Day: November 12, 2019

While Southern California draws film and television students from all over the world, people in New Mexico don’t have to set foot outside the state to learn the trade, as local colleges are grooming talent for a booming entertainment industry that has sprung up about 1,200 kilometers from Hollywood.

Recently, Albuquerque Studios signed a billion-dollar contract with entertainment giant Netflix and a $500 million deal with NBC Universal Studios. These agreements come on the heels of New Mexico’s enhanced tax incentives to production companies, who film there and hire local talent. One of the seedbeds for such talent is Central New Mexico (CNM) Community College.
 

Albuquerque’s Community College, Seedbed of Local Film Industry

Teaser Description

For a few hundred dollars students train and network in Albuquerque’s thriving film industry

Program tied to jobs
 
Students at Central New Mexico Community College can learn about wardrobe assembly, electrical work, set lighting and camera operation — to name a few of the courses offered. For New Mexico residents, CNM charges $56 per credit hour; for nonresidents, $296 per credit hour. Even that price is nowhere near the five-figure yearly tuition at other colleges around the country, such as New York’s renowned School of Visual Arts, whether tuition is upwards of $50,000 a year, for a similar program.
 
Both schools promise connections and training to get their students hired. But in Albuquerque, students have an edge: a blossoming film industry that provides tax incentives for TV and film productions with crews made up of at least 60% local hires.

Amber Dodson, film liaison for the city of Albuquerque, said entertainment giant Netflix alone has committed over the next decade to spending $1 billion in production and generate 1,000 jobs a year throughout the state. She said students in Albuquerque learning “below-the-line” crafts, which include jobs on a film crew like a grip, “are getting jobs often times before they even graduate.”
 
Jim Graebner, CNM’s senior film instructor, described the school’s program for below-the-line crafts.
 
“Our program is only a two-term program, that’s basically half a (calendar) year, where we get through the whole protocol of how to make a movie and workflow, and then we expose people to all the different tools they’ll need on a set and then try to get them specialized in a different craft,” Graebner, or “Grubb” as he is known, added.
 
Work ethic
 
Graebner likened CNM’s program to a “boot camp,” where the students are working hard to learn skills to meet the needs of production companies and studios.
 
“The biggest thing we have to teach them is stamina, because they are coming in(to) a world where everybody expects an eight-hour workday. We’ve got 14 hours. It’s the average,” he said.
 
In a trade dominated by men for decades, women are beginning to make inroads.
 
“I have women – especially Hollywood’s big on upping the percentage of women on all the below-the-line (non-cast member) crafts – I have women who are grips now and they don’t have to be huge or strong. So, if you’re a woman, want to become a grip, I can get you a job tomorrow,” Graebner said.
 
Apart from learning to be a grip – that is, to be part of a team that builds and develops a movie set – students receive mentoring and gain on-set experience.
 
Graebner said the school connects students with the local union, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) 480, where they train with a paid union member and get evaluated for their skills. If they show competency, they can get into the workforce pipeline for the industry, which the union has negotiated for safe working conditions and labor benefits.
 
Good prospects
 
CNM instructional technician Gabe Reyes works full time at CNM and also freelances for the film industry.

With the influx of Hollywood in Albuquerque, Reyes said CNM’s Applied Technologies and Film program has taken off since he started in the summer of 2018.

Karen Grandinetti, enrollment strategist of CNM School of Applied Technologies, said the program had 220 students enrolled in the summer of 2018. This fall, there are 657 students.

Prospects are also good for homegrown New Mexican directors and actors who want to build a career in their home state.

One of them is Riley Del Rey, a student actor in the film program at CNM, who recently completed a short film called “Doubt.”
 
“I think it’s important for people that are moving here to work on productions to take a look at our work and to start selecting their directors and their talent from this market because that’s what’s going to get people to stay and that’s it’s gonna uplift our state,” she says.
 
Del Rey also pointed to the importance not having to set foot outside the state where she grew up to learn the trade and seek job opportunities.
 
“What’s making me stay here is that this is the place I’m getting my chops, and it’s where I have family. I also know people in the industry and, with the film community growing so much, it’s just more places for me to find where I fit in here,” Del Rey said. “It’s also less daunting than traveling thousands of miles to go somewhere where I’m not familiar with and (where) it’s kind of a make-it-or-break-it situation.

“I still have to take risks, but I still have all the support from my network here at school but also the family ties that I have to New Mexico,” she added.

…

An airstrike carried out by American forces in eastern Afghanistan has mistakenly killed at least four Afghan soldiers and injured six others.

A provincial police spokesman said the overnight incident occurred in the troubled Logar province during clashes between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents.

Shahpoor Ahamadzai told VOA the fighting erupted Monday night after insurgents assaulted a security outpost near the provincial capital of Pul-e-Alam.

The Taliban attack prompted the Afghan National Army (ANA) to call in U.S. air support, which resulted in the “friendly fire” incident, Ahmadzai explained.

A U.S. military spokesman told VOA it was aware of reports an American airstrike conducted in support of Afghan forces may have resulted in ANA casualties.

“U.S. and Afghan forces are working closely together to develop a shared understanding of this event. A joint investigation is ongoing,” the spokesman said.

Separately, the provincial police confirmed a U.S. convoy was struck by a suicide car bomber near a foreign military base just outside Pul-e-Alam.

A U.S. military spokesman confirmed the attack, saying it only killed the assailant driving the vehicle.

“No U.S. or Coalition service members were wounded or killed in the attack. We are investigating the incident,” the spokesman added.

There were no claims of responsible from the Taliban, which often claims attacks against U.S. and NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan.  

…

Australians and Vietnamese are getting into a beef over pork.

After news last month that Australia withdrew a visa for a Vietnamese woman who brought pork to the country, another Vietnamese citizen faced the same punishment for a similar offense this month, prompting the Australian government to release an official statement on the matter.

The first time the pork crime happened, the reaction in Vietnam was one of bemusement. Local newspapers asked, “a woman didn’t declare the pork in her luggage and got deported?”   It wasn’t exactly cannabis or rhino horns. Locals made light of the news.

Australia “has plenty of stuff like Vietnam, why transport anything and make things difficult?” one commentator said in the state controlled Tuoi Tre newspaper.

But by the time of the second offense, Australia explained why it was more serious than a few undeclared items: swine flu.

“Travelers are banned from bringing most pork products from African swine fever countries into Australia.”  Australian Minister for Agriculture Bridget McKenzie said in a statement released last week. “It’s one of the heightened measures our government put in place to keep the devastating disease out of Australia and to protect our 2,700 pork producers.”

Although the two Vietnamese travelers appeared to be just bringing presents to relatives, they got caught up in a cross-border kerfuffle. Swine flu has been wreaking havoc across Asia, especially in the huge markets of China and Vietnam, where pork is a meat staple. These two and other nations have had to cull millions of pigs to contain the outbreak. Amid the pork shortage, prices have nearly doubled in some places in the past year, and China has reconsidered its limitations on U.S. pork imports despite the two sides fighting a trade war.

Bridget McKenzie said Australia had reason to worry that the outbreak could spread. “A recent round of testing found nearly 50 percent of pork products seized from air travelers tested positive for African swine fever,” she said.

Still,  many in Vietnam defended the travelers, feeling deportation was a grave punishment for an honest mistake. Australia could have confiscated the offending items and then allowed the travelers to proceed. Instead it deported them and prohibited them from returning for three years.

“We should also sympathize with her because she was just used to eating things a certain way in Vietnam,” netizen Hoang Tran said of the female traveler on Facebook.

Australia and Vietnam have an interest in maintaining a good relationship. Australia has had a huge population of Vietnamese since the Vietnam War, and it continues to receive many students going abroad for university.

Vietnam is one of Australia’s fastest growing trade markets in Southeast Asia, with trade growing approximately 12 percent a year on average, according to the Australian Trade and Investment Commission.
Australian Ambassador to Vietnam in Hanoi Robyn Mudie underscored the importance of that relationship.
“Australia appreciates Vietnam’s support in helping to protect Australia from serious biosecurity threats and hopes that travelers from Vietnam can continue to enjoy Australia’s hospitality,” she said.

…

Exiled Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy said Tuesday the European Union’s assessment of whether to suspend trade privileges for his country will add momentum to efforts to restore democracy despite a government crackdown.

The EU finalized a preliminary report Tuesday that Sam Rainsy said would be the basis for suspending trade privileges for Cambodia. The EU announced earlier this year that it would begin a monitoring process to decide on the ending of preferential duty-free and quota-free imports from the Southeast Asian nation. It said it acted on concerns that Cambodia was limiting human and labor rights.
 
The EU did not immediately make the report public but said it had been sent to the Cambodian authorities.
 
The report comes amid several developments that have shaken the Cambodian political scene.
 
Sam Rainsy made a well-publicized trip in which he vowed to return to his homeland to spark a popular movement to unseat long-serving authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen. Cambodia’s government had said he and other exiled colleagues were unwelcome, and managed to hinder them from entering on Saturday, their intended date.
 
However, as Sam Rainsy found himself stuck in Malaysia, a Cambodian court announced Sunday that it was releasing from house arrest Kem Sokha, his co-leader in the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, who had been detained without trial for more than two years on a treason charge widely seen as specious. It retained the charge against him and barred him from political activity.
 
The release of Kem Sokha suggested that Hun Sen, whose hard line included detaining scores of opposition supporters accused of supporting Sam Rainsy’s return plan, may be seeking to assuage his critics — especially the EU — by projecting an image of compromise.
 
The possibility of the EU junking Cambodia’s trade privileges is perhaps the greatest leverage the opposition holds over the situation, as an economic downturn could erode the support Hun Sen has earned with Cambodia’s economic growth.
 
“If they don’t want Cambodia to face an economic crisis, with hundreds of thousands of workers losing their jobs, they must restore democracy,” Sam Rainsy told a news conference outside Malaysia’s Parliament building after meeting a group of Malaysian lawmakers.
 
The EU initiated its move after Hun Sen’s ruling party won a sweeping victory in 2018 elections. The EU and others said the polls were not free and fair because the Cambodia National Rescue Party — the sole credible opposition force — was dissolved in 2017 by Cambodia’s Supreme Court, which is seen as being under the government’s influence.
 
Sam Rainsy insisted Tuesday that the timing was now right for peaceful resistance to topple Hun Sen’s government due to the “unique combination of internal pressure and external pressure.”
 
Phnom Penh’s release of Kem Sokha from house arrest was an indication of mounting pressure on the government, he said.
 
Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng said Sunday on his Facebook page that Sam Rainsy was now allowed to enter Cambodia but would have to face a raft of charges and standing convictions. Sam Rainsy did not say Tuesday when he might make the journey.
 
“I will stay in the region because the situation can change very quickly, and I will go back to Cambodia,” he said.
      

…

One brother is considered a shoo-in for the job of Sri Lanka’s president in elections this weekend and another is eyeing the prime minister’s post when that election becomes due early next year.

Two other brothers are political strategists for their Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party and one of them is considering a shot at becoming the speaker in parliament. Three men of the family’s next generation are also in politics.

The Rajapaksas, best known for the brutal defeat of separatist Tamil rebels and then drawing Sri Lanka into China’s orbit when the West and India shunned the Indian Ocean island, are back at the centre of the nation’s deeply divisive politics and it is stoking fear.

While there are no formal opinion polls, former defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the hot favorite to win the presidential election this Saturday. His chief opponent Sajith Premadasa, a government minister, is seen to be trailing.

Gotabaya led the operations against the Tamil Tigers when his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa was president. Gotabaya has faced lawsuits in Sri Lanka and in the United States over allegations of staged killings of Tamil separatists, critics and journalists during the war.

Both brothers deny the allegations as part of a Western conspiracy to interfere in the island nation of 22 million that sits astride vital shipping lanes and has long been a tinder-box of tensions between the dominant Sinhalese Buddhists and minority ethnic Tamils.

In recent months, Sinhalese hardliners have also targeted the tiny Muslim community.

Mahinda lost the 2015 presidential election to a Cabinet colleague who turned against him — Maithripala Sirisena. After his ouster, the family’s fortunes fell into decline.

But Easter Sunday bombings on hotels and churches, in which more than 250 people were killed, derailed Sirisena’s presidency, and he has announced he will not contest this year.

The attacks, claimed by Islamic State, have rekindled support for the Rajapaksas and their brand of Sinhalese nationalism.

Mahinda is barred from running for president again, and is on the stump for Gotabaya, bringing an affable touch to the campaign against the rather gruff manner of his brother, more known for his military machismo.

Another brother, Basil, handles the party finances and striking deals with rival groups while a fourth brother and former speaker, Chamal, campaigns in the family borough in the south of the island.

Family prospect

Mahinda, who is currently leader of the opposition in parliament, is the obvious choice for prime minister when parliamentary elections are held early next year, said Keheliya Rambukwella, spokesman for the Gotabaya campaign.

Chamal Rajapaksa would be the choice for parliament speaker, a position he has previously held, political experts say. In all, seven members of the family are involved in politics, and some of the others could also end up in parliament.

“We are going to see family rule again, and all the excesses that came up with it the last time,” said Health Minister Rajitha Senarathne, who is opposed to the Rajapaksas. “They will suppress all dissent.”

In a front page editorial, the state-run Sunday Observer said it was “afraid” of a Gotabaya presidency and appealed to voters to make the “right choice.”

“A wrong choice will send the country hurtling toward authoritarianism and iron-fisted rule,” it said.

Gotabaya’s spokesman dismissed warnings of family rule, saying the candidate was quite clear merit will be only consideration for top political jobs.

“When Gotabaya comes to power he will appoint people with qualification to the positions, irrespective of their ties to him,” Rambukwella said.

On the campaign, Gotabaya has been uncompromising about the need to strengthen security, repeatedly raising the circumstances that led to the Easter Sunday attacks.

At a campaign rally in Wellawaye in central Sri Lanka Gotabaya said during his time as defense secretary, he had raised special military and intelligence units to tackle extremism, drug trafficking networks and the underworld. These cells had since been weakened, he said.

“There can be no higher priority than national security,” he said.

…