We all expected the Y2K bug to strike just after midnight January 1, 2000, leading to chaos across the board and the world at large. Then it didn’t. However, looking back on the year, it seemed as if maybe there was a Y2K gremlin in the works after all, causing a variety of glitches and upheavals, except not in the cyberworld.
Of course there was "The Big One"—the SAG strike. Reflecting on this past year, as a company of creative individuals, we all had our own particular obstacles and dilemmas to solve. The producers had to continue to bring the work to the creatives; the shifting elements of the work briefs; the expansion of flexibility and initiative; a chameleon-like increase of creative reinvention—the strike stretched us, bonded us, and made us all appreciate each other’s pressures and humor more than we realized. It brought us closer as a team, in many ways. Which it seems, might be extrapolated to the community as a whole.
The various issues that the strike kicked up as it went—like the ubiquitous bunny—on and on and on, have been exhaustively discussed elsewhere. One appealing aspect of film production during the strike was the viability of working out of the country. There was a lot of talk of continuing to do that after the strike had been resolved, but apparently everything has gone right back to how it was. Inevitably, the more things change …
As much as our production community was pre-occupied with and affected by the strike, those outside of the industry were hardly concerned. The rest of the country was focused on the Olympics in Sydney, what direction the market was headed in on any particular day, discussions in the media on which pop diva was more relevant, (Britney? Christina? Forever Madonna?); whether Shaq and Kobe were going to get their rings, and the overall gear-up for the presidential election. The SAG strike was hardly a blip on the radar in terms of the big picture. We kids would have to figure this one out amongst ourselves. And eventually, we did.
Perhaps in a way there was a benefit to some of the slower days. Before the strike, it was almost impossible to get people to use the Internet as a work-oriented tool. Now, however, it is used as a matter of course. Eureka! Did everybody suddenly do their homework? The Internet. This blossoming technology has made our creative process sexier by giving us time back. At this point it doesn’t make Flame sessions go faster, so final delivery is as was, but we get to make more work-in-progress presentations, which in turn enhances the collaborative process. One can get a response to an idea almost immediately, which can either nip a bad one in the bud or pour gasoline on the fire. In other technologies, it seems that increasing levels of firepower available to any given desktop or laptop user allow new ideas and inspired applications to come out of nowhere. This prodigiously punk approach is great for creativity, yet hopefully keeps us focused on the essentials: i.e. the timeless value of a good story.
Now, the end of 2000 approaches and, with luck, a decent conclusion to the presidential race debacle. Perhaps this last piece of unfinished business serves somewhat as a metaphorical lesson for the year as a whole. It ain’t over until it’s over …
