The SAG strike is over and I’m heading back to work as terrified as a sixth grader heading off to middle school for the first time.
I can’t lie and tell you we had a really great summer. We didn’t. And we may have done some things that may come back to haunt us worse than shooting a test commercial.
At Gargoyle Films, we can proudly say that we did not do any "struck" work. Not that we wouldn’t have. Heck, we would have shot cows at an abattoir if someone had awarded us the job. Nevertheless, since no agency looked kindly upon us for its butchering needs, we can claim solidarity with our union comrades in arms. I am extremely hopeful that they will return the favor and recommend us at every casting session. I won’t hold my breath.
Starting off in May, instead of shooting, we busied ourselves with exploring ways to produce revenue through new media outlets, specifically the Internet. For the most part that meant watching our high-tech stock portfolios go down quicker than Roger Clemens’ Q rating. We became very well acquainted with Internet stock chat rooms and may have even made future business contacts with people named allMMsmustdie and investorbust. I was amazed that people can sit around all day and discuss the merits of one company over another, day after day. Amazed, that is, until I realized that agency people do exactly that in the pre-bid phase of a project.
While on the Internet, we discovered the joys of Wheresspot, the Internet chain letter form of the rep grapevine. This is the place where posters are deluged with thousands of replies for every request, whether it’s for a studio apartment sublet or to simply find out who did the post on the latest Domino’s campaign. It is kind of like an online dating service. You try to appear really nice and helpful, while you troll the board looking for that right fit. You spend some money on a few reels and FedExs, maybe on flowers, thinking that they will call, but you never hear from them again. Sometimes you can feel so cheap in the morning.
In June, we were fortunate to discover the allure of eBay. Thankfully, we were able to offset some of our lost production revenue by auctioning carton after carton of leftover props, wardrobe, office supplies and half-used expendables. We may have gotten carried away, selling the fl-inch deck and monitor—but, hey, we weren’t using them much, and everyone has been talking about DVD anyway.
By July, things had gotten really boring, so it seemed that a vacation would be in order. The wife and kids wanted to head down to Florida, so I spent a week outside of Universal, longingly staring at genny trucks and handcarts of expendables.
Back in New York for August, and the phone started ringing again. Was it agency producers with work? No. It was crew people looking for work. By mid-month we started hearing from directors. All sorts of directors. A, B, C, D flat and E minor level. All fed up with their present roosts and thinking that the grass may be greener at Gargoyle. While this was flattering for a while, my dad had told me never to date on the rebound. Anyway, our lawn hadn’t been watered since the start of the strike.
By September, we decided to get proactive. We knew that the only way for this strike to be settled was if our voice, the collective voice of the entire small, downtrodden production companies, was heard. Moreover, what better way could our voice be heard than by walking the picket line with the striking SAG members? We were elated when we found out that 40 hours on the picket line could get us union membership. Maybe we could help get things settled after all. The most fun of the entire summer was standing outside the AICP show and screaming the nastiest and vilest things that we could think of at our fellow production company executives. Especially the ones that we had lost jobs to in the past year.
