J3ba, or, How to Make a Movie in Morocco
The LA Times just put out a fascinating article on production costs for the (very boring) movie Sahara, which was filmed in Morocco, of course. The funniest part?
• “Courtesy payments,” “gratuities” and “local bribes” totaling $237,386 were passed out on locations in Morocco to expedite filming. A $40,688 payment to stop a river improvement project and $23,250 for “Political/Mayoral support” may have run afoul of U.S. law, experts say.
The most pathetic part?
Although portions of the movie were shot in Britain and Spain, most of the filming was done in Morocco, a country in North Africa that has become a popular site for U.S. filmmakers. “Babel,” “Syriana,” “Black Hawk Down” and “Kingdom of Heaven” all have benefited from Morocco’s welcoming environment, favorable exchange rate and cheap labor.
An “assistant propman” on “Sahara,” for example, earned a weekly salary of $233, the equivalent of one day’s pay for a U.S. prop worker.
April 17th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Yuck! I found that article too - granted, $1,000/month for a Moroccan living in the Ouarzazate area is a whole lot of money, but still. Yuck.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Just market forces at work, they would say. Anything to avoid paying union wages. Love the part about stopping the river improvement project. Where was the money to “start” the improvements again, I mean if hollywood cares so much about the environment.
April 23rd, 2007 at 10:37 am
[…] Liosliath posted highlights of the article in her blog, highlighting “the most pathetic part” as this: “An ‘assistant propman’ on Sahara, for example, earned a weekly salary of $233, the equivalent of one day’s pay for a U.S. prop worker.” […]
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I fail to see anything particularly shocking about the wage.
Moroccan labour productivity is low, as are base costs for labour: cost of housing, cost of food, etc, above all in the typical consumption pattern of your average Mohammed. Comparing US wages to Moroccan wages naively as in the article says nothing about anything, other than perhaps aggressive illiteracy in economics.
Morocco would never attract any films at all if the wages were to rise, given present standards in terms of work ethic, productivity, and administrative efficiency.
April 25th, 2007 at 5:25 am
What’s the proper going rate, bribery and work in Morocco…
Via our aggregator (which perhaps is only slightly less well-known than our book reviews section, I stumbled across this review of reaction to the Casa bombings and vaguely related commentary. An item that I particularly noted was the reaction to……