Bigfoot cuts manpower redundancy

As cost-cutting measures have become a universal mechanism of companies to sustain healthy operations, foreign-owned Bigfoot Entertainment has adopted a manpower lay-off strategy and slashed 16 people out of its total 191 workers.

Bigfoot Entertainment is an international firm production company focused on English language films for the international market.

In an interview with Bigfoot Entertainment chief executive officer (COO) Matt Lubetich, he said that after the company evaluated its performance and operational movement in the last three years, it has decided to cut off some of its workers, because of assignment redundancy.

"We evaluated the company's performance in the last three years, and see how it is growing and we decided to cut cost on some people," Lubetich told The Freeman, adding that it has observed that there are people who are performing assignments that are redundant already.

"To me, it's just a minimal number, considering our total count of manpower pool," he said.

Lubetich downplayed impressions that only Filipino workers are being retrenched and alleged the firm favored the presence of the foreigner-workers, saying "we only have few foreigner employees here. All of them, including me are considered consultants, not regular workers." The company's regular or full-time workers are all Filipinos, he added.

Bigfoot Entertainment, whose flagship operation is the International Academy of Film and Television in Mactan Island, is headquartered in Los Angeles with a production office in Hong Kong.

It has maintained Bigfoot Studios at a 19,000 square-meter compound located on Mactan Island. The company invested more than US$25 million in the Bigfoot Studios with a state-of-the-art facility that includes six sound stages, 35mm and HD camera packages and telescopic cranes.

Although, the bleak economic landscape in the United States, including the Philippines, has also played a role in the company's retrenchment program, he said the action has a lot to do with achieving its target revenue performance, specifically this year.

To date, Bigfoot Academy is working on two feature films and projects from the local market.

It is also doing a series of projects for local Public Service Announcement (PSA) productions.