Drama-rama

They fired one the of producers. There are 3 of them - one of them is JW who I worked with last year on Nick & Norah (he was the Locations Manager though), one was N who is Spike Lee's guy (did I mention Spike is the exec Producer on this job and has peopled it with 'his' people) and the odd man out was MR - a hired gun. He had the most Production Manager experience of the lot but for some reason, never actually stood up and answered questions.

For instance, if I had a trucking issue I needed to work out, he would direct me to JW (who had lesser experience) but clearly he was the 'man behind the curtain' and JW still had to run it by him. Very strange. The turnaround issue, too was skirted by him. Every other department had the same problem of this shell game. You would ask one and he would direct you to the other. My husband calls it the 'ask your father, ask your mother' technique. Well, it might work for a teenager but it doesn't work on a film set. I mean, we are all professionals. Ultimately we are all trying to make the same movie.

MR also had a very non-union attitude - shady deals, people getting paid different rates from what was negotiated etc. It doesn't really work on this level. Even though we are low budget, everyone (well most everyone) is union which means we have contracts, we have rules and these are all pretty much hard and fast. He probably came from the non-union world where you could play loose with the rules and the kids wouldn't complain too much. On jobs like this, what one guy might let go of, another guy won't. Hence all rules have to be adhered to. Such is the union world. The advantage of this is a professional crew with hundreds of years' worth of experience (and I'm not exaggerating) that can be harnessed to make a really kick-ass movie.

I guess the straw that broke the camel's back was the PAs (production assistants) driving crew vans. PAs are the entry level position on the film set. They get paid very little and work a lot. On jobs that work outside the city, the production has to supply transportation in the form of 15 passenger vans at pre-agreed times. Usually the vans are driven by teamsters.

Now, teamsters...that's a union for you. They never cut their rates and a basic Local 817 driver that drives a truck makes well over $3,500 a week. They are a strong union and they never cut their rates. How they negotiate is based on drivers. A job like mine has about 11 teamsters, the big movies have double that. It's a big part of a movie budget and producers hate teamsters. It's hard sometimes to justify so much money merely to drive a truck but it's not an easy job - long hours, no turnaround and the sheer boredom of doing nothing during the day (I know it is still ridiculous how much they are paid)

Anyway, MR decided to let PAs drive the crew vans. There are 3 on our set. On most jobs, it is the first thing to be given away. Teamsters most certainly never let go of trucks, honeywagons, trailers etc but talent cars (picking up actors), crew vans, these things can usually be negotiated away. My union has issues with this because these kids are young and work as long hours as we do and then have to drive everyone home. A few years ago, there was an accident and one grip died I think. But it's beyond our control as it's a negotiation between the teamsters & production.

I mentioned in an earlier post one kid almost fell asleep at the wheel and a crewmember had to take over driving home. Then this same kid jumped out of a fully loaded van with the van still in Reverse and it started sliding back. Luckily a prop guy jumped over and stopped it. It seems like the Producers hold MR responsible for cutting safety corners and they also cited 'poor people skills' which I translated to mean 'not one of Spike's guys'. Ultimately it was a bum deal for this guy, he tried to save them money and they fired him.

I know it was the wrong thing to do but I have already explained this guy is shady anyway.

The crew is of the opinion that with 2 weeks left, it really doesn't matter anymore.

PAs drive crew vans on other small jobs too but I guess it's not as much of a problem maybe because they aren't working 18 hour days and then driving long distances from NJ back to the city. That definitely exacerbates the situation.

Anyway, 2 firings in 2 days. As usual with this production it's too little too late.