DGA 1stAD local hire in Budapest - FAQ

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AICP COMMERCIALS

 

When transporting a DGA director from North America, no DGA waiver is required to engage Marco as a DGA 1stAD local hire in Budapest on commercials with 3 or fewer shoot days. For commercials with 4 or more shoot days, a waiver of DGA National Commercial Agreement Section 1-202(A) must be requested as a matter of procedural courtesy. If the DGA director is from the rest of the world no waiver is needed regardless of the number of shoot days.

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FEATURE FILMS & TV DRAMA​

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When transporting a DGA director from North America to work on a production based in Budapest, and you want to engage Marco as 1stAD, you should give the Guild written notice, that a 1stAD will not be be taken from the USA, as a matter of procedural courtesy. Reasons for using a local guild member with 30 years industry experience are fairly obvious: local filming knowledge, established crew relationships and huge cost savings, but also with regards to BA Section 17-200*, a US 1stAD assignment would result in a loss of a foreign production subsidy. Since Marco is a Budapest resident and operates a Hungarian LLC, he is applicable for the production subsidy at 37.5% instead of 0% for US residents. Engaging Marco would also fuflill a large part of the required HU spend/qouta in order to qualify for the incentive, which also increases the overall effective tax rebate from 30% to 37.5% (of the qualifying Hungarian budget). The non-Hungarian eligible spend is capped at 25%. ​​​​

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BA Section 17-200 is essentially just there to ensure that a Guild member is engaged in the position of 1stAD, be they from the USA or the rest of the world. The DGA strongly supports the view, that the choice of 1stAD remains a production decision. BA Section 7-201** and the Code of Preferred Practices in the DGA Commercials agreement 2021/23 both underwrite this.

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If the DGA director is from the rest of the world no written notice to the guild is required.​​​

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Please reach out to me directly, if you have any questions or need my assistance to help engage with my DGA reps in this matter.

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* BA Section 17-200 - "No (USA) First Assistant Director need be sent to any foreign production where an applicable foreign labor restriction, quota or law prohibits such an assignment or when such assignment would result in a loss of a foreign production subsidy"

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** BA Section 17-201 & Code of Preferred Practices Commercials agreement - "The Director shall have the right to select the First Assistant Director".

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