Working from home and the beach is almost over. Death of the iPod and Space Suits are scarce.
May 16, 2022 Volume 2 # 50
Working from Anywhere coming to a post COVID end
“It’s going to be tough to get people to come back to work,” says a friend of mine who runs a medium sized pension fund. Other people I know have been ordered back to work come August. Many of them have not only been working from home but in another city. What they have come to realize is that so much time in the office is spent on office politics. The bosses want to make sure they can see people working.
And they have found a way to see if people are goofing off. Spyware is booming.
“A study by the European Commission found that global demand for employee-spying software more than doubled between April 2019 and April 2020,” says this week’s Economist.
Note: It says Volume 2 # 50, but I am sure I dropped a week or two somewhere along the way. Time for older subscribers to renew. Any free subscriber can upgrade to paid.
Dwat that Tweety Bird
Bidus Interruptus from Elon Musk.
2001, An iPod Odyssey: Apple’s killer gadget killed this month.
Steve Jobs introduced the iPod on October 23, 2001. Bye bye Walkman. The first iPod sold for $399US, weighed 6.5 ounces had 5 gigabytes of memory and could hold 1,000 songs. The last version of the iPod was introduced in 2019, the 7th generation, 128 gigabytes. It was an iPhone without the phone.
“Apple’s 2019 iPod touch is a small, light handheld media player that’s terrific for kids and anyone who doesn’t want a full fledged smartphone,” said PC Magazine.
Apple sold 450-million iPods before cancelling it this month. The iPod was a huge earner for Apple until the introduction of the iPhone in 2007.
Coal and political promises
On Saturday morning the BBC carried an interview with German politicians promising to cut reliance on Russian Oil and move to renewables. They said no new nuclear plants. But they would continue to import Russian natural gas and Russian coal. An advanced economy like Germany strapping itself to coal while promising renewables.
Look at where China is on the coal use chart. Hypocrisy rules.
Rumour: The world’s most expensive car sold for $136.8-million
The International Motor Sports Association) wrote on Wednesday: "the record for the most expensive car ever sold is believed to have been smashed, without a Ferrari in sight."
Canadian Prime Ministers, father and son Trudeau, and their 300 SL
The Trudeau Mercedes 300SL is a stock convertible, not the specialized model that is rumoured to have sold for $138-million. Still, it’s worth a lot. Could it be subject to a wealth tax?
The Chicken or The Egg?
Essay of the Week
This is a story I wrote recently for AFBS, the pension and insurance firm for actors and screenwriters in Canada. Supply problems are everywhere.
The Supply Chain and Film and TV Production
Finding space suits isn't as easy as it used to be.
Robin Reelis is a production manager for Beacon 23, a sci-fi drama TV series being filmed in Toronto. When he needs a space suit, and who doesn't, he knows who to call. Not anymore.
"I have triple the costume staff working downstairs. The specialty costume shops in the United States either don't have the staff or the materials," Reelis says. "In the last few months, I have had to hire 14 costume specialists. Luckily Star Trek hadn't starting shooting, but those people will soon be off to Star Trek."
This story is being repeated at film and TV sets across Canada. It is the disruption in what is known as the supply chain, the system of moving things from where they are made to where they are needed is broken.
The production business is under pressure from plywood to Plexiglas and makeup trucks to steel tubing. If they can't find it, they have to adapt. We have all seen the problems: consumer goods like fridges taking months or over a year to arrive in Canada; overstretched factories making everything from computer chips for cars and trucks to exotic materials used to make space suits. It’s all on the ropes because of COVID-19 keeping workers at home. It's been building over two years, and it hasn't gone away yet.
Transport is a big problem in every production center, from Vancouver to Halifax. Two reasons. There have to be separate vehicles – called support units – for hair, where performers have to wear masks, and makeup, where they do not wear masks to have the makeup applied. That doubles the cost.
Then there is a general shortage of vehicles because manufacturers can't get parts, and rental companies can't get the supply.
"We are renting pickup trucks and other vehicles with 40,000 kilometres on them because that's all we can get," says Reelis.
Then there is cost.
"Three-quarter-inch Canadian spruce plywood, which is a staple of our structural builds, has risen from $45 a sheet to $97 a sheet," says Rob Valeriote who manages the construction department on the set of Beacon 23. "Apart from COVID, floods and fires in BC have also impacted lumber pricing and the recent sanctions on Russia have had some immediate impact on price. I doubt prices will retract any time soon, and that will affect overall production costs at least in the short term."
On that set, they not only need space suits, but they are building a complex space station. At first, it called for specialty plywood made in China. COVID-19 shut down factories in China which meant the price of renting 40-foot containers doubled at the peak of the pandemic, and has come down only slightly since then, according to Drewry a British service that tracks container rates.
That means the specialty plywood from China was not only too expensive but almost impossible to get. It was replaced by plywood from Brazil.
"I would prefer to use Canadian plywood, but it's too expensive," says Valeriote.
Steel tubing is not something you associate with making a television series, but you can't build a spaceship without it. It is expensive and hard to come by.
The supply chain mess is expected to last even longer, with factories in China closed by the latest wave of COVID-19. Prices continue to rise. Inflation is more than just a theoretical concept in the film and TV biz, it's reality.