Down below, the following back-and-forth took place:
Anonymous: And why not an 839 roster? Then maybe the majority of your membership wouldnt be on honorary withdrawal. Why do other IATSE affiliated unions have a roster in which their members are called when work is available and not 839? It seems wrong.
Hulett: TAG has no roster because no rosters were being put in place in 1951-52, when the guild (then the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists) was formed.
In the past, we have shared jurisdiction with Local 800, and no doubt will again. The studios like to hire the artists they believe best for the job. One studio exec said to me recently:
"If Local 800 tries to block board artists we want to hire, we'll take the show non-union and hire who we think is right for the job ..."
(I have brought this problem up to both Local 800 and the IATSE.)
But to the issue of a roster. If a roster wasn't part of our landscape in 1951-52, I doubt it will be part of it now. Naturally, we can propose creating one in the next round of negotiations, if the membership desires it. But proposing is one thing, getting the proposal into the contract another.
And think about it: you want to be denied a job because you're not on a list? ...
My position on rosters is two-fold: 1) Local 839 doesn't have one and is unlikely to get one. 2) Rosters work don't very well for job occupations requiring lots of skill and talent.
(Anybody imagine the Writers Guild of America having a list of "qualified" scribes? "I'm sorry Ms. Rowling, you're not on the industry experience roster, so forget writing in Hollywood. We don't care how many novels you've written about this boy wizard person ...")
The idea is ludicrous ...
But forget what I think. I'm just an old, broken-down ex-story person. Here's the take of somebody working in the field:
Life as a freelancer is always precarious. I was offered a job last week working on the proposed remake of the James Thurber classic, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty . In this slow economy, this was major excitement. However, once I talked with the coordinator, I was told politely that they couldn't hire me because I wasn't a member of the Local 800, the Hollywood live action storyboard union. Despite my resume and list of credits, I've had this same situation happen a number of times over the years. It's always a source of frustration. ...
If admission to the "club" was based on a qualified entry process that might be more acceptable.But there is no portfolio review or even apprenticeship in the process. If artists were being excluded because of race, sex, or age there are fair hiring laws to protect us. Myself and others aren't being blacklisted, as many creative people were in Hollywood in the 50's, we are simply being "non-listed". The "club" process is supremely arbitrary. If you're in,you're in, if you're not, you're not.
... The great irony of course, is that virtually the only way you can get in the union these days is by becoming a "scab" and taking a non-union job. The hope is that the project will go union, and you will be "grandfathered" in. The union and their membership always caution us not to take those jobs, since we are hurting their bargaining position whenever we do so. But if you don't take those jobs, you will certainly never be admitted to the union. It is a "catch 22." ...
The worlds of animation and live-action are becoming less distinct and separate all the time. Is live-action visual effects really animation? Is animation identical to live-action? The crafts use the same personnel, tools, and skill-sets, but maybe the people working on the "live-action" side of the aisle really do deserve to be in a special, restricted club.
What do you think?
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17 comments:
Yes..........
...... Why do other IATSE affiliated unions have a roster in which their members are called when work is available?
The Camera Union still has a roster and it's a mess. When at Dream Quest we were penalized when we hired a couple of people we thought who were more qualified (and the couple of roster people we interviewed wouldn't work the 2nd shift so they weren't an option). So even though we were a union shop and hired union people we were penalized.
As a union member if I don't put in enough 'official' hours I'm taking off the roster. Guess what? The camera union doesn't support vfx supervisors even though they have a number of them. So in the end many vfx supervisors get bumped off the roster.
The idea of what the unions are supposed to do got lost. If there is a vfx union I would strongly urge no roster monkey business. Doesn't help anything.
As a dual card holder I can tell you I've never gotten work off the ADG roster. I've gotten calls - mainly for development because somehow they failed to separate the 2 categories with a roster of their own.
From what I can tell ever since the storyboarders and artists were absorbed into the newly formed 800 we've been pretty marginalized (as was expected).
Not only do rosters not work (if a producer wants to they can easily get around the roster - oh, sorry you don't know this obscure program> we can't use you then), but the artists of 800 should be absorbed into TAG. The smart 800 storyboard artists already seek work in animation and many are in TAG already.
Plus TAG dues are a lot cheaper
I don't think the Union needs a roster but I would love to see a place on their site that "union members" can access and see all CURRENT job openings that are listed at the different studios.
Meh...studios rarely list that they're looking for specific positions. Most jobs are garnered through word of mouth.
Except for the tech jobs...
"The great irony of course, is that virtually the only way you can get in the union these days is by becoming a "scab" and taking a non-union job."
That's absurd. "Scab" has a very specific meaning. It had absolutely nothing to do with union/non-union. A scab is someone who crosses a picket line to work during a strike. Nothing else.
.. but I would love to see a place on their site that "union members" can access and see all CURRENT job openings
This is sent out to the membership via our email list. If you are currently not on our list, send an email to Jeff Massie and he will put you on it.
"The great irony of course, is that virtually the only way you can get in the union these days is by becoming a "scab" and taking a non-union job."
"That's absurd. "Scab" has a very specific meaning. It had absolutely nothing to do with union/non-union. A scab is someone who crosses a picket line to work during a strike. Nothing else."
That's even more absurd. A scab is the dried blood and tissue covering an open wound and has nothing to do with union labor at all! Sorry I couldn't resist. :)
If a union or guild has placed a company "off limits," then a member who went to work for them without the union's permission could be considered "scabbing." With or without a picket line.
Context is important. And word definitions can change over time.
""I'm sorry Ms. Rowling, you're not on the industry experience roster,"
Yes, I could imagine this happening. Just because Rowling wrote a popular book (and not a particularly well written one, at that) doesn't mean she could write a screenplay. Countless truly GREAT writers couldn't do it, why would anyone think she could?
But I hate the roster idea anyway....especially in a business relies on real talent, and not just pushing a pencil.
Okay, so substitute Samuel Clemens or Raymond Chandler -- two indisputably great writers -- into the example above.
Chandler DID write screenplays, and received an Oscar nomination for his first one, "Double Indemnity."
Ahhh--but Billy Wiler wrote most of that. And half of that time was spent picking Chandler up off the bar room floor.
A roster always seems like a good idea to a veteran union member who is struggling to find work. I know there are times when I would have loved to automatically get jobs just because I'm a member of the union. Unfortunately, in practice they weaken and damage the union that imposes them. There's a good reason why only a tiny minority of entertainment unions are roster based.
Our current system has many flaws, but a roster is a fatal flaw that would destroy local 839.
And the Vosberg piece is very well written and well argued. Nice job, Voz!
Ahhh--but Billy Wiler wrote most of that. And half of that time was spent picking Chandler up off the bar room floor.
Wilder, in point of fact, gave Chandler a large amount of credit in writing and honing the script.
It was on the film "The Blue Dahlia" (1946) that Chandler had a major drinking problem.
"Credit" is different than doing the job, and Wilder (along with some of his other, primary writing partners) put the script together. Wilder was a very generous guy, and one of the top 10 film directors of all time. He also happened to be a very nice man (I knew him).
Wilder on Chandler:
I sat him down and explained we'd have to work together. We always met at nine o'clock, and would quit at about four-thirty. I had to explain a lot to him as we went along, but he was very helpful to me. What we were doing together had real electricity. He was a very, very good writer, but not of scripts.
So I guess the two of them, together, created something first-rate.
Wikipedia on the Wilder-Chandler writing team:
Wilder and Chandler had intended to retain as much of Cain’s original dialogue as possible. It was Chandler, ironically, who first realized that the dialogue from the novella would not translate well to the screen. Wilder disagreed and was annoyed that Chandler was not putting more of it into the script. To settle it, Wilder hired a couple of contract players from the studio to read passages of Cain’s original dialogue aloud. To his astonishment, Chandler was right and, in the end, the movie’s cynical and provocative dialogue was more Chandler and Wilder than it was Cain.[12] Chandler also did a lot of fieldwork while working on the script and took large volumes of notes. By visiting various locations that figured into the film, he was able to bring a sense of realism about Los Angeles that seeped into the script.
Collaboration, collaboration.
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