David King's Blog February 7th 2007
David King introduces himself Peace, this is the first installment of David F. King's blog. I'm an Art Director by trade, but I work in many capacities in film and television production art departments. I am non-union right now, but I do hope to join the union at some point. There are good and bad sides to joining the union. I bring this up because on the film I'm working on there was a rumor that a union rep might visit the set today, and the producers weren't too happy to hear this, because union reps only visit sets if they are planning on trying to unionize the project. David King talks about Unions What happens when a film turns union is that the crew members that are non-union are made union workers, and they have to be paid union wages. So needless to say, productions that are non-union do not want to go union. The union reps however, try to convince crew members to join the union, so they can go to the producers showing that they have members of the crew that are ready to join, and if they are able to convince enough crew members to go union, then the producers will usually give in, because if they don't, the union will pull all the crew that they have convinced to join off of the movie, which is a terrible situation for a producer. It seems that it's at the crew members advantage to join the union, and it could be advantageous, depending on the situation, but if you try to join and the production doesn't go union, then you'll be out of a job, and depending on what union you're joining, there may not be any other union work available. I know the union for art department, Local 44, always has a long list of new union members, and you're put on the bottom of the list when you join, so it may take a long time before you get called for work. Plus this business is all about reputation, so if you go against the production and then don't get any union work, you may have messed up your name with much of the non-union productions, especially if it's found out that you're the one that blew the whistle to the union. David King talks non-union VS union I say this because the business is not as big and spread out as most people tend to think, at least in Los Angeles. I almost always know someone on every non-union crew I work on, because mainly non-union people are competing for non-union jobs, and mainly union people are competing for union jobs, so it's like two different worlds. If you haven't connected yourself in the union world, and you try to leave the non-union world, you may be in for some droughts in work. Everyone's situation is different, but I can't afford to have a drought, so I'd definitely do some research before jumping ship on a whim. Just something to think about. Return from David King Blog to WILDsound Filmmaking Feedback Events home page
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