When I first joined SAG, Producers did not even have to list stunt people!

Anyway Bakula is a stand up guy and takes the fact that enterprise was cancelled in a humorous light. If i was him i would be pissed to be replaced by JJ’s movie.

A desendent of Porthos.

Dogtanian naturally!

Films employ hundreds to thousands of very specialized people. Most of whom are simply workers who go where they are told and move what they are told. Their direction is overseen by a select few department heads. A win for the department head is a win for the staff hired by that person who ultimately followed their direction and helped them achieve the acknowledgment. And everyone involved gets to put it on their resume.

When a director or producer accepts an award for best film, they are lucky to even be able to name the department heads, much less even thank them all in their acceptance speech. As far as the viewing public is concerned the director, or producer are solely responsible for the film, along with the actors and perhaps the writers. Are you really suggesting that outside of the limelight of national television and media coverage, the other specialized departments are not entitled to some level of recognition which is just as prominent on screen as the others’?

Further, are you actually suggesting that the film that wins best picture contains the best of all crafts? If Star Trek won best picture, should everyone assume that it had the best costumes of any movie created in 2010 (despite the fact they were just updates of a 40 year old design)? The artisans who contribute to these films are just as deserving of recognition from their peers and colleagues within the industry, if only to get their next job. Why should a department head who did outstanding work be overlooked for acknowledgement simply because they did not happen to do it on the film that won best picture?

And while the Osacrs represent the creme de la creme for many of these technical awards which the average person does not see either, there is far more merit within the individual guilds whose members carry most of the burden of the day to day work and as such are in a position to evaluate the work differently than merely the limited pool of past Oscar winners, or nominees. There is real value to being acknowledged by the people in the guild, which unlike the elite Oscar groups are made up of those “smaller players” you are so concerned about, who in effect are voting for themselves despite not being so named. Or would you deny them the ability to disagree with the Academy’s vote as well as to honor those individual sub-groups who have no counterpart for recognition in the Oscars?

So really what is your point? Who are you really concerned about here that you would deny these people the chance to receive proper recognition and not simply settle for that dictated by the Oscars?

With all due respect to Terry Jackson, a brilliant stuntman and coordinator, Joey Box was the principal stunt coordinator on Star Trek. Mr. Box worked as assistant stunt coordinator for stunt legend Vic Armstrong on M:I-3 for JJ. When Mr. Armstrong was unavailable for Trek, Mr. Box was promoted to coordinator. Mr. Box is also working as stunt coordinator on JJ’s new television pilot Undercovers.

I know all this because I worked on both M:I-3 and Trek — just to clarify my source of information.

I just wanted to point all this out to give Mr. Box his deserved recognition.

Once again you missed my point. So, I will state it again. Awards are not the problem. But dividing them into tiny sub-categories is. It is self-congratulatory to those who are included and exclusionary to the majority of the smaller players involved in the production who are not.

I believe that I made no comments about the quality of the work that stunt people do. I simply believe that the work needs to be viewed as a whole and not chopped into sub-categories based on various political affiliations within the industry.

As for being in the film industry, you are quite correct. I am not. I am in the Video Game Industry and sadly our working conditions are probably as bad if not worse than the film industry. Our development times average 24 months and our “crunch” times (6-7 day work days) can go on for months on end as we try and launch a product. And if your game wins an award, it ends up on a shelf in a publishers lobby or as a marketing sticker on the front of the box and neither does much for your bank account. So while I am not in the film industry, my industry is about as close a parallel as you might find.

But in the end, my opinion on the matter is mine and I am free to express it here. And you are free to disagree…

I am going to move on to the next thread….see you there!