Kinja reply list

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John PetersHamilton Nolan
6/30/14 4:37pm
How does this compare to workers in non-reality parts of tv?
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  oumedsJohn Peters
  6/30/14 4:43pm
  I don't know about TV, but everyone I know who works in photography - art directors, photographers, stylists, etc deals with the same thing. Prior to 07 they had jobs at firms with decent salaries and benefits, now they are all working freelance barely making ends meet
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  John Petersoumeds
  6/30/14 4:45pm
  Interesting. I ask because I wonder if this is a reality tv freelancer issue, a tv issue, a tv freelancer issue, a freelancer issues, etc.
  
  Sounds like something possibly common amongst freelancers, at least in creative fields?
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misterellingtonHamilton Nolan
6/30/14 10:09pm
Scripted, syndicated writer/actor here: About eight years ago as Reality FULLY took hold, a group of 100-plus, now-out-of-work WGA writers formed a bowling league—One: To keep in touch with each other and buck up despondent folks' spirits, and Two and Two A: To foster a spirit of brotherhood AND to keep an eye on each other should individuals start to get emotionally desperate—I.e. suicidal.

The big fear when a reality took hold was that it would grossly undermine the hard-fought-for bennys the unions fought so Goddamned hard to get, and that the jobs just wouldn't come back. The latter most certainly happened, but the former has happened in the softest, cat-on-tiptoe way possible—as reality seemed to momentarily lose its footing only to exponentially multiply its power via the mitosis-like replication of shows cashing in on a winning formula/algorithm, Cable Reality below-the-line skulduggery became the new normal. It had become such to the extent that intense pressure is being placed on the prevailing craft and creative unions to dial back and conform to this shitty new reality.

And yeah...it IS a shitty reality. I've worked on shows where I was a writer/actor and in spite of the pretty good protections we were accorded due to WGA/AFTRA rules, I remember a multitude of 80 hour weeks where folks worked to damn near blackout points. Write, pitch, table read, notes, confer with wardrobe/props/production design, rewrite til' 4 a.m., car picks you up @ 7:30 a.m. for a 9:30 call and then a full day's shoot til' 6:30—7:00 p.m. If you were lucky! God forbid something going wrong (like a cast member dislocating a shoulder taking a fall down a flight of steps in platform shoes for a seventies themed sketch), that caused that would push the production into "Golden Time"—where the crew gets double time per hour, or WORSE for a production..."PLATINUM TIME" where you get the daily rate...HOURLY. The latter of two rarely happen. The most you usually deal with is a Meal Penalty where a production pays folks extra when lunch or dinner is delayed due to a shoot running behind schedule.

I experienced all of the above with every one of the protections in place and STILL had days I wanted stick a wet finger in a hot control room outlet. Working now without those protections AND no royalties, residuals or digital rights safeguards is several degrees beyond a bitch. You're sculpting programming damn near on the fly in what are unpredictable, unsecured environments. But this is what the powers that be have created—a race to the bottom where profits are multiplied many times over thanks in large par to secondary media channels, condensed "broadcast seasons" ANNNNNNNNNDDD to the dramatic decrease in expenditures ducking union protections automatically confers.

We're a long way from Rob Petrie, Buddy Sorel and Sally Rogers spitballing in the Writers Room.

Oh wait...we were never really there, because THAT....wasn't REALITY, was it. :(
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MongoOnlyPawnInGameOfLifeHamilton Nolan
6/30/14 4:39pm
On one hand I think it's pretty disgusting how these people are taken advantage of, on the other hand they did sign up to be on a reality show. We're talking about the cast of Survivor, right?
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  Crash CometMongoOnlyPawnInGameOfLife
  6/30/14 4:42pm
  No, we're talking about the crew. As in, cameramen, the people who ~~write~~ score the show, film editors, etc.
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  chev09MongoOnlyPawnInGameOfLife
  6/30/14 4:49pm
  Derrrrr did you read the article? Everyone who is chiming in works behind the camera. One of them says she is/was an Associate Producer. Another was a writer. These are not the stars of reality tv. These are the people who make it happen.
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G8torBaitHamilton Nolan
6/30/14 4:47pm
My first job ever in the tv industry, I worked on a now-defunct Bravo reality-competition series as a Set PA. 5 years later, it still holds the record for most hours worked in a week. I worked a 23 hour shift, went home, slept for an hour and a half, then traveled back to the stage to work a 21 hour shift. Thankfully, not long after I got an offer on a network show and I never looked back (not to say the networks are angels, but nowhere near as bad).
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  shinada2G8torBait
  6/30/14 5:20pm
  Even if you would have worked on a union show, you wouldn't have qualified for union rules because you were a PA. Turnaround times wouldn't have applied to you. But because everyone else has turnaround times, you probably would've gotten 8 hours.
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  G8torBaitshinada2
  6/30/14 5:30pm
  Sad, but true. On this particular show, I remember them pulling PAs from set to have them drive the cast around. The Teamsters don't work in reality so they just used PAs who have probably never driven a 15 passenger van in their lives and hoped for the best.
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e.nonHamilton Nolan
6/30/14 4:36pm
someone should do a reality show on the work conditions of freelancers working on reality shows...
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GoBananasHamilton Nolan
6/30/14 5:05pm
Are people really shocked by this? I've worked in reality/non-scripted for several years so I guess I'm a bit jaded, but this is the norm. There are precious few staff positions and everyone else is treated at replaceable because....well, they are. I'm not saying it's right by any means to treat people this way, but there is an over abundance of trained/skilled crew people and not enough productions or positions. You don't like working for peanuts? Ok then, some recent comm grad will take your job with enthusiasm at a lower rate because they are eager just to get the experience. Sometimes if you can build a reputation/relationship, you can usually negotiate a better rate. But you have to be pretty damn confident that they want specifically you on the team.

At the end of the day, I do think there are too many young kids entering the field being seduced by the "glamor" of working in TV who end up getting burned out very quickly because of unrealistic expectations. (And yes, they can easily rise to AP, PM, or Producer as an unexperienced kid. Bad production companies will take the risk to save money.) They've created this huge churn that allows production companies to treat people as throwaways and puts the true reality crew lifers in a very precarious position. And in all honesty, the only solution I see for this is unionizing.

But I also understand why production companies are worried about this. They make very little money upfront on these shows, if any. Networks get the most out of them, and then sometimes production companies will get lucky selling the format or repurposing the episodes for international broadcasts. Being forced to pay a fair wage makes the current system almost unprofitable. But don't get me wrong, that's not an excuse. I'm saying the entire system needs to change to make this all work. In the end, I think networks need to pay more for these shows. So what, they'll make a little less money on them. That's kind of the current state of TV: it's just not as profitable as it used to be.
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  BrklngrlGoBananas
  6/30/14 5:30pm
  The head of Discovery made over 52 million last year. Leftfield productions, makers of such quality tv as Pawn Stars, just sold 80% of their company for 360 million (and the rumor is if they'd sold 100% they'd have taken home 1 billion). But, yeah. No one in tv makes any money....
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  GoBananasBrklngrl
  6/30/14 5:46pm
  I didn't say they don't make any money. I said it's not as profitable as it used to be. It was a lot easier to rake in the dough when there were a max of 3 channels, and the networks/tv production companies cry about the good ol' days all the time and how they can't grow at the rates investors expect/want. It's called the splintering of the TV audience and is causing a major economic shift (which is getting even more dramatic with the proliferation of cable, OTT, and cord cutters/nevers). Look it up. Also, the two examples you listed are 1) a network which I specifically said is making way more money on reality than production and 2) a sale of a company, not related to business operations of TV production at all. But no, go ahead and derive conclusions that I absolutely did not say. Dumbass.
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MikeHamilton Nolan
6/30/14 5:07pm
As someone in this industry, why don't you cry me a river. No one is holding a gun to anyones head! If you don't like the job and the hours don't accept or commit to it. I'm non-union, work a lot of hours and I pay for my own health insurance. Hiring Union is fine and dandy when the budget allows for it, but when it doesn't (which is rarely) anyone will tell you they stay away from Union crew all together. Working Union jobs is a pain in the ass, full of so many rules and a ton of bureaucracy.
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  cepalgMike
  6/30/14 6:16pm
  always love it when a hamilton post draws the Just-Created-A-Burner-To-Say-It's-Not-That-Bad crowd.
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  Not-TimMike
  6/30/14 7:35pm
  FU.
  
  This Machine Kills Fascists too.
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Jeffrey12Hamilton Nolan
6/30/14 7:27pm
So, tell me again how bad unions are.
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  Not-TimJeffrey12
  6/30/14 7:37pm
  exactly.
  
  if more "educated" creative folks knew anything about labor history they would understand that this fight is eternal and they are wage slaves and not tv stars.
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  Max Jeffrey12
  6/30/14 11:02pm
  Yeah man, I'm a union worker in tv and movies and I dread unions losing their grip in the industry. Studios already stretch the rules and try to fin loop holes in union contracts let alone if you were on your own and had to fend for yourself!
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TRUMP DELENDUS EST (fka Chatham Harrison)Hamilton Nolan
6/30/14 4:44pm
I'm glad to see that Reality TV is truly holistic explotation; exploit the workers, exploit the actors/"real people", exploit the consumers' basest interests. TV executives read Marx's critiques of capitalism and said "hey, this German guy has some great business tips!"
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reality veteranHamilton Nolan
6/30/14 7:13pm
It's finally happening. People are starting to report on the shady shit that these production companies have been getting away with for years. It can't happen soon enough.

I'm a 15 year veteran of reality TV. I've produced a lot of what I call "guys in danger" shows like "Deadliest Catch," "Whale Wars," "Storm Chasers," etc. and lots of other ones too.

Like many of those who posted, I have never had overtime, turnaround, paid vacation days, health insurance, paid weekends or anything like that. I'm sure many of my brethren can related to those shoots where you work your camera crew's full shift, say goodbye to them so they can get some rest (since they can only work 12 hours max), and then work the next camera crew's shift too. I'm expected to script, write interview questions, story beats, download notes and hotsheets at the end of every day. I regularly work 16 or 20 hour days and 7-day weeks. On one show I worked 101 days without a single day off.

But it wasn't until I almost died while filming a History Channel show in South America that I took a good, hard look at this business and how it treats its workers. The total disregard for the health, safety and wellbeing of the crew is criminal.

The short version of my story is that I was in two boat accidents on the same night. We were traveling at night. The boat had no safety equipment, navigation lights, safety lights or life jackets. We found out later that the boat driver only had one eye and had been in numerous accidents before caused by his reckless driving. We hit a rock going about 40 miles an hour. Everyone was thrown from the boat. I was knocked unconscious underwater and saved by my cameraman. We managed to continue on, and then hit a tree. In the first accident I tore my shoulder in five places, in the second one I ruptured a disc. When it came time to evacuate me to the nearest hospital, it turned out that the production company had submitted a fake safety plan in order to get insurance. All the numbers for Airlift helicopters, Medivac, hospitals, etc. had just been cut and pasted from the web and none were actually in service.

For those who ask: yes, I regularly put myself in danger on shoots. It's what they require. However, the danger should not come from willful negligence on behalf of the production company. There is known, accepted risk and then there is the kind that happens behind the scenes and without your knowledge.

I was fired two days after I told the production company that I needed surgery. Their exact words "we think you are too 'attached' to your injuries and we are worried it might prevent you from making a good series." I've spent the last year recovering from spine and shoulder surgery, and blowing through my savings.

There is simply no recourse in this business when things go wrong, and they do go wrong more and more frequently these days as schedules and budgets shrink. I finally started speaking up, and I tell everyone I know to do the same. Fuck it. Any company that's going to fire you for questioning why a PA with three hours of sleep is driving a van full of people is not one you should work for anyway.

TL;DR I almost died while making a fucking cable TV show, then I was fired when I told the company that I needed surgery for the injuries. I don't want anyone to have to go through what I did.
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  calamityjane23reality veteran
  6/30/14 8:16pm
  Holy shit, can you tell me what show, or at least what production company so I can avoid the hell out of it???
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  reality veterancalamityjane23
  6/30/14 8:45pm
  Gladly. The production company is Red Line Films and the show was "Bamazon," for History Channel. I was the Co-EP.
  
  ETA: Red Line Films is in New York. They also do the lie-about-your-missing-paycheck thing.
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