Entertainment
Below the Hollywood line facing sudden unemployment in the middle of the coronavirus: "It's a disaster"
Most production employees are employees who do not receive health care from the companies they work for and generally do not receive paid sick leave.
When the concerts started to be suspended or interrupted this month in the middle of the coronavirus, Isabella Olaguera worried. The first assistant director, who has already worked on several independent films, a lifetime vacation film and advertisements for the WNBA, Equinox and Facebook, generally has a complete work list in March and she wonders if she was alone facing unemployment for the next. weeks. "It's March 1st in 4 years, I haven't had a full-time job. The shootings I have are postponed (d) or in limbo", did she posted Thursday on her Facebook. "Are there any other nervous nervous freelancers?"
Responses poured in, with reactions ranging from multiple emoji hand in hand, to stories of losing several jobs over the past few days to downtrodden projections of prolonged unemployment. "Scary, all of you," said one commentator, summing up the tone of the conversation.
While the majority of major Hollywood movies and TVs end their current productions at first, suspend them for weeks, or suspend them indefinitely in response to fears of coronaviruses, freelance and independent Hollywood workers are feeling the brunt of the downturn. of industry. Unlike office workers, production workers cannot do their work from home or from a distance.
And while most production workers are concert workers by nature, "below the line" workers – team members – generally work hourly instead of a lump sum and are paid less than "above the line" roles such as directors, stars and producers. Like concert workers nationwide, these employees do not receive health care from the companies they work for and generally do not receive paid sick leave.
Over the past few days, showrunners including It's always nice in Philadelphiait is Rob McElhenney, Grey's anatomy and Station 19it is Krista Vernoff and Counterpartit is Amy berg called on studios, showrunners and television producers to keep their teams and assistants writing, working or at least getting paid during the shutdown. Some responded to this call, including UTV and Comcast, which give two weeks salary at Chicago fire crew members and WarnerMedia, who did the same on Precious gemstones. Industry members have also created GoFundMes 'relief funds' for particularly vulnerable populations, including pages, Support staff in Hollywood and the musicians; The IATSE union announced Tuesday that it has signed up $ 2.5 million to several funds. On a larger scale, California and New York have implemented emergency policies – such as faster access to unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions – to protect workers, while that the Coronavirus Relief Bill continues to make its way to Congress.
Despite all these efforts, the desperate situation that some workers suddenly find themselves in reveals the general lack of financial and social safety nets available to crews and support staff in Hollywood. And not only relying on the generosity of individual showrunners, managers and companies, many of these workers are calling for better policies across the industry and at the state and federal levels.
Non-fiction presenter and executive producer Johanna Vanderspool (In search of the Fest) is a member of the NonFiction Professionals "Union", a group of independent fiction producers from New York and L.A., a largely unorganized workforce. Based on her own experience, that of her friends, and comments from more than 1,000 group members in the past few days, "the freelancers have been released, without consideration or compensation," she said. (The documentary series on which Vanderspool was working has also been interrupted.) She points out that these new difficulties are added to an already trying year in the midst of the rise of scripted content for many independent fiction producers, who reported typical rates for their work. decrease. "I have already had a month of unemployment this year and it looks like another month will occur due to this COVID-19 crisis," she said.
In New York and California, state governors have deleted the typical waiting period of one week to apply for unemployment insurance to take into account people who lose work due to corporate coronavirus insurance policies. However, the coronavirus not only suspends and delays staffed projects, but also those that have not yet hired more workers and gone beyond the early development process. An independent producer who has preferred to remain anonymous and has just completed a show for Fox has a few projects in the works, but is concerned that none of them is progressing in the middle of COVID-19. "Jobs are canceled left and right, the shows stop, it's a disaster," she said.
Jess Weiss, freelance designer and producer (The object, Volunteers) is concerned about how current policies on coronaviruses will affect the future. All the companies she normally works with have suspended production and implemented homework policies; As for the development aspect of his job, companies are paying attention to their finances and in-person meetings have been canceled due to the potential health risk. "My biggest concern is to understand when the industry will return to normal," she said. "March is usually the time of development and pre-production for summer projects, which is usually our busiest time. If this development does not happen, production will be delayed."
An actor, replacement and background actor who preferred to remain anonymous noted that March falls into the pilot season, when companies give the green light to the series for the next few months. Since the industry is currently closed, "the TV season will be changed and this delay in casting, filming and the green light from the pilots will only mean that I will not have a job even longer. . Will episode orders be shortened to try to come back? If so, we will all lose work again, "she said.
Some productions don't come back at all, notes Weiss, right at the start (like The world of dance and America has talent). Some unscripted producers mentioned that the shows had been canceled, but no specific details were immediately available. A senior assistant responsible for locating a TV show who wanted to remain anonymous is on one of those productions ending early: its show ends two and a half weeks earlier than planned in due to a coronavirus. "Thanks to my union, I am paid a decent rate," she says. But without work, "after two to three weeks, it will get a little tight". She is more concerned with production assistants in her production, who are paid low rates and depend on continuous production work to earn an income: "Because most of them, are ; they leave without a paycheck for a week or two, it could mean whether they can pay rent or not, "she said.
Payment of rent is also a concern for a director of photography and director of photography who preferred to remain anonymous. She says that an upcoming project has just pushed production to an undisclosed date "and now I'm wondering how I'm going to pay my rent at the end of the month". Some states, including New York, Massachusetts and Kentucky, and some cities, including Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston, have temporary moratorium on expulsions during the coronavirus; large utility companies have also engaged not to shut down services for lack of payment during the coronavirus crisis. However, the loss of income over the next few weeks will make rent and other necessary payments difficult for some people, regardless of the end of those payments.
Overall, many of the crew members who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter expressed the hope that this period would highlight the widespread use of freelancers in entertainment and the lack of benefits that these freelancers receive. "In some ways, I'm less worried about it than getting sick or something else happens because it's such a focused and focused thing," Amy Paulette Hartman, assistant to writers of a CBS All Access series and member of Local 871, says. (CBS asked employees to work from home for two weeks; a specific federal coronavirus program bill which could offer workers two weeks of paid sick leave is currently making its way through Congress.) "While I have been an assistant for quite some time and have only recently had the minimum union benefits that I have now have: it's kind of a standard not to be protected as an assistant. "
An independent producer who preferred to remain anonymous stressed that the virus will expose the prevalence of "day workers" (workers paid by the day) over the wages of large companies. "There are these huge companies that have huge cash reserves and they just hire all of these people as day gamers so they don't have to carry all the benefits and health and then something like that happens and we have no parachute at all, "she said.
Most of the crew members who spoke with THR hoped that in the future, the difficulties of freelancers during the coronavirus would translate into better government policies for freelancers. As for what entertainment companies, organizations and unions can do, a member of IATSE pointed out the lack of paid sick leave: "Overall, I think it is disappointing that our unions do not have paid sick leave for us. In the past, I have personally gone to work with a cold… You should at least make the effort, it seems it, otherwise you're screwed up for a day. "Another independent producer, who preferred to remain anonymous, suggested using" our insurance policies to help everyone in the business, not just the business itself. "
Overall, Kat Hazelton, freelancer at film festivals and film productions, says: "As an industry, we need to come together and support those at the bottom of the totem pole."
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