Local 700

Baking the incredibly hot sun today, I had to remember why I was in Glendale. I'm used to temperatures near my home in Playa Vista hovering around 75-80... maybe 85 on a really hot day. Glendale, nestled in the hills just North of Hollywood and East of Burbank, regularly reaches temperatures over 105... especially these last few weeks. Summer isn't ready to give way to Fall just yet.
Glendale is home to the CSATF, a unmemorable acronym that amounts to Safety Training. I was there today in my final step to become a member of the Local 700 (Motion Picture Editor's Guild). After watching a required 40 minute video, I passed an exam and was handed a 'Safety Passport', which is more or less a joke if taken seriously. It proves valuable when verification is needed of union membership. Ah, an ID book.
CSATF was an interesting place due to the people that congregate there. There are many unions that require members to undergo training (hopefully training that is more relevant and useful than mine)... and by the looks of these people, it's some type of manual labor. These guys were too cool for school 15 years ago but luckily have some sort of union backing now. At first I was intimidated, but one of these burley men sat next to me and seemed to be polite.

Glendale was the end of a long day of travel and meetings. My first destination was Hollywood where I attended an orientation meeting at the Editor's Guild office. A witty and humorous guy talked a group of 5 through the benefits of being in the union -- namely higher pay rates and a good health plan (needing 600 hours to qualify, then 300 to get 6 months coverage). The health care is superb... 100% coverage and if you stay an active member of the union for 15 years (400 hours is a qualifying year) Lifetime Coverage kicks in for you and a spouse. My favorite part of the union is how they make employers do a bunch of stuff for their employees. Namely, employers are required to set aside 5% of an employees earnings into an individual account -- totally separate from the employee and similar to a 401K, but without the missing money from a paycheck. After the orientation, my paperwork was pre-approved and I was sent to Encino (almost as hot as Glendale) to meet with contract services.

Contract Services, the CS of CSATF, is responsible for putting me on the 'Industry Experience Roster'. They manage 17 local unions in Los Angeles, so it was also a pretty crazy visit. Once I'm actually on the roster (20 days from now) I'll officially be in. Then, I can utilize the 'available list' at the Guild Office, where new productions can staff their crew. Apparently, it works b/c you can only be on it for 45 days (they will extend you if necessary, but they made it sound like that's not the usual). I filled out my I-9 tax form and gave the nice lady my paperwork and was then off to Glendale.

Professionally, I'm an Assistant Editor. Please, call me Assistant Editor Collin or Collin the Assistant Editor. Someday soon, I might actually work a union job and reap the benefits of this simple day of travel and sun.

The documentary is going well. The crew traveled to the East Coast to get more interviews today and hopefully will be back with everything on Friday. Ryan (the current co-editor) and I hope to have a semi-fine cut on Sept. 22nd, our last day. I'm hoping the work will keep on a little longer so we can pretty everything up... but hopefully that Sept 22nd cut will be enough for Nehst Studios to purchase the film and from there... I have no idea what will happen. But, more than likely, I'll be looking for my first union job.

Other than Josh's great connections with assistant editors and post-production supervisors in feature films, I have made my own connections in the TV Post-Production world. Two Friday's ago, I visited my friend Jenny (a former driver at Flyer Entertainment) at the Paramount lot where she works as a personal assistant to an actor on an HBO tv show. She's cool and fun to hang out with, and, on top of that, she introduced me to the post production supervisor of the show (his name is Douglas Hunter). Turns out, he has a short Documentary project that needed an editor. So, I volunteered 10-15 hours per week. As we start to get on the same page with the project, I find out he's a Christian and really easy to work with. So, I share that I, too, am a Christian. Anyways, not that big of a deal, but I'm sure if this short documentary goes well, there could be work waiting for me on his next show.

We'll see -- point is: Opportunities are plentiful, yet still not fully realized. That's good b/c right now I really need to focus on finishing Blood Equity... when it's done, i'm sure something will reveal itself.

thanks for reading all my blabbing. I hope at least some of it was interesting.

-Çollin