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Dave Rand, a retired visual effects artist, had just nodded off on May 4 when his phone dinged. At first he couldn’t believe it. He read that President Trump wanted a 100% tariff on movies produced overseas.
“I thought I was dreaming,” he says. And then he got to work.
More than a decade ago, Rand organized VFX artists to protest Canadian subsidies, which were luring thousands of jobs abroad while bankrupting U.S. VFX houses. He and his friends wanted the government to fight back — not with more subsidies, but with tariffs.
The campaign sputtered out, failing to persuade anyone in power. But suddenly, years later, the most powerful person in the world was calling attention to the plight of Hollywood workers, demanding that movies be “MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN,” and wielding a stick — not a carrot.
“He’s gonna cut a fair deal,” Rand says. “You’re going to see a flow back to the U.S. It’s going to be a little painful” — particularly, he says, for workers in other countries — “but a lot of good is going to come in the long run.”
Across Hollywood, Trump’s tariff proposal was met with bafflement and horror. At the Motion Picture Association, studio leaders brainstormed ideas to redirect his attention. The unions thanked him for identifying the problem — without endorsing his solution. Rand is among the few who like where this is going. Now he’s trying to engage with “the powers that be” — actor Jon Voight and others — to lend boots-on-the-ground support.
Rand isn’t in Hollywood anymore. He once worked for Rhythm & Hues, the postproduction facility that won an Oscar in 2013 shortly after going bankrupt. (He is perhaps best known for hiring a plane to fly over the Oscar ceremony with a banner calling for a VFX union.)
Six years ago, he moved back to his hometown of Millinocket, Maine, and a couple years after that he retired. A lifelong Democrat, he voted for Trump last fall due to the promise of tariffs.
He also worked hard to get the president’s attention. He sent postcards to those in Trump’s orbit, highlighting the loss of VFX jobs and the need for action.
Rand argues that the studios are at fault, and that giving them more taxpayer money is not the answer.
“They’re using this subsidy thing like a shell game to keep us nomadic and weak,” he says. “We’re all for Trump doing what he’s doing to defeat that.”
Ever since Canada started attracting significant production volume in the late 1990s, Hollywood workers have been thinking about ways to fight back. In 2013, Daniel Lay, another former VFX artist, enlisted a law firm to brainstorm solutions.
The firm, Picard Kentz & Rowe, represents the U.S. lumber industry in its battle against Canadian timber. The firm saw a parallel with VFX — a free-market U.S. industry forced to compete against unfair Canadian subsidies — and offered parallel solutions, notably a “countervailing duty” on VFX files. In essence, a movie tariff.
The problem was that, unlike the U.S. lumber industry, the film industry wanted no part of it.
“The studios liked the system where they get to benefit from subsidies on VFX,” says attorney David Yocis, who helped author the firm’s report. “Our feeling was most of these things wouldn’t work, because the studios would have enough clout to make sure it didn’t happen.”
But just maybe — thanks to Trump — that’s not an obstacle anymore.
“At least at the moment, it appears they’re not worried about the studios’ reaction,” Yocis says.
Lay, who has since left the VFX industry, says he disagrees with “99.9% of everything Trump does.” But on this, they’re aligned. Subsidies alone, he says, create a race to the bottom. “You need a tariff to discipline the process.”
When Rand grew up in Millinocket, it was a thriving mill town. But the paper mill closed because of foreign competition in 2008. When Rand moved back, he found boarded-up storefronts. He bought his house for $40,000.
He worries a similar trend is unfolding in his industry.
“What I am for,” he says, “is creating a level playing field.”
English (US) ·