7.5: Career Patterns and Precarity in Transnational Project Networks

International production has shaped the career trajectories of film professionals in specific ways. Organizational concepts such as boundaryless careers ³⁶ and semipermanent work groups ³⁷ go some way to explaining how this phenomenon has taken shape; however, these are limited as explanatory frameworks because they do not take into account the transnational processes that accelerate some workers’ careers while restricting others to low-level positions, particularly those specializing in major Anglo-American productions. The latter find themselves in the paradoxical position of being well-paid mobile workers, thanks in part to a lack of union regulations, but with little chance of professional upward mobility. They remain trapped in a segregated work world, deprived of either the financial incentive to work on local productions or any realistic chance of the type of career development enjoyed by the foreigners running the international productions on which they work.

American-born production managers are often fast-tracked. They typically skip arguably the two most challenging career steps: being given access to the industry and being socialized in aspects of it.³⁸ Instead, they acquire prized locational knowledge and develop marketable specializations at a rate impossible in Western media hubs like London and Los Angeles. As Minkowski put it, “I could have gone back to LA and become one of thousands fighting to work on films, or I could stay here and strike out on my own.”³⁹ By contrast, for local production management, the collapse of the old hierarchical state-owned studios brought uncertainty and unemployment, but a rapid generational change granted some in their ranks swift access to the industry. The fortunate ones developed hybrid professional identities, claiming to “behave like Americans” without leaving their homeland.

To gain insight into the differences and mediating mechanisms that underpin communities of cultural workers, we can benefit from the self-reflexive comments of Czech personnel. Even those struggling to progress in the industry highlight the experience of learning rather than the feeling of being exploited. This sentiment is bound up with their construction of hybrid cultural identities. Thus the Czech soundman Petr Forejt describes himself as becoming an American filmmaker in Prague, distanced from the trivialities of a local industry in which wages and standards are low and improvisation and multitasking high.⁴⁰ Similarly, Milan Chadima, a camera operator who has worked on such projects as The Brothers Grimm (2005), spoke of American producers helping him escape the frustrations of shooting low-budget Czech films and commercials.⁴¹

These cases notwithstanding, it is clear that the careers of even the most successful Czech service production workers are characterized by striking limitations. Such individuals are not promoted to higher creative positions like department heads. They work in other international media hubs only when their employers move a project overseas and rarely take part in prestigious domestic projects. Coming closest to the privileged position of the department head were several Czech art directors, yet only one, Ondřej Nekvasil, has built what could reasonably be considered a career of international standing. Nekvasil switches between working on Czech art-house fare, teaching production design, and working as a production designer on international productions like The Illusionist (2006) and Snowpiercer (2013). Two factors underwrite Nekvasil’s distinctive transnational career trajectory. A reputation-making Emmy for Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) brought him to the attention of American producers such as David R. Kappes, who hired him for the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Children of Dune (2003). He is also fortunate to specialize in the aspect of local production services most valued by American producers—set design and construction, which, in spite of its high standards of craftsmanship, can be obtained 50 percent cheaper in Prague compared to Los Angeles. I asked Nekvasil what he felt sets him apart from those art directors who also work on medium-to-big-budget productions but have failed to match his level of professional success. Nekvasil said nothing of differences in skill, but instead suggested that they may prefer the relative calm of the art department over the greater responsibility of face-to-face interaction with foreign producers.⁴²