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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Valley a Bastion for Workers In Below the Line Firms

In the rental showroom at Global Effects, owner Chris Gilman walks past racks of space suits, pointing out the replicas of uniforms worn in the U.S. space program from Mercury through the space shuttle. In another part of the room are racks of clothing from medieval days chain mail, helmets, and shields. “How many shows come up where you get to design a space suit or reproduce a Victorian phonograph or a Jules Verne-era mechanical device,” Gilman said. “You get all these scenarios that allow you to be creative.” Gilman and the employees at his 20-year-old specialty costume business fall under the catch-all category of below-the-line entertainment workers, the submerged portion of the industry iceberg where the peripheral professions exist. And it’s an industry with a huge presence in the Valley. A Steven Spielberg or Tom Cruise is an above the line expense in a movie production while the below the line fixed costs include the technical crews, editors, cinematographers, costume and production designers, special effects creators, even caterers, medical professionals and studio teachers. A study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. showed that in 2004 the most recent year figures were available nearly 250,000 people were employed in the entertainment industry. But those figures supplied from the state did not break the employees down into whether they are below or above the line. Also complicating the search for a definitive number of below the line workers is that some can be independent contractors. Economic Development Corp. Chief Economist Jack Kyser identified three areas in Los Angeles with clusters of entertainment related employment, one of which is in the southeast Valley and Studio City and Universal City and spilling over into Burbank, home to NBC studios, Warner Bros. Studios and The Walt Disney Co. headquarters. Many smaller employers can be found from one end of the Valley to the other equipment rental, set storage, soundstages, prop, graphic design, even firms that supply animals. Many below the line workers pull in generous union wages, get free meals, the satisfaction of having their work seen around the world, and can be honored with awards. But for many, life in the entertainment industry is not all glamorous. For some below the line workers, especially the crews working the sets, the hours can be long with working conditions that force them to deal with temperamental filmmakers. “That’s the dilemma below the line workers are facing is longer hours and less money,” said Steve Dayan, business manager with the Teamsters’ Local 399 which represents many of these workers. Even away from the sets, Gilman said he notices a lack of professionalism on the part of studio employees he deals with when hired for a production. And then there is the issue of having enough work to do. For several years now, the most significant issue facing below the line workers has been runaway production, the luring away of television and movie filming to other states and countries because of lower costs. “You have all these states making a significant push on offering incentives to the industry,” Kyser said. “That hurts.” In a study released in June, FilmLA, the not for profit agency responsible for issuing filming permits, found that New York, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Massachusetts and New Mexico were used for filming television pilots instead of Los Angeles. Pilot production in Los Angeles was down to 81 shows for 2006 compared with the 105 pilots shot in the city in 2005. The number of permits for on-location feature films dropped every year between 1997 and 2003. Permits increased in 2004 and 2005 but nowhere near the level of 1996 when more than 13,000 permits were issued, according to FilmLA statistics.

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