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Last Post by bjdzyak 16 years ago

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bjdzyak

(@bjdzyak)

Posts: 587

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Learning the "art" of making a movie is important. But here is an example of the reality of what you'll have to face once you get into the real professional world where you'll deal with some unscrupulous Producers. They have no qualms whatsoever of paying you as little as possible and replacing you at the drop of a hat. They get away with it because there are so many aspiring "filmmakers" who are willing to get abused just for the chance to work in the movie biz.

Come to this site to ask general "how to" questions, but for more current filmmaking news from all around the world posted every day, visit RealFilmCareer.com.

quote:

Unrest on the studio, union and trade fronts

?url? http://www.laweekly.com/2009-04-09/news/piracy-pickets-and-peter-bart/?/url?
By Nikki Finke
Published on April 08, 2009 at 4:12pm

I also broke the news that IATSE?s Hollywood locals have declared war on TV programming supplier Larry Levinson Productions over issues of unfair labor practices. When IATSE declared a strike, LLP fired and replaced all the union-repped crews on its big-budget miniseries Mega-Storm, which NBC is purchasing. Picket lines have formed at LLP?s sound stages and shooting locations in Simi Valley.

LLP, unaffectionately known as ?Lining Larry?s Pockets,? has been a longtime IATSE holdout, and I know Local 600 has been after the company for a while. Levinson does all those low-budget Hallmark movies nonunion. But the locals are joining to try to organize more work. And now that LLP is doing larger projects, I hear that it has become a prime union target.

IATSE accuses LLP of asking its crews to work 16-plus-hour days, and often six-day weeks, for less than minimum wage and without job security. LLP has signed contracts with both DGA and SAG but has been quoted as saying it will never sign with IATSE. The picket lines form at the anticipated crew-call and wrap times in an attempt to identify and contact the scabs, sitting inside a van with blacked-out windows, who are brought in by the production company.

Meanwhile, LLP security people videotape the IATSE picketers. ?Larry has been taking photos and video as well to identify the picketers so that he can continue in his unfair labor practice of discriminating in future hiring based on his employees? desire to join a union,? a IATSE e-mail alert claims. The locals also are picketing Larry Levinson Productions offices in L.A. The union is trying to pressure NBC not to purchase LLP product.

By the second week of the strike, IATSE Hollywood locals 728, 600, 80, 399, 40, 44, 700 and 705, representing below-the-liners from cinematographers and sound engineers to film editors, were picketing. There has been no solidarity expressed by either the AMPTP-compliant DGA or the SAG National Majority?controlled Screen Actors Guild. In fact, picketers have identified the smiling stepsons of former SAG president (and SAG National Majority supporter) Melissa Gilbert; the young men break the line daily to go to their sound jobs at LLP.