Just fill in the blank with the name of a city. Seemingly, that’s all that’s required if you’re a politician looking to intervene in the actors’ strike against the ad industry.
The blank is in the text of a resolution proposing that a municipality not issue film permits to spots using non-union actors during the strike. Such measures have either been proposed or considered—and thus far have stalled—in Los Angeles (SHOOT, 7/7 and 7/14, p. 1), Chicago (SHOOT, 7/28, p. 1) and New York (SHOOT, 8/4, p. 1).
At press time, West Hollywood Mayor Jeffrey Prang was slated to introduce such a proposal to his city council. Beyond the fact that the legality of the move is tenuous at best, other factors make it ill advised. While public officials entertain the notion as a show of support for unions, the fact is that many other members of the organized labor movement would be adversely impacted.
In its letter objecting to Mayor Prang’s proposal, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) noted that "commercial production is a major employer in Los Angeles County, pumping more than $2 billion annually into the region’s economy. It employs directly—hiring crews, staff and service companies—and indirectly, engaging the services of ancillary businesses. For every actor hired, there are dozens of others employed in the production of a spot."
The AICP letter continued: "By supporting the strikers’ position, you are putting at risk the livelihoods of many other constituents, most of whom have been eager and willing to work during this job action. As a result, your resolution is one that would hurt far more working people than it is intended to help."
And these people who would be adversely affected are, like commercial production companies, not party to the negotiations—if or when they resume—in the labor dispute that’s now in its fourth month. The parties that should be bargaining are the Joint Policy Committee of the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
A motion to bar filming in any American city is also ill timed. Even before the strike, runaway production to foreign countries had exacted a heavy toll on the U.S. economy. And, as chronicled in SHOOT, the strike has prompted many American spots to be shot in Canada and overseas. In fact, the influx of U.S. spot business has stretched production resources and crew talent so thin in Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto that American production houses have in some cases been bringing equipment and crew people up from the U.S. for shoots in Canada. This, ironically, has translated into a form of relief for some Los Angeles crew members who have been out of work locally due to the exodus of commercial lensing.
The AICP letter also makes the runaway point. But, sadly, that well-crafted AICP correspondence to the West Hollywood mayor and council members is starting to sound like a form letter, in that it’s similar to the letters sent to public officials in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. The case has to be re-stated every time a city considers jumping on the bandwagon to bar spot filming.
Yet an exchange of mad libs and form letters somehow seems fitting when it comes to the ludicrous proposition of cities banning spot location production, which only serves to exacerbate a profound runaway problem.
