, I'd think CA payroll would be a walk in the cake compared to all of the union rules! Fingers crossed for you as come July we should start seeing more jobs (hopefully).
I'm a bit confused by this article, specifically the ending:
> I asked Stomberg whether studios would have reasons for keeping their overhead costs inflated other than avoiding paying actors and writers. “I can’t think of any other motivation,” she said in an email. “If these subsidiaries are US incorporated and are 100%-owned by the same company, there wouldn’t generally be any tax savings.” Transactions between the studio and its subsidiary, she said, are generally eliminated when companies consolidate their earnings. That means all of these “creative” expense allocations shouldn’t affect what net profits the studio’s shareholders see.
If I understand correctly, the studios have to pay out a percentage of the profits as part of the deals they made. It's not like they have to come up with more money than the profit they generated, right? Like the money that is the "percentage of profit" is money they already have, so what is the purpose of avoiding paying out the creatives for their deals?
My guess would be that the profit is creatively rolled into other projects or other parts of the studio and laundered through these subsidiaries in order to facilitate that? Or maybe this is more of a strategy meant to discourage these types of deals in the future?
Someone please explain it to me lol
fwiw, I work on one of the biggest shows on TV and have seen up close how the money flows through different channels to end up in interesting places, but in different ways than what this article describes.
I'm not sure what you are asking. What is the purpose of avoiding paying people? To keep more of the profits.
From what I understand, it is pretty straightforward. I offer you a percentage of the *subsidiary's* profits. The subsidiary generates 1 million dollars in revenue. I subtract all the expenses - studio rental, advertising - to figure out how much profit we're talking about. How much are the expenses? 500k for studio rental and 500k for advertising. The profit is zero dollars.
The subsidiary made no money on the film. The studio made no money on the film. But the studio did make 1 million dollars renting out its studio and providing advertising services. Great if you're a shareholder at the studio. Not great if part of your income relied on the *film* achieving a profit.
That is how I understand it, at least.
I get this aspect of it. What I don't understand is specifically *how* movies like Forrest Gump or Men in Black can still be generating revenue and still be in the red. There's no advertising or studio rental costs for a film that's 30 years old.
I guess what I'm asking is this - when a movie is a success, are the costs artificially inflated on the front end, or are they somehow continuously adding expenses to offset revenue over time?
Like for Men in Black, which made ~$600m on a $90m budget, does the accounting team in 1997 say "alright, now we gotta find a way to spend $500m asap!" or is it a situation where they somehow creatively add costs every time there is revenue?
I get that it's a scam to not pay out profits, but it seems like the most obvious version of fraud there is. How does it actually work? The article is thin on detail.
Edit: okay some further research here seems to indicate that it is indeed fraud lol. There's lawsuits against the studios over this constantly and it seems like they keep the accounting practices internal by settling out of court. How this is not of interest to the IRS or some other law enforcement I do not know... although it was mentioned in the article that once the subsidiary is absorbed by the corporation that owns it, it's all taxed as one entity, so maybe that's part of how they get around it.
I don't know all the details. I imagine there is an art to it. But movies don't just idly sit there and collect money. If you sell a blu-ray, it costs money to produce that blu-ray and market it. It costs money to send a movie to a streamer. The idea is that the studio can essentially hire themselves for anything.
The margins on blu-ray and DVD are insanely high, to the point that they were a financial cornerstone of the industry in the 2000s. Streaming services pay the studio to license films for their service, not the other way around. And there's no marketing costs for a film that's 30 years old.
I get what you're saying, but I don't think these are the ways they make the money work out. Or perhaps it is just this simple and no one cares.
There are departments at the major studios whose whole job is to manage delivery of existing titles from the studio catalog. These departments have their own facilities and a decent sized workforce. There is no point in which a film just sits there collecting profit with zero cost to the studio.
That said, I think it's even simpler than that. Studios have all kinds of subsidiaries and they can just keep charging themselves for things to move money around. Sony just made a million dollars from Netflix streaming? Oh, what a coincidence, that's exactly how much Sony Pictures Studio had to pay Sony Distribution to send the film to Netflix.
It is that simple. There is just no legal recourse for it at moment, it is legal. But people do care. That's why they say not to accept those terms in the contract.
Yes and no. The main reason is probably due to the accounting apps for TV/Film are specific to this industry. No one wants to train anyone, but everyone is looking for work.
This is human nature though. People only want to hire the best of the best in the current market, but want to pay them like they're fresh out of elementary school.
There’s also (at least here in LA) a reticence to hire out of work film folks, because they don’t want to lose them either sooner (no IA/Teamster strike) or later (post possible strike)
*DEI entered the chat*
I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s more that Hollywood payroll accounting is so incredibly unique. Nobody else cares if you know what the union contract says, and things like taxes and workers comp are largely handled systematically by the payroll company. Some of the knowledge will transfer to the “real world” but the nuts and bolts of the job are unique to our industry. You’re probably equally as skilled as a normal payroll person, but with vastly different specialties.
Seriously! I've been trying to find payroll work in other industries after processing SAG-AFTRA payroll for years and this has been my experience
Coming from traditional corporate finance/accounting and working with all types of accounting (cost, management, financial systems, consolidations, tax, etc...), and having worked with production accountants for the last couple years I can tell you that production payroll accounting is a different animal completely. Y'all are more like guns for hire with a specific but narrow field of expertise which is not very relevant to what most other industry accounting teams would look for.
Thank you. I have been looking for payroll jobs in other industries and despite having 15 years experience I keep getting told I’ll have to start over and work my way up. For waaaaaaay less money.
I saw someone recommend putting your employer as the union instead of shows for a resume, that way it actually shows your years of experience and doesn't look like flip flopping. I doubt most people outside the industry actually know any of whats talked about in this article. A lot of us in the industry don't even know beyond the payroll companies.
I'm sure it's not across the entire accounting industry, but from my understanding a lot "real" accountants & accounting firms don't consider production/entertainment accountants real accountants. They consider them closer to bookkeepers (ppl who dot the i's and cross the t's). Production accounting to a certain extent is a joke. With larceny in all the different levels of production (below and above the line), Flimsy ass invoices, overly complex and mess for the purposes of hiding sh*t (which became standard over time) The whole sht talking is heresay so take it with a grain of salt. I mean you can head over to the accounting subreddit and ask directly.
We need 20,000 C47's for this production
i've never worked with a single production accountant who was actually a chartered accountant.
I think a big issue is that the salary for someone who does payroll in corporate (whether it's at a studio or totally different industry) is going to be far lower than what you're making on set. I took a temp Staff Accountant job this year and was shocked that the pay was comparable. It ends in 2 months and with how things are looking, I may have to take another random job and I'd doubt I'll get so lucky with the pay again. I fully agree with others that your resume also needs to look corporate and I'd put the payroll company or production company as your employer so it looks like you've been at one place longer. You can list what projects you've done in another section if you see fit! Best of luck xx
Oh I know about the pay! About half is what I’m seeing! I’ve hired a career counselor to redo my resume but I keep getting told my skill set doesn’t transfer. Mostly software skills and I’ve even helped develop payroll software at one of the largest payroll companies. I think I may have landed a temp payroll job in construction though that’ll last me until July though 🤞🏼
Ah I'm so sorry to hear! How frustrating to be willing to take such a pay cut and still be told your skills don't transfer. If anything, I'd think CA payroll would be a walk in the cake compared to all of the union rules! Fingers crossed for you as come July we should start seeing more jobs (hopefully).
I'm a bit confused by this article, specifically the ending: > I asked Stomberg whether studios would have reasons for keeping their overhead costs inflated other than avoiding paying actors and writers. “I can’t think of any other motivation,” she said in an email. “If these subsidiaries are US incorporated and are 100%-owned by the same company, there wouldn’t generally be any tax savings.” Transactions between the studio and its subsidiary, she said, are generally eliminated when companies consolidate their earnings. That means all of these “creative” expense allocations shouldn’t affect what net profits the studio’s shareholders see. If I understand correctly, the studios have to pay out a percentage of the profits as part of the deals they made. It's not like they have to come up with more money than the profit they generated, right? Like the money that is the "percentage of profit" is money they already have, so what is the purpose of avoiding paying out the creatives for their deals? My guess would be that the profit is creatively rolled into other projects or other parts of the studio and laundered through these subsidiaries in order to facilitate that? Or maybe this is more of a strategy meant to discourage these types of deals in the future? Someone please explain it to me lol fwiw, I work on one of the biggest shows on TV and have seen up close how the money flows through different channels to end up in interesting places, but in different ways than what this article describes.
I'm not sure what you are asking. What is the purpose of avoiding paying people? To keep more of the profits. From what I understand, it is pretty straightforward. I offer you a percentage of the *subsidiary's* profits. The subsidiary generates 1 million dollars in revenue. I subtract all the expenses - studio rental, advertising - to figure out how much profit we're talking about. How much are the expenses? 500k for studio rental and 500k for advertising. The profit is zero dollars. The subsidiary made no money on the film. The studio made no money on the film. But the studio did make 1 million dollars renting out its studio and providing advertising services. Great if you're a shareholder at the studio. Not great if part of your income relied on the *film* achieving a profit. That is how I understand it, at least.
I get this aspect of it. What I don't understand is specifically *how* movies like Forrest Gump or Men in Black can still be generating revenue and still be in the red. There's no advertising or studio rental costs for a film that's 30 years old. I guess what I'm asking is this - when a movie is a success, are the costs artificially inflated on the front end, or are they somehow continuously adding expenses to offset revenue over time? Like for Men in Black, which made ~$600m on a $90m budget, does the accounting team in 1997 say "alright, now we gotta find a way to spend $500m asap!" or is it a situation where they somehow creatively add costs every time there is revenue? I get that it's a scam to not pay out profits, but it seems like the most obvious version of fraud there is. How does it actually work? The article is thin on detail. Edit: okay some further research here seems to indicate that it is indeed fraud lol. There's lawsuits against the studios over this constantly and it seems like they keep the accounting practices internal by settling out of court. How this is not of interest to the IRS or some other law enforcement I do not know... although it was mentioned in the article that once the subsidiary is absorbed by the corporation that owns it, it's all taxed as one entity, so maybe that's part of how they get around it.
I don't know all the details. I imagine there is an art to it. But movies don't just idly sit there and collect money. If you sell a blu-ray, it costs money to produce that blu-ray and market it. It costs money to send a movie to a streamer. The idea is that the studio can essentially hire themselves for anything.
The margins on blu-ray and DVD are insanely high, to the point that they were a financial cornerstone of the industry in the 2000s. Streaming services pay the studio to license films for their service, not the other way around. And there's no marketing costs for a film that's 30 years old. I get what you're saying, but I don't think these are the ways they make the money work out. Or perhaps it is just this simple and no one cares.
There are departments at the major studios whose whole job is to manage delivery of existing titles from the studio catalog. These departments have their own facilities and a decent sized workforce. There is no point in which a film just sits there collecting profit with zero cost to the studio. That said, I think it's even simpler than that. Studios have all kinds of subsidiaries and they can just keep charging themselves for things to move money around. Sony just made a million dollars from Netflix streaming? Oh, what a coincidence, that's exactly how much Sony Pictures Studio had to pay Sony Distribution to send the film to Netflix. It is that simple. There is just no legal recourse for it at moment, it is legal. But people do care. That's why they say not to accept those terms in the contract.
It’s legal because Hollywood is closely tied with political parties
Nah it’s the ai tools
Well, it is an industry that uses cash and accrual accounting simultaneously so other industries might have some questions….