A vent-y sort of post. Skip, but only if you're a Communist.You know what I love? I love spending my last day on a shoot with a person I intensely dislike. I
especially love putting myself in physical danger during these times.
(For those of you that know me, you know that I don't dislike anybody. To repeat myself in different words: I like everybody. I make one exception.)
I don't enjoy hanging out with my friends on set (of which I have many). I despise wrapping principal photography early, cleaning up for a few hours and being on the road home after lunch. One of my
biggest pet peeves is having a job for the rest of the year. I really just couldn't...
...wait a second...
Sorry. Reverse all that and you'll have my day. I'd go into detail, but it'd just be tedious. Here's a hightlight that's pretty endemic of the whole day:
* * *ME (DREW) and REGULAR STAND-IN talk to each other about the shot. The shot, in this case, involves merging on to a highway, crossing three lanes of traffic in half a mile, crossing beneath camera going fifteen miles below the posted limit and crossing three lanes of traffic again to make the exit a quarter mile down the road. Turn around. Go back to point one. Repeat. ME and REGULAR STAND-IN discuss the
safest way to perform the shot.
BANE OF MY EXISTENCE (BOME)
(interrupting)
It doesn't matter. Let's just get the shot.
ME
Look, I'm just trying to get an idea of what to expect here. Do you want my ten second warning from when I see the 1/2 MILE OLIVE sign, or do you want my ten second warning as I pass the sign?
BOME
I told you already!
ME
No, you didn't.
BOME
When you see the sign, ten second warning.
ME
Fine.
(to REGULAR STAND-IN)
When can I expect the sign?
BOME
Let's just do it!
ME
Okay, you know what?
[At this point we launched into an argument about my pay. The upshot of it is this: I was being paid as a production assistant (PA). That's a guaranteed fourteen hour paycheck at $126 over that course of time. As a photo double--the role I was playing today--I would be paid $130/8. That is, I'd be paid $130 for eight hours of work, after which I would receive generous amounts of overtime pay. Now Screen Actors Guild (SAG) rules dictate that a photo doubles must be paid--at the minimum--according to the standard SAG photo double rate, the aforementioned $130/8. Essentially what they were doing was getting me for less pay that I should have received--against SAG regulations, I might add--by using me as a photo double but paying me as a production assistant. I argued that I should be paid as a photo double instead of a PA because at that point it looked like we were going to far exceed eight hours whilst our peers at the soudnstage had already camera wrapped. Thus, it would be financially beneficial (and fall within SAG law) to pay me for the photo double role that I was playing. Follow? Anyway...]
BOME
DREW, tell me honestly: do you want to go home?
ME
Yep.
BOME
Uh...
DREW stares.
BOME
(looooong pause)
You've got the photo double voucher.
ME
I'd love it if you called Athena.
[Now, this bit is important because BOME has no authority over such matters. In other words, he can't make the decision if I got a photo double voucher. Athena--our 2nd assistant director--or Rachel--our set coordinator--would be the person to make the decision as to whether or not I received a voucher. In other other words, BOME was talking out of his ass. Having no authority to authorize giving me a voucher, he was lying to my face.]
BOME
You've got the voucher.
ME
I'd love it if you called Athena.
BOME
You've got the voucher.
REGULAR STAND-IN
Now, guys. We're all working together on this. Let's not...
(blah, blah, blah)
[REGULAR STAND-IN is a good dude, and way too kind for his own good. I only backed off because I didn't want to get him in the middle of an argument between ME and BOME. Uh, so yeah. I don't have to write the rest of the dialogue. I pretended to accept the voucher knowing full well I wouldn't receive a single extra penny due to me.]
* * *The best part of this story is that BOME let me go early, then later told our production coordinator that I demanded a photo double voucher and to only work eight hours, or I would walk. As you can see, like any good lie, it has grains of truth in it.
The nice thing is that I don't have to deal with BOME for the rest of the year. The not-so-nice thing is that I don't have to deal with him because the next
McBride movie is postponed until after the new year, so no guaranteed work until then. Something about German investors. It's
always the goddamned German investors.
So I apologize for both the tone and subject matter of this post. It's by far the most "Hollywood" of my LA posts, but that's how the day went down. That's the life I live. I hope those of you who actually made it this far learned something about The Business and some of the pressures working therein. You can see from this microcosmic example why it's a good idea for actors, directors and everybody in the film industry to be well-versed in entertainment law. It's all a big game, and you can lose pretty quick if you don't place your pieces judiciously or utilize them strategically.
That's right. I'm leaving you on a
Risk reference.
Watching:Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Midnight showing. Oh yes. I'm relatively to somewhat excited. I've also never read the books. Go ahead and send any hate mail to the comments section.)
Reading:
Wholeness and the Implicate Order
Transmetropolitan Vol. 2: Lust for Life (Finished.)
Transmetropolitan Vol. 3: Year of the Bastard (Finished.)
Transmetropolitan Vol. 4: The New Scum
Listening to:
The Next Fifty Years, Science in the First Half of the Twenty-first Century
D
