From IndieWire: Art Directors Guild Suspends Training Program: ‘We Cannot in Good Conscience Encourage You to Pursue Our Profession’

Very bad news for arts related professions. 

What is the motivation of the guild? 

To protect current members from competition? Regardless, a radical shift has been underway in the arts industry. It is up to members of the profession to make the proper adjustments. 

- Click here for the article.

Art Directors Guild is suspending its Production Design Initiative program, designed to give hands-on training and job placement opportunities to those seeking a career in the field, according to an email sent to prospective applicants and acquired by IndieWire. (Read the full statement below.)

In the email, ADG cited its membership’s 75 percent unemployment as the reason, concluding: “Given this situation we cannot in good conscience encourage you to pursue our profession while so many of our members remain unemployed.”

The ADG is one of the largest IATSE locals with approximately 3,000 members, and houses a wide range of art department professions including production designers, art directors, set designers, illustrators, model makers, as well as matte, scenic, previs, and graphic artists.

The industry has not resumed a full, pre-strikes level of productions, and it remains unclear if a return to that status quo is possible in a Hollywood gripped by ever-higher costs, ever-lower revenue, and increased production abroad.

This comes in the midst of IATSE renegotiating a new three-year contract with the AMPTP in an effort to avoid a strike, and as crew are hyper-focused on the labor issues facing their profession. Like others in IATSE, ADG members have gone through a particularly hard stretch with loss of work during the pandemic, WGA and SAG strikes, and the current contraction that’s slowed TV and movie production and sent more of it overseas.

In the current negotiations, the top issue for the AMPTP and IATSE will be the funding of health and pension benefits directly funded by residuals. The Basic Agreement signatory companies expect a $670 million shortfall in health and pension over the next three years due to fewer productions overall and/or more content produced outside the Basic jurisdiction.

The language used in that message, which came after the ADG’s five-and-a-half-hour annual membership meeting, is eerily similar to what would-be PDI trainees received. “While I don’t want to see any members leave our union family, I know more than a few who are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy or losing their home,” ADG leadership wrote to its members at the end of April. “I’ve spoken with several who are questioning whether to pivot to other endeavors. This information might be very useful to them as they contemplate their futures.”