Thank God It's Friday.
My end of week romps took me to Disney TVA at the Frank Wells Building, Rough Draft, and good old Film Roman.
At Rough Draft in Glendale, I eased past workmen installing a new front door and visited the Sit Down, Shut Up artistic staff. The show is humming along now, and most everyone Sony/Rough Draft intends to hire has been hired. The animated sitcom goes on the air next April, so my stoolies tell me. (The actual date I heard was April 19. Hopefully it's accurate).
At Disney Television Animation / Frank Wells, there are a handful of shows happening. The Replacements is in post, with most (all?) of the artistic staff gone; Inspector Oso remains in production, and Phineas and Ferb is bopping along with its new season.
As I walked down the hall, I heard artists making gallows jokes about My Friends, Tigger and Pooh. Bad news, apparently, gets around. And gets reactions. (When you're an animation employee, that reaction is often black humor.)
And over near the fabled Bob Hope Airport, the Goode Family and King of the Hill half-hours are almost fully staffed at Film Roman/Starz Media. A newer employee on GF said:
"This is my second time at Film Roman, and I like working here. I particulalry like this show. People are mellow, people are nice, and I'm not working 80 hours a week and getting paid for 40 like I was on my last gig."
Which brings up the eternal, ever-present "unpaid overtime" phenomena. The subject was brought up multiple times this week by board artists and directors. As one of them said:
"It's a market thing. You know damn well what the situation is when you're taking work home or working at the studio 'til ten. There's lots of unemployed artists out there, and if you don't knuckle under and do the extra work for free, they'll go find somebody who will.
"Back in the nineties, the shoe was on the other foot. The studios were hard up for qualified talent, and a lot of us took advantage of that. But now, it ain't going to happen" ...
Fatalistic, wouldn't you say?
I had another long discussion with a board artist about this earlier in the week. He totally got that union reps can't follow people home to find out if they're working off the clock or not. If people ignore the collective bargaining agreement and/or labor law and work extra hours without additional compensation, then nobody can stop them (though at various times, I give it the good old college try.)
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7 comments:
"Back in the nineties, the shoe was on the other foot. The studios were hard up for qualified talent, and a lot of us took advantage of that."
"Took advantage of ... " what ? Getting paid overtime for hours worked ? How is that "taking advantage of" anyone ? Makes it sound sort of underhanded or sneaky . But if you work 14 hours a day you ought to get paid for 14 hours .
Oh, the audacity of those animation artists , thinking they should be paid for overtime work. How dare they take advantage of the poor studios like that ?
Maybe that's not what the guy meant (I hope not if he's a guild member) but that's sort of what it sounds like.
I don't run around with a cassette recorder and notebook. Understand these quotes are written from memory.
But the gist of what he was saying was, people felt more inclined to stand up for their rights because there was more work and fewer artists, and they were harder to replace.
They felt safer.
Thanks for clarifying , Steve.
But even so ...
Is standing up for one's rights (to be paid for the actual hours worked, straight time and over time) equated now with "taking advantage of" the studios ?
The fact that people no longer feel that it is safe to stand up for those rights (guaranteed in the guild contract) tells us exactly who is being taken advantage of and by whom.
"people felt more inclined to stand up for their rights because there was more work and fewer artists, and they were harder to replace."
If someone is replaced (i.e. fired) for refusing to work unpaid overtime that is a federal crime is it not ?
As someone who works at one of the studios mentioned above, I can safely say that had I claimed the small amount of overtime hours I worked, I probably would not be working there anymore after our episode was finished weeks later. The producer would've likely dismissed me as "too slow" and would've found a replacement almost immediately.
These battles are easier to fight when entire crews are involved. When everyone agrees that the schedule is too tight and they're all working overtime, it gives them more leverage when combating management for overtime compensation. However, that wasn't the case with me.
If someone is replaced (i.e. fired) for refusing to work unpaid overtime that is a federal crime is it not ?
Sure. As is being fired for union organizing activity, working for less than the minimum wage, working without overtime compensation in "non-exempt" categories, etc.
But guess what There's "the law" and then there's nasty old reality. And the reality is, people are abused and stomped on all the time. And there is minimal government enforcement.
Federal agencies are pretty much comatose when it comes to enforcement. (Bad under Clinton, worse under Bush.) Happily, California enforcement is a bit better.
Glad to answer the question. Sorry it's not a cheerier response.
These battles are easier to fight when entire crews are involved. When everyone agrees that the schedule is too tight and they're all working overtime, it gives them more leverage when combating management for overtime compensation. However, that wasn't the case with me.
Right on the money. EVERYONE needs to stand up for themselves. The studios will HAPPILY run roughshod over the artists...IF THE ARTISTS LET THEM DO IT.
The Union can't fight for the artists if the artists aren't even willing to fight for themselves. The studios don't give a rat's ass about your schedule, how it affects your health, and whether you're burned out by it in a couple of months later. It's up to YOU and your fellow pals to stand the hell up for yourselves if you want to actually last in this business without having a mental breakdown or ten.
It gets frustrating to hear a lot of kvetching about how bad schedules are, but I haven't heard of groups of artists saying, "ENOUGH!" and putting their feet down by not doing the unpaid overtime to meet the ridiculous schedules non-artists with short attention spans and a golden parachute come up with.
If everyone did it, things would change. For the better, even.
Being relatively new to the animation industry, I am completely and utterly saddened by the amount of people working unpaid overtime and screwing up quotas all over town. It's unfair to the rest of us that would like to enjoy a somewhat regular working week, this includes not wanting to go in on the weekend. The weather is too nice to be stuck inside on a weekend my friends. I say throw down your pencils, and computers on friday and head home to enjoy the weekend. Well maybe not the computer. Maybe you should just turn it off, but turn it off with a firm click of the mouse.
Go be with friends and loved ones. If you have no friends because you work all the time, then stop working all weekend long and make some friends. Join a club. There are lots of life drawing session on the weekend with very friendly people. Everyone enjoys making new friends. Please, enjoy the company of others. We know the producers do. Well, that is if a producer has a heart that's not made of ice or stone, then they will enjoy loved ones. And if they do have a stone-cold heart, then they still work a regular work week and go home to enjoy rolling in their piles of money that they are reaping in bonuses because they have saved the studio a ton of money. And where did they get that money you ask? Well it's from your unpaid overtime. They go home and, so should everyone else.
Do not fear the quota. If you do good hard quality work and miss quota no one will fire you. The work that gets done by you will not need that much corrections and it will save time in the end. Just keep telling yourself, "I are not the one that created the insane quota, so it's not my fault if it can't be achieved."
I mean if everyone misses their quota then what would happen. We all get fired? I highly doubt it. Does the world come to an end because Simpsons is a week late to air on Fox? Again I doubt it. We are not finding the cure for cancer my friends.
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