And I wasn't.
I was cast as a news reporter for a trailer of a film that was being created to help generate more money for the actual feature film (you get all that?) and was told last Tuesday that I would be needed on set at 10am on Sunday. Okay! Got my lines, spent time memorizing them, and then Saturday comes around. Still no confirmation email saying "Don't forget! 10am tomorrow!" which I thought was weird.
What I should have done right then was send the director a text saying, "Hey! See you tomorrow at 10am, right? Please confirm!" But I didn't. I thought, maybe I'll get something in the morning, and I went to bed.
I get up all bright and early (as a pm waitress, bright and early is 10am, but I was up at 8, so imagine how tired I was) get camera ready and show up in Baldwin Hills, an area I don't know at all and am therefore uncomfortable in. Where's the equipment truck? Why isn't the building's gate unlocked? Uh oh....
I call the director. "Hi!" I say brightly, "I'm here!"
"You're where?"
"At the location, on Jefferson!"
"Oh no!" he bemoans, "Oh no, oh no, oh no!"
"Uh oh," my wattage is slightly dimmer, "what?"
"I moved the calltimes all to noon! I'm still in North Hollywood picking up props!"
Of course you are. And you are because I NEVER CONFIRMED WITH YOU.
Most productions that are a bigger to do than just a bunch of people having fun, usually have a call sheet that are emailed the night before with all your locations, parking info, call times, phone numbers, EVERYTHING. And I figured nothing of the sort would be done for this. And I was right.
I should have confirmed.
So, I had two hours to kill. Now, normally, on a set, that's no big deal. You just grab a Coke and a granola bar from Craft Services, find the bathrooms so you know, and then head over to holding (or, when you're in a union production, your TRAILER/DRESSING ROOM!) but, the building was locked and there were no cokes to be found.
I drove to the nearest main thoroughfare and tried to find an open cafe nearby. Nothing. I find a McDonald's, and although I'm not hungry, figure I could go buy one of their coffees and chill out for a bit. As soon as I get in, however, I remember that it is Sunday morning after most church services. The place was packed.
You might not know this about me but sometimes I get a little claustrophobic in places with large amounts of people. Times Square? No thanks! This particular McDonalds at 10:15? Not at all. I take my drink and leave.
I see a Rite Aid. Hey! I could go in there and look at makeup and toys and other crap and distract myself for a good 45 minutes! I went up and down the aisles, noting that anything you could imagine was most likely priced at $9.99 and left after I had achieved seeing everything they offered. Time spent: 8 minutes.
Crap! What am I going to do now? I went back to the location and pulled into a side street. It was a neighborhood! A neighborhood with bars on all the houses' windows, but a neighborhood nonetheless! I parked under a tree and waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally, noon rolls around. I get the apology, grab a water, do my thing, and 15 minutes later am hugged, paid in cash and on my way.
It's funny how being paid in cash immediately makes any really annoying situation an interesting story instead of a crappy event. May you all have lots of interesting stories!
 Fred Ochs, also shown on screen in the A&E drama "The Cleaner," will have to pay for a lung exam himself because he couldn’t meet earnings minimums for union health benefits from SAG or AFTRA. (Anne Cusack, Los Angeles Times / May 15, 2010) |
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Fred Ochs' second career as an actor took off last year. The 62-year-old former software engineer landed gigs on nine TV shows, playing the singing policeman in the crime series "The Mentalist," Judge Belford in Showtime's dark "Dexter" and a probate attorney in the A&E drama "The Cleaner."
Now if he could just get health insurance to go along with the steady work. Ochs' pulmonologist has urged him to get examined for a shadow on his lungs. Because his acting work is divided between the two actors unions, Ochs will have to pay for the exam himself.
"It was a great year for me, but because of the way my work was split between SAG and AFTRA, I didn't make enough in either union to qualify," said Ochs, who lives in Hollywood. "It's just plain absurd."
Like children caught in the middle of a parental spat, actors are enduring unintended consequences of a feud that erupted two years ago when the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists suspended its longtime partnership with the Screen Actors Guild to negotiate prime-time TV contracts.
Journeyman actors like Ochs have traditionally earned middle-class wages from playing supporting characters in countless TV dramas, sitcoms and movies.
But now they are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the earnings thresholds required for receiving benefits, which range from about $10,000 to $30,000 a year, because their income is carved up between two unions. Each union has separate health and pension plans, and they don't allow contributions to be combined.
"People are very, very upset and worried," said Kevin E. West, founder of the Actors Network, a professional business organization for actors. "It's a huge problem that affects several hundred working actors."
The sparring between AFTRA and SAG — over turf and strategy — paved the way for AFTRA to clinch its own contract with the studios, which rushed to embrace the ambitious union as a hedge against the more unpredictable SAG.
As a result, the studios swung many of their labor contracts covering network prime-time TV pilots to AFTRA, an incursion that's led to near-100% penetration this year when the smaller actors union won contracts for 81 of 83 pilots.
Health coverage wasn't always a problem.
When SAG dominated prime-time TV contracts, the actors in those shows worked largely under one union roof. But with the landscape now shared by two unions, an actor may work on an older TV series covered by a SAG contract and next take a role on a newer TV series under an AFTRA contract, often not earning enough in either union to meet health plan requirements.
Actors for years have debated merging their unions, but previous attempts in 1999 and 2003 failed, reflecting long-standing mistrust between member factions.
But growing concern over how the status quo is affecting health and pension benefits for actors has renewed the impetus to consolidate the two unions so that a single plan could be offered. Leaders of both have had preliminary discussions about merging.
"Pension and health benefits are a cornerstone of union protection," SAG President Ken Howard said. "When actors' work is split between two unions, that protection is weakened or, in the worst cases, eliminated. That's not acceptable, and it's one of many reasons merging SAG and AFTRA makes sense."
AFTRA President Roberta Reardon said gaining leverage in bargaining and union organizing was the driving reason to merge but added: "I completely agree it would be great to have one health insurance policy and one retirement plan."
That AFTRA, which until recently was pegged as a secondary union for actors who worked mostly on soaps and some cable programs, would emerge seemingly overnight as the go-to union for prime-time TV is a reversal for the more prestigious SAG, which still has exclusive jurisdiction over feature film work.
Although the unions have agreed to resume joint bargaining in the upcoming round of negotiations this fall, actors are still feeling the fallout from the dispute.
"One extra SAG job would have put me over the earnings threshold," said Ochs, who says he can't afford to pay $600 a month for private insurance. "It's a kick in the gut."
And the kick couldn't come at a worse time.
Both unions have steadily raised earnings requirements for insurance at a time when reality TV programs have taken away jobs, movie stars increasingly are filling guest star roles on TV shows and the income that actors get from residuals — the fees paid out when shows rerun — has shrunk.
Cost-cutting in Hollywood also has made it much harder for actors to get their "quotes," the fees that reflect their experience, thereby lowering their earnings and ability to qualify for health insurance.
Beyond earning enough to qualify for insurance, Los Angeles-based actors like Wendy Worthington also complain that the situation is weakening pension benefits.
After a nearly two-decade career playing roles on TV shows including "Desperate Housewives" and "Ghost Whisperer," Worthington, 55, has earned enough credits to be fully vested in the Screen Actors Guild pension plan. With more TV jobs swinging to AFTRA, however, she has less money to pump into her SAG pension, damping the eventual payout she will receive when she retires.
And because Worthington spent most of her career working in SAG, it's doubtful she will qualify for AFTRA's pension plan any time soon.
"I like to joke that I wish they would just send me the cash that I earned under my AFTRA contracts so I could put it in the shredder myself, because it's just lost money for me," she said.
richard.verrier@latimes.com
Now if he could just get health insurance to go along with the steady work. Ochs' pulmonologist has urged him to get examined for a shadow on his lungs. Because his acting work is divided between the two actors unions, Ochs will have to pay for the exam himself.
"It was a great year for me, but because of the way my work was split between SAG and AFTRA, I didn't make enough in either union to qualify," said Ochs, who lives in Hollywood. "It's just plain absurd."
Like children caught in the middle of a parental spat, actors are enduring unintended consequences of a feud that erupted two years ago when the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists suspended its longtime partnership with the Screen Actors Guild to negotiate prime-time TV contracts.
Journeyman actors like Ochs have traditionally earned middle-class wages from playing supporting characters in countless TV dramas, sitcoms and movies.
But now they are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the earnings thresholds required for receiving benefits, which range from about $10,000 to $30,000 a year, because their income is carved up between two unions. Each union has separate health and pension plans, and they don't allow contributions to be combined.
"People are very, very upset and worried," said Kevin E. West, founder of the Actors Network, a professional business organization for actors. "It's a huge problem that affects several hundred working actors."
The sparring between AFTRA and SAG — over turf and strategy — paved the way for AFTRA to clinch its own contract with the studios, which rushed to embrace the ambitious union as a hedge against the more unpredictable SAG.
As a result, the studios swung many of their labor contracts covering network prime-time TV pilots to AFTRA, an incursion that's led to near-100% penetration this year when the smaller actors union won contracts for 81 of 83 pilots.
Health coverage wasn't always a problem.
When SAG dominated prime-time TV contracts, the actors in those shows worked largely under one union roof. But with the landscape now shared by two unions, an actor may work on an older TV series covered by a SAG contract and next take a role on a newer TV series under an AFTRA contract, often not earning enough in either union to meet health plan requirements.
Actors for years have debated merging their unions, but previous attempts in 1999 and 2003 failed, reflecting long-standing mistrust between member factions.
But growing concern over how the status quo is affecting health and pension benefits for actors has renewed the impetus to consolidate the two unions so that a single plan could be offered. Leaders of both have had preliminary discussions about merging.
"Pension and health benefits are a cornerstone of union protection," SAG President Ken Howard said. "When actors' work is split between two unions, that protection is weakened or, in the worst cases, eliminated. That's not acceptable, and it's one of many reasons merging SAG and AFTRA makes sense."
AFTRA President Roberta Reardon said gaining leverage in bargaining and union organizing was the driving reason to merge but added: "I completely agree it would be great to have one health insurance policy and one retirement plan."
That AFTRA, which until recently was pegged as a secondary union for actors who worked mostly on soaps and some cable programs, would emerge seemingly overnight as the go-to union for prime-time TV is a reversal for the more prestigious SAG, which still has exclusive jurisdiction over feature film work.
Although the unions have agreed to resume joint bargaining in the upcoming round of negotiations this fall, actors are still feeling the fallout from the dispute.
"One extra SAG job would have put me over the earnings threshold," said Ochs, who says he can't afford to pay $600 a month for private insurance. "It's a kick in the gut."
And the kick couldn't come at a worse time.
Both unions have steadily raised earnings requirements for insurance at a time when reality TV programs have taken away jobs, movie stars increasingly are filling guest star roles on TV shows and the income that actors get from residuals — the fees paid out when shows rerun — has shrunk.
Cost-cutting in Hollywood also has made it much harder for actors to get their "quotes," the fees that reflect their experience, thereby lowering their earnings and ability to qualify for health insurance.
Beyond earning enough to qualify for insurance, Los Angeles-based actors like Wendy Worthington also complain that the situation is weakening pension benefits.
After a nearly two-decade career playing roles on TV shows including "Desperate Housewives" and "Ghost Whisperer," Worthington, 55, has earned enough credits to be fully vested in the Screen Actors Guild pension plan. With more TV jobs swinging to AFTRA, however, she has less money to pump into her SAG pension, damping the eventual payout she will receive when she retires.
And because Worthington spent most of her career working in SAG, it's doubtful she will qualify for AFTRA's pension plan any time soon.
"I like to joke that I wish they would just send me the cash that I earned under my AFTRA contracts so I could put it in the shredder myself, because it's just lost money for me," she said.
richard.verrier@latimes.com
