Departments

Our Contributors

Richard Bullock CAS
Richard is from New York originally and began his film career in Seattle in 1995, transitioning from video assist to sound in 1999. His recent credits include The Color Purple, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, 1883, and Mare of Easttown.

Püd Cusack
Püd has been working in the film industry since graduating from film school at The Dominican University, Chicago. After her first eight years as a Boom Operator, she moved on to production sound mixing. Receiving an Oscar nomination for The Mask of Zorro, and an Emmy nomination for Marvel’s Hawkeye, her third Marvel project. With more than eighty films on her resume, she has worked all over the US, as well as twelve countries and counting. Püd’s passion & devotion to the sound film industry continues to grow & flourish.

James Delhauer
James Delhauer was born in Southern California and never made it very far from home. Since 2014, he has worked as a television engineer specializing in Pronology’s mRes platform. He joined Local 695 because he desperately needed friends and has served as the Local’s Director of Communications since 2022. James is Co-editor of Production Sound & Video.

Sean O’Malley
Sean O’Malley was born in Youngstown, Ohio. He began his professional career in music as an Engineer at Track Record Studios, and has been a Production Sound Mixer since 2004. He cut his teeth working with the Duplass brothers on many low-budget features and followed them to scripted television with HBO’s Togetherness. Sean is a member of the Television Academy and has earned two Emmy nominations for Euphoria and BEEF. His most recent projects include The Idol and an upcoming feature, On Swift Horses.

Mark Ulano CAS AMPS
Mark Ulano has been recording sound for film since 1976 mixing more than 150 film and television projects. He is a four-time Oscar nominee, most recently for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ad Astra, and Inglorious Basterds. His work on Titanic won him an Academy Award for Sound Mixing, as well as the Cinema Audio Society Award for Best Sound Mixing for a Feature Film. Most recently, his work can be heard on Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody and in 2023 on the new Martin Scorsese spring release, Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.

From the Editors

Happy New Year!

2024 is sure to be an exciting year for Production Sound & Video as we expect to cover a wealth of exciting projects spearheaded by Local 695 members, delve into the contract negotiations between the IATSE and AMPTP, and look ahead toward this year’s presidential election.

In this edition, Püd Cusack takes us behind the scenes of NYAD, while Richard Bullock shares a bit about his experiences working on 1923. We hear a bit about the production of BEEF from Sean O’Malley. Then we get to hear about the philosophy of sound in “A Conversation with Mark Ulano.” Members interested in on-set communications should take a look at the evolution of communication with Cine-Comm and last, but not least, James Delhauer shares the story of how IATSE solidarity played a key role in the wildfire crisis in Hawaii last August.

Do you have a story you’d like to share with the world? Production Sound & Video is seeking new writers from Local 695 to contribute articles to our quarterly publication. If you have a story you’d like to write or submit as an interview, please contact Co-editors James Delhauer & Richard Lightstone at mag@local695.com.

In Solidarity,
James Delhauer & Richard Lightstone
Production Sound & Video Co-editors

From the President

Let’s chat about GPT.

A year after I finished my graduate degree, I got a call. It was one of those life-changing calls. In fact, I thought it was a prank. But within a few days, my resume was polished and I was sitting in reception of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, interviewing for an unnamed show. On May 25, 2008, I shot Mission Control as JPL’s Phoenix Mars lander descended onto our neighboring planet. It was absolutely surreal and I was convinced I had peaked early in my career. Little did I know, I would continue on a path entrenched in technology change that was always pushing the boundaries of what was to come.

I have learned many valuable lessons over the last sixteen years of my partnership with the space agency, but one that sticks out from all the others is the role that fear plays when approaching emerging technology or cultural shifts in the technical space. On the one hand, feelings of fear are very organic. The idea of the unknown is unsettling and anxiety-inducing, but it’s also essential. Fear starts the process of problem solving. It is the catalyst to creativity. The two exist in an inseparable dichotomy with one another. I believe an unspoken requirement of our technical local membership is the understanding that we cannot create when we are overcome with fear, but both are necessary ingredients to a successful project.

In my time with JPL, I have worked on over a dozen high-profile missions from the earliest stages of conception. Almost ten years ago,when we did a test at NASA’s Ames Aeronautical Laboratory at Moffett Field, we were in the midst of incorporating a lot of new technology while performing a very high profile test. I was terrified. Ames contains the world’s largest wind tunnel test facility. Their facility’s test section is eighty feet high by one hundred and twenty feet long, producing wind speeds up to 250 mph. This tunnel is used in anything where wind speed is a factor in transit, ranging from semi-trucks to jet engines. Our job was to conduct a series of parachute tests for the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) system of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. Curiosity’s EDL was newly designed and developed with the most radical design in the history of Mars missions. I encourage you to google “Seven Minutes of Terror” for the full breakdown.

My job was to set up a series of high frame rate cameras and video assist in the wind tunnel in order to capture the parachute so that its success or failure could be thoroughly assessed after the fact. One of the angles necessary to document the test required me to climb sixty feet up the side of the building to rig a camera for a profiled point of view of the deployment. The scope of the test would require an operator. The vibration from the wind tunnel hitting the walls and the glass of the window was potentially too problematic to be left unattended for such an expensive test.

So, for over an hour, I was harnessed in above a seven story drop while being bombarded with 250 mph winds. The facility’s manager, the safety managers, a fellow video engineer, and I worked to ensure that I would be safe and that the camera would be rigged in such a manner that I couldn’t drop it, but that couldn’t block out the fear; the gnawing sense of anxiety that came with knowing that any unaccounted variable could be fatal and the responsibility of being tasked with shooting this one and done multi-million dollar test.

As the fans started to warm up, the lights across the facility and the neighboring town of Mountainview dimmed from the fan’s power consumption. The walls started to sway and breathe cold drafts of air. The wind continued to ramp up and the walls began to shake. The vibration grew in decibel level. I could barely hear the project manager on the walkie, but I faintly made out a voice calling, “Go!”

Another voice called, “Jil, hit record!”

My breathing was heavy, but I hit record. “Record system is Go!” I called back.

“All systems are a go. 5…4…3…2…1…Deploy.”

The noise from the vibration seemed to fade away as the parachute unfolded into a magical floating silk of orange and white. In the end, creativity won. On August 12, 2012, the Curiosity rover landed on the surface of Mars following a successful deployment of its EDL.

The skills that I acquired as a young video engineer—setting up full installation flypacks in the middle of desert and water proving grounds—were invaluable for the rest of my career. I learned to do the highest quality of work on a government budget, while pushing technology and vendors to improve their products so that we could better analyze space-flight hardware for successful launch and landing. The diligent, methodical, and scientific structure of these tests has carried with me into my work as a recordist in live TV or live-to-tape production.

Last fall, the IATSE appointed me Chair of the Artificial Intelligence Basic Negotiations Subcommittee. This is a subject where fear is prevalent and so this recent appointment forced me to assess what role fear and creativity will play in our upcoming negotiations. My research in the artificial intelligence (AI) space started years ago with privately funded projects and government assignments. I had the chance to work with Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI, in 2021. His talk on AI changed my thinking of everything to come. The earliest forms of ChatGPT were debuted to us and it set me into a multi-year analysis of how AI and generative tools would affect our industry.

As Don Draper from Mad Men once said, “Change is neither good or bad. It just is.” Artificial intelligence is inevitable at this point and we can greet it with either terror or curiosity. But if we do find ourselves filled with fear about this industry and cultural evolution, we have to remember to take a pause and grow past the unknown so we can embrace the creativity of the prospective.

I’m here to tell you, we do not have to fear this change. Instead, let’s get creative.

In Solidarity,

President Jillian Arnold

PS As we wrap up awards season, I want to take the time to acknowledge and thank all of the members of our Local who worked on nominated or award-winning projects. We have a very limited number of people in our Local who are eligible to receive a statue, but they do so with the help of all of those within the department whose talents, skills, and knowledge are creatively poured into these projects. If your name is on that list of nominees, please take the time to reach out to your crew and thank them one more time. And for those of us in fields that will never hold that Emmy or that Oscar or that CAS Award because your jurisdiction is deemed to be not creative enough to warrant one; I see you, I hear you, and I stand with you. Your talents and efforts are not unnoticed by the leadership of this Local. Congratulations to all who worked on projects that were nominated, and also to the crews that work the award show circuits for another great season.

Jillian Arnold standing beside the Mars Curiosity rover, 2013

From the Business Representative

To the average viewer, it might come as a surprise to find out that an hour of television or the latest two-and-a-half-hour blockbuster took hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of working hours to produce.

All that time spent making it, only to be consumed in a short sitting. For the uninitiated, there’s no way to understand all the various facets of our crafts that go into making such a short piece of artistic content.

Much the same is true of how our union functions. While our members are hard at work on set (or marching the picket lines as was the case last year), your representatives are hard at work managing the day-to-day tasks of running a union and preparing for bargaining on your behalf. So today, I thought I might shed a little light on what your union has been doing to prepare for the 2024 Basic Agreement & Videotape Supplemental Agreement Negotiations with the AMPTP.

Following unprecedented member participation in the 2021 Contract Negotiations, this year’s bargaining platform began development in early 2022. Knowing what we achieved in 2021 and what gains we still needed to achieve, we began compiling case precedent for proposals we knew or suspected would be priorities for the membership. This involved tracking economic trends over the lifetime of the contract and documenting safety concerns or incidents reported by members. We also began soliciting feedback on whether or not the new provisions from 2021 were effective in combating the issues they were intended to address. For example, almost every Local 695 email sent out in the last two years has included links to Job Report and Working Condition Report forms that our members can use to keep us appraised of changes or issues that arise on set.

From there, we launched our 2022 Membership Survey. This survey covered a wide variety of issues reported by members over the previous year and allowed members to rank issues in terms of importance and offer free response answers surrounding issues that the office may not have known about already. This information was used to assist in further research and helped us shape an outline of what our 2024 bargaining platform might look like.

The most commonly reported issues were those involving encroachment into our work jurisdiction by members of other locals or non-union workers, which we have been pleased to mostly resolve without needing to wait for the 2024 contract. 2022 and 2023 both saw jurisdictional clarifications from the IATSE that have helped put Local 695 members back to work when productions had been calling upon others to do their jobs.

In 2023, we continued to follow up on the data we’d gathered in 2022 by engaging with industry experts to help come up with solutions to the problems commonly reported by our members. This included the newly emerging field of artificial intelligence, with more and more members raising concerns about automation and job elimination on the set.

Of course, the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes came with their fair share of work for the union as well. As members found themselves out of work, it became our job to ensure that healthcare benefits were disrupted as little as possible. As a member of the Motion Picture Industry Health & Pension Plan Board, I personally worked with other representatives from the IA and the employers to secure No-Cost COBRA benefits for our members who were in danger of losing coverage. Our members had not been the ones to initiate a strike. Why should they have lost health coverage for it? In a year when tens of thousands of workers found themselves at home for months on end, less than 3% of participants covered by MPI fell out of the plan.

The strikes did not halt our negotiations preparation though. In fact, the swell of success within the labor movement as a whole allowed us to develop new strategies and proposals. Additionally, the gains achieved by the writers and actors have created new possibilities for our own union. Following the launch of the IATSE Census and IATSE Survey, our Local began directly engaging our membership through a series of town halls, general issue-based surveys, classification-based surveys, and one-on-one conversations. Our bargaining committees were formed and have been among the most active groups in 695’s 94-year history. We’ve received more member-penned proposals in the last year than we have since I became Business Agent in 2015.

Now our proposals have been submitted to the IATSE, where they have been combined with proposals from our sister Locals here in Hollywood. The IATSE formed seven bargaining subcommittees that are in the process of reviewing the various proposals. I’m pleased to report that our Locals are very well represented on these committees, with seats on the Wages & Economics, Communications, Logistics, Working Conditions, and New Media committees. Moreover, I have been tasked with chairing this year’s Benefits Committee, while President Jillian Arnold was assigned to chair the first-ever Artificial Intelligence Subcommittee. This means that our Local has a presence on all seven committees. Over the coming weeks, we will continue to narrow down our proposals until we’ve developed a comprehensive, progressive, and achievable bargaining platform that will best serve our members. We’ve been attentive to the feedback we’ve received in the last two years and have carefully considered every single proposal our members have submitted (no matter how profanely written they may have been in surveys or on social media).

In March, negotiations with the AMPTP will begin. At this time, none of us know what will happen, but I firmly believe that the IATSE has never been more prepared. We are resolute in our belief that our members deserve better and that in the ever-evolving technological landscape, a fair and equitable deal can be achieved. When negotiations begin, we will do everything in our power to be as open and transparent as possible. We will not be able to share everything with you, as some strategies will require secrecy so as not to tip our hand toward the employers. But know that your Executive Board, your bargaining committees, the Local 695 office staff, and I have worked tirelessly so that we can go in and do the job you sent us in to do. We are ready.

In Solidarity,

Scott Bernard

News & Announcements

Financial Relief for Entertainment Workers

This year’s prolonged work stoppages have been devastating to the entertainment community across the nation. In Hollywood, our community has been supported by the profound efforts of the Motion Picture Television Fund (MPTF) and the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly the Actor’s Fund). Both of these charities have long histories of offering safety-net services and aid for entertainment workers and their families. Both of these organizations aided the entertainment unions, including Local 695, in administering their Relief Funds throughout the 2023 WGA & SAG-AFTRA strikes against the AMPTP.
Though the strikes have ended, the financial impact will continue to be felt for some time and both MPTF and the Entertainment Community Fund still have resources available to help. If you work in entertainment and you or your family are in need, please visit their websites online at www.mptf.com and www.entertainmentcommunity.org

“All-In” Mixer

(L-R) Local 695 member Gary Raymond, Recording Secretary Heidi Nakamura, Communications Director James Delhauer, President Jillian Arnold, and IATSE Vice President Michael Miller.

On October 7, members of the IATSE came together at the Local 80 offices in Burbank for our union’s “All-In” Mixer. Members in attendance enjoyed free food, games, and entertainment. Fierce rivalries sprouted up by the cornhole boards. An auction for a variety of prizes—including beautiful works of art created by IATSE members—raised more than $20,000 for the union’s Political Action Committee, the IATSE-PAC. This fund is used by the IATSE to support candidates or lobbying efforts that align with IATSE federal issue agenda and has helped to elect pro-labor candidates and pass legislation like the 2020 CARES Act that extended unemployment benefits to freelance workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This event was spearheaded by Local 892 Executive Director Brigitta Romanov. Local 695 Recording Secretary Heidi Nakamura was a member of the Event Planning Committee.

IATSE Education

(L-R) AME Institute Student Outreach Day (high school and middle school students learning about the crafts!), Assistant Business Agent Heidi Nakamura/Y-8, Eva Rismanforoush/Y-1, and Steve Weiss

Local 695 offers a wide variety of educational opportunities for its members. Members are encouraged to visit the education’s page on the Local 695 website to see a calendar of upcoming classes, seminars, and educational opportunities.

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an excellent source of online training tutorials covering topics such as Avid Pro Tools, Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Rhino, Vectorworks, Final Cut Pro, Filemaker, AutoCAD, Cubase, Logic Pro, ShotPut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Vegas Pro, as well as Project Management, Software Development, Network Administration, Finance and Accounting, Marketing and much more. All IATSE members are eligible to sign up for a free LinkedIn Learning Account by visiting https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil

One of many Cine-COMM trainings, a big thank you to Y-4 Simon Jayes and instructor/Y-4 Brian Cesson for their continued support in educating the membership on Comms systems.

You can also view a multitude of free educational webinars sponsored by the IA Training Trust Fund online at www.gotostage.com/channel/iaeducationforall. These webinars cover a range of topics from labor and voting rights; the basics of equity, diversity, and inclusion; mental health subjects such as depression, substance abuse; physical safety and well-being at work; and so much more.

Introduction to Virtual Reality Seminar, graciously hosted by our partner, Mo-Sys

Fundamentals of video assist, hosted by our partners at Lightning LED and taught by Local 695 members Y-4 Shawn Nooshinfar and Y-4 Josh Levy.

New Members

Local 695 Welcomes its New Members

Estuardo Chacon Y-1
Maasai Moore Y-7A
Avery Randolph Y-4
Jack Sobo Y-1
Johnny Vasquez A2
Silvio Gillespie Y-7A
Gary Shawn Orm Y-16
Richard Ragon Y-4
Marcos Castro Y-8
Casey Graham Y-1
Kyle Pham Y-1
Brian Dickson Y-4
Glen Penland Y-7
Timothy Lewis A2
Julian Edwards Y-16
Yoshiya Ady A2
Kino Crayon Y-8
Nicolas Osorio Y-1
Jacob Eliett Y-1
Omer Barzilay Halperin A-1
Jordan Denis Y-1

Transfer In/From

Timothy Murphy 504
Harry Gingrich 481

In Memoriam

Edward Anderson Y-6
November 9, 1945 – August 10, 2023

Howard Stapleton Y-4
October 22, 1938 – August 29, 2023

Griffith Scott Y-4
November 26, 1996 – October 9, 2023

Our Contributors

James Delhauer
James Delhauer was born in Southern California and never made it very far from home. Since 2014, he has worked as a Television Engineer specializing in Pronology’s mRes platform. He joined Local 695 because he desperately needed friends. James is Co-editor of Production Sound & Video.

Steven A. Morrow CAS
Steven A. Morrow CAS has been a member of Local 695 for the past twenty-seven years. He currently works almost exclusively on feature films but enjoys the occasional TV series. He loves to mentor and learn from all of our collective experiences.

Chris Munro
Chris Munro has collaborated with some of our most respected filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Paul Greengrass, Ron Howard, Alfonso Cuaron and M. Night Shyamalan on worldwide locations for both UK- and US-based productions. Chris has won two Oscars, two BAFTAs, and multiple award nominations. Most recently, a BAFTA nomination for Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

Lee Orloff CAS
Native New Yorker Lee Orloff CAS is a Production Mixer who first studied film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in the 1970s. Since then, he’s spent the better part of forty-plus years learning for free about how filmmakers actually get their movies shot during innumerable and highly memorable days and nights spent with crews on film sets. He served as a member of AMPAS Sound Branch Executive Committee for twelve years and is the current Treasurer of Cinema Audio Society.

Mark Ulano CAS AMPS
Mark Ulano CAS AMPS has been recording sound for film since 1976, mixing over 150 film and television projects. He is a four-time Oscar nominee, most recently for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ad Astra and Inglourious Basterds. His work on Titanic won him an Academy Award for Sound Mixing, as well as the Cinema Audio Society Award for Best Sound Mixing for a Feature Film. Most recently, his work can be heard on Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody and in 2023 on the new Martin Scorsese spring release, Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Mr. Woody Stubblefield
Mr. Woody Stubblefield’s career began in music before transitioning to production sound. Since 1998, he’s worked in production and began specializing in low-budget filmmaking. With over 150 credits to his name, Woody has become a mentor and role model within the low-budget world where he’s had the opportunity to help many a young filmmaker get started with their earliest projects.

From the Editors

We wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season and a very Happy New Year!

This is our final edition of Production Sound & Video for 2023.

To say it was a difficult year is an understatement, and perhaps one we would all like to forget.

However, we have a wealth of articles. Lee Orloff brings us Ferrari, filmed in Italy with Director Michael Mann. Killers of the Flower Moon with Mark Ulano on the Martin Scorsese epic production. Chris Munro describes Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Steven Morrow and Richard Bullock tell us about The Color Purple.

But there’s more!
“The World of Low-Budget Filmmaking” by Mr. Woody Stubblefield, and “Post-Strike Post Game” by Co-editor James Delhauer rounds out this issue.

Enjoy the read and onward to a busy, bountiful, and wonderful 2024!

Richard Lightstone & James Delhauer

From the President

Let’s talk about the aftermath.

On September 27 and November 9, 2023, the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild ended their one hundred-plus day strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. These dates will live in our generational DNA as moments of great relief.

The truth is that these strikes have been devastating and I am keenly aware of the pain and suffering they have caused. As of November 1, 2023, the Motion Picture Industry & Pension Health Plans have lost a total of over 40 million hours or two billion dollars in labor wages. I am appalled by the lack of press regarding the impact on below-the-line talent, such as all members in our Local. We need to start talking about the long-term financial impact of these strikes on our families, our pocketbooks, but also our mental health.

So to that end, I decided to host a virtual discussion with seven Local 695 members in late October. Some were well seasoned with years of experience in our business while others are just starting their career journey. We discussed the strikes and how they had been affected over the last seven months. These seven members were extremely candid in their responses to the topics below.

Here are some of the topics and responses this group talked about:

How have you all been getting on since the start of the WGA strike?

Member 6: I am plowing through savings, like, I mean, just slash and burn. And, you know, the boom operator that’s been working with me for ten years basically had to leave LA. He’s hanging out in another state now because it’s cheaper to hang out there while the strike’s going on. That’s terrible, right?

Member 2: So, I finished a movie the second week of, or maybe the first week of April. And I had another movie lined up for the summer, so I didn’t necessarily fill that time with a ton of work. It wasn’t until maybe a couple weeks after the writers announced that they were on strike that I got an email saying that they’re going to decide to table the movie because it was just too hard. They wanted to make changes to the script, they couldn’t, and so it didn’t make sense to go ahead with prep. That whole movie got shelved. So that was my whole summer … just completely gone. And so I have done, I think, eight union days since the end of that feature that I did at the beginning of April.

How is your family dealing with the effects of the strike?

Member 1: I mean, it was good because I was here [with my kids] and I’m not always able to be here. I’m able to be present and take them to school. But then at the same time, the further we go into this, I’m here, but I’m not resourceful. You know what I mean? I’m here, but I’m dealing with the mental, emotional things of being at home every day and trying to figure out what’s next or what to do or what not to do. So, what I go through directly affects them because I can’t make the same decisions I can make if I’m working.

Member 3: Well, my kids are actually happy I’m home, but then you don’t have money to do a lot of things. So you’re home, but you’re home and you’re broke. At first, it was good. Now, we got to refill the resources, but from where?

Member 1: Yeah, just to jump on what [was said], it went from I was a taxi service for the kids and happy to spend time with them. I was driving my son to school pretty much every day … but you do reach a point where you are the person that’s saying yes to these things, but you’re also saying no to the things that you used to say yes to—can I get this thing, do we have money so I can go here with my friends, can I go do this? …There are times when they say, ‘When is this going to end, when is this going to end?’ And it’s frustrating because you don’t have an end date, because you can’t budget, because you can’t say, yeah it’s fine, you can go do this thing because we have this amount of money that I know that we can put here. But without that end date in sight, you don’t have any way of knowing how to partition that stuff out, you know, you don’t know what resources you can put where. Monday is my wife’s 50th birthday and it went from last year talking about a party to us maybe going out for dinner. It’s like what it’s come down to. You have to be responsible, but you also, I don’t know.

Member 3: When we first started, it was the summer. We had the time and a little bit of savings, or me personally, a little bit of savings. You’re using that because now you’re at home, you got the time with your kids, you’re using it. We’re letting them have their summer experience. Then back to school is a whole other expense. And now I’ve used most of our resources thinking … that it wouldn’t be this long or this serious. I’m not going to make them suffer. I’m still going to let them enjoy their summer and enjoy the back to school. But that was tough because what do we [do to] replace the money?

Member 1: And that’s the thing I think that’s gonna snap a lot of people is that not knowing, not being able to plan, especially going into Christmas and suddenly, it went from maybe we’ll get a couple of episodes before the year’s out, and we won’t lose healthcare, we won’t lose this, we’ll be able to pay for Christmas, to, oh, it’s gonna be January. Okay, I have to find a way of managing everything to get to January now. And the longer it goes on for us, it’s not just like a couple of days, it becomes months, it becomes nine to twelve weeks of leading before you can get onto a film set. So, every day that it goes on, we’re thinking, ”Well, they’re not going to start now because it’s going to be Christmas, and then it’ll be New Year’s, and then we’re going to start. So, what are we doing? Are we going to wait until March? Are we going to go until April? And there’s some people who haven’t worked for a year.”

Member 5: I don’t have kids but … I’m driving, helping my dad with his [limo] business. Just trying to stay afloat, staying positive though… But that’s slowed down too, because he used to have a lot of people in Hollywood that he would take as executives. So, it’s slowed down a lot. The whole city’s been pretty shut down because of this. And people don’t realize that it impacts a lot of small businesses too. Yeah, so right now he’s like looking into people coming from out of town, like doing Bar Mitzvahs. He’s doing a lot of football games now. And he’s doing a lot more like picking people up from the airport, dropping them off to their homes.

How has this affected the vendors we work with daily?

Member 3: This is obviously not my line of business, but I would say in talking to most of the vendors and manufacturers, they’ve definitely been impacted. I know in speaking with one, the owner of a company [who shall remain nameless], who makes equipment that we use in this industry, has taken his employees down to three days a week. He did mention to me that he honestly needed to take them down to one day a week because that’s really all he could afford, but he’s worried that those employees, who he’s had for thirty years, will leave him and that’s too scary to him. I’ve listened to the story on NPR just about dry cleaners to prop houses that are furloughing employees or closing their doors completely. This is damaging, because we are losing something here that we are not going to be able to get back. There’s the financial impact, but there’s also just the impact of just the stories that are being told, the prop houses, the costumes, all of that is just getting tossed and thrown away.

How do you feel about going back to work?

Member 3: It’s even scarier because even when we do go back, I’m already on the bottom of the totem pole. People who haven’t been working, it’s gonna be like, ‘grab my guys that need to pay their mortgage’ … [and] at the same time, there’s people that have been doing it for thirty years, twenty years. So, we’re low [on the totem pole], might not be back for months after that or weeks after that, or I don’t know, you know? So that’s something that concerns me and my position.

Member 2: Just so you know [Member 3], I feel the exact same way. I feel like I’m at a point, I mean, I’ve been fortunate, but I just know that there are so many people that have been doing this for a hell of a lot longer than me that have more name recognition than I have. And I have such, such anxiety about when will I get my first call to go back? Because I do, I think of myself too, as being lower on that ladder than some other names. So just know that you’re not alone in that fear, because I carry that same one with me. That’s my concern too, is that when we come back, the top-tier guys are going to get the first calls. And depending on how many shows come back, there may not be enough shows to then go to the second tier of guys, and then the third tier of guys, you know?

Member 7: For me, as a woman, who doesn’t have children, I found coming out of the pandemic, I was one of the last of my group to get called because everyone was calling people who had families first. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but that same fear is in my head. “Am I even going to get a call?” because I know all the men I work with, all have kids, and all those guys stick together.

Have you thought about alternatives to this business?

Member 2: We don’t really have a skill set that’s transferable. Some of us are deep in the hole, metaphorically speaking, because of the investment we’ve made in equipment. It’s not an easy shift to find something else. It’s not like we can just turn around and pick up. And like I said, getting seasonal work is next to impossible unless you are already in the retail world or in the food service industry. No one is going to take you because you’re not going to be able to sign on for any sort of substantial amount of time. They’re going to train you and then you’re going to leave for a job. And retail companies are aware of this. And so that’s not realistic either. And I think you could look in to the gig economy. You could look in to Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, all of those, which are miserable. You don’t make a ton of money. From my aspect, “Yes, I own a car. Yes, I can drive. Honestly, I’d be afraid for my safety to be an Uber or Lyft driver in the city.” I don’t want to deal with strange random men in my car. Absolutely not. So that’s not an option either. There really isn’t a lot out there for us other than going on disability and going through unemployment… It is important to note that there is not a wide range of options for us to make money outside of this very niche-specific set of skills we have for this industry.

Member 6: So, we’re one of those dual film households… And now, [my wife’s] unemployment ran out. And so, there’s zero. She’s finding stuff to do, which is great, but not much… I think there’s a real false sense of fallback.

Member 1: I looked. I thought maybe I could do something in the meantime, but it’s hard to get seasonal work or apply for jobs that, frankly, are part time. They pay less than unemployment. So I’m extracting myself from being useful to the family as the taxi service for the kids and cooking and helping out as much as I can at home, where I wouldn’t normally be there… I think some people if you’re at the end or at the very beginning of your career, then you have a little more room to pivot, but when you’re bang in the middle and you have ten years away from getting all the hours that you need to retire, fifteen years away or twenty years away and that finishing line is a lot more distant, but the starting line is nowhere near as well, then it’s a little harder to change at that point.

What do you think the future looks like?

Member 4: I remember when it first started, I thought it was going to last two or three months and then everything would come back. But then once it started getting longer, I started to think like, “oh, maybe I should switch over to something else.” But then just thinking about starting off new somewhere else, I was like sound is what I really wanted to do. I think it was around July, I started to think maybe I should shift into something else. It has been tough during these past few months, for sure. And so, I remembered PAing and then I got into sound a year ago. I just kept thinking about how much fun I had working on set and doing sound. It’s a bit of a pause, but I still want to continue working in sound because that’s what I worked hard to get into and that’s something that I would like to continue and move on up; maybe someday become a sound mixer as well. So that’s still my dream… So in a way, the strike actually reinforced that this is really what you want to do.

Member 6: And these strikes have all been under the guise of we’re helping the next generation through. The problem is we’re wiping them out; wiping them out before they even get a chance. So that next generation I’m talking about isn’t even a writer or an actor now. Because this strike is wiping out a whole level of people. And that includes us. I have incredible anxiety when it comes to work… And yet we’re still resolved. We’re going through this, but we are still strong and will do nothing less than accept a fair contract when our time comes… And just like when we started talking, I think it’s really important [to talk and be heard] because I feel the noise of our pain and suffering, and nobody’s hearing it.

And yet, as Member 6 just stated, we are still resolved.

I sit with you.

In Solidarity,

President Jillian Arnold

From the Business Representative

In 1976’s Network, Howard Beale famously said, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

As we prepare for next year’s Basic Agreement & Videotape Supplemental Agreement negotiations, there has been a clear demand for change from our members. Our various surveys, town halls, and bargaining committee meetings have highlighted numerous challenges entertainment professionals face at work every day. Workplace abuse, exploited contract loopholes, and all manner of “business first, human last” practices have taken their toll on workers in Hollywood and throughout the entertainment community. The data that we’ve collected is full of cold, hard facts that shed light on these issues and will support the proposals we’ll bring to the bargaining table next year. Our members have made it clear. They’re as mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore!

All of this coincides with a remarkable month for the labor movement. “I’ve seen several clever names for it, though I am partial to “Striketober.” United Auto Workers, the culinary workers, and casino workers in Michigan all reached historic agreements for better terms and conditions of their employment. That is to say nothing of the gains made by our brothers, sisters, and kin in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. “We’ve seen more than three hundred strikes so far this year, with more than 450,000 workers standing up for the belief that they deserve better.” Working people in this country are reclaiming their power.

And we’re far from finished. Workers continue to stand in solidarity as a united labor movement so that every worker can benefit from our movement. Labor is united. Labor is strong. Labor is here.

Or, to put it another way, “We’re as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!”

In Solidarity,

Scott Bernard, Business Representative
scottb@local695.com

News & Announcements

The WGA/SAG-AFTRA Strikes

In May, the Writers Guild of America initiated a labor strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers after their contract expired and a new deal could not be reached. Then in July, they were joined on the picket lines by the members of SAG-AFTRA, who were also unable to reach an acceptable deal with the producers. Local 695 stands in firm solidarity with our brothers, sisters, and kin in both of these unions.

However, we know that the strikes and subsequent work shortages have been hard on everyone working in the entertainment community. That is why the IATSE has authorized $2 million in financial assistance to help ease the burden of IATSE members during the current situation. This assistance program is being administered through the Motion Picture Television Fund (MPTF) and the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly the Actor’s Fund) as both organizations have a longstanding history of being there in support of our union when we need it most.

Furthermore, the Local 695 Board of Directors has authorized an additional $250,000 in strike relief specifically for 695 members in need. This assistance is also being administered through MPTF. Members who are struggling are encouraged to visit the MPTF and Entertainment Community Fund for more information. If you have any questions, please call the Local 695 Offices.

Local 695 Technical Trends Committee

We are excited to announce that Local 695’s Technical Trends Committee is taking a proactive stance in addressing the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). In recognition of the profound impact AI applications and machine learning have on our industry, the committee will spearhead efforts to pool knowledge from industry experts within the Local. Our primary objective is to conduct a comprehensive assessment of both the advantages and potential dangers posed by AI. With the goal of safeguarding the interests of our valued IATSE members, we will work tirelessly to devise effective contractual and legislative strategies aimed at minimizing any negative impact that AI might have on our workforce. By staying at the forefront of this cutting-edge technology, Local 695 is committed to ensuring that our members’ rights and opportunities remain protected and that they continue to thrive in an ever-evolving industry. Together, we shall navigate the challenges and opportunities that AI brings, emerging stronger and more resilient than ever before. If you are interested in joining the Technical Trends Committee in this endeavor, please contact longtime Committee Chair Jay Patterson and newly appointed Co-chair, James Delhauer, at techtrends@local695.com.

IATSE Education

The IATSE provides a multitude of continuing education opportunities for its members.

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an excellent source of online training tutorials covering topics such as Avid Pro Tools, Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Rhino, Vectorworks, Final Cut Pro, Filemaker, AutoCad, Cubase, Logic Pro, Shot Put Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Vegas Pro, as well as Project Management, Software Development, Network Administration, Finance and Accounting, Marketing and much more. All IATSE members are eligible to sign up for a free LinkedIn Learning Account by visiting https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil.

Late & Unreported MPI Hours

The Local has received complaints of late and unreported MPI plan hours. All members are encouraged to check their MPI accounts through the MPI website. If any hours appear to be missing, you can call the support line at (818) 769-0007, ext. 2381.

New Members

Local 695 Welcomes its New Members

Rylan Sedivy A-2
Manuel Jimenez Y-4
Benjamin Allison Y-1
Keenan Jensen Y-1
Joshua Knapp Y-8
Gabriel Linkiewicz Y-1
Kelsey Zeigler Y-7A

In Memoriam

Christopher Kessler
Y-9
March 4, 1972 – July 1, 2023

James Thornton
Y-1
March 16, 1945 – January 16, 2023

Update Skills in Membership Directory

Following the website rebuild, the membership profiles were reset and many of the profiles in the directory are still empty. The membership directory can be a powerful tool for finding work when used correctly. Everyone is advised to log in to the Local 695 website to update their information in the directory and their status in the Available of Work list so that they can be recommended for work as needed.

Our Contributors

Bryan Cahill

Bryan Cahill began his career in San Diego as the mixer on a documentary in Mexico with former President Jimmy Carter. He moved to Los Angeles in 1990 and currently serves as Instructor and Production Sound Administrator at Loyola Marymount University.

James Delhauer

James Delhauer was born in Southern California and never made it very far from home. Since 2014, he has worked as a Television Engineer specializing in Pronology’s mRes platform. He joined Local 695 because he desperately needed friends. James is Co-editor of Production Sound & Video.

Antony Hurd

Antony is a lifelong sports fan and Sports Broadcast Mixer. He’s mixed everything from the NFL to the MBA to the Olympics, and even threw in a few runs at the Oscars for good measure. When working the Olympics, he learned what it was like to actually push a cart uphill in the snow, both ways.

Amber Maher

Amber has worked in Los Angeles on multiple Emmy- and Oscar-winning television shows and films. She is an avid learner and there is no puzzle she won’t solve. Amber loves being a Video Assist Engineer as it balances out her need to problem solve while being part of the creative filmmaking process.

Ric Teller

I’ve been very fortunate in my more than forty years working in television, going places and doing things that a kid from a small town in Nebraska could not have imagined.

From the Editors

Hello Everyone,

After a jam-packed summer edition, we’re back with a slightly lighter fall edition. Bryan Cahill gives us an overview of on-set concerns regarding safety as climate change continues to exacerbate the summer’s heat. Amber Maher takes us through her experiences working as a Video Assist Operator and why now more than ever, it is essential that the video department on set be given adequate staffing. Then we have an interview with Antony Hurd, who shares his insights into the world of mixing for professional sports. And as usual, our contributing columnist Ric Teller shares his thoughts about life, the universe, and everything. Then James Delhauer has some updates to share on the IATSE’s initiatives to address growing concerns surrounding the subject of artificial intelligence.

We hope you enjoy.

In Solidarity,

James Delhauer & Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS

Are you interested in telling your story? Production Sound & Video is always seeking new stories to share with our readers.
If you are interested in writing an article or sharing your story in our magazine, please contact us at mag@local695.com

From the President

In Solidarity,

From the Business Representative

There is no denying the allure of our industry. For many of us, it has been a privilege to work alongside the finest creative minds and most widely recognized celebrities. Year in and year out, we see record shattering box-office numbers as studios report billions of dollars in profits. Since its earliest days, Hollywood has always attracted those seeking to make their fortunes or express their creative minds. Yet this year, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Shortly thereafter on July 14, they were joined by more than 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA, leading to the first dual Hollywood strike in more than half a century. Why is it that despite earning billions of dollars in revenue for the studios, these artists felt the need to walk away from the bargaining table in demand of more?

Because Hollywood is Broken.

When the earliest versions of our contracts were first written, the film business was a very different place. The business model was supported by ticket sales, TV ratings, and home media distribution. As key contributors to a film or show’s success, the cast and crew shared in the film’s success through residuals. For work-a-day directors, actors, and writers who might go months of even years between jobs, it made sense that residuals would be made in direct cash payments. That might be the only income those artists made while they were looking for their next job. For the below-the-line crew, the majority of whom were steadily employed directly by the studios, the needs of day-to-day life were already met by a steady paycheck. So, residuals were paid out in the form of contributions to our benefit plans.

But this model has been disrupted and the studio system has disappeared. Film studios have been acquired by or transformed into big tech companies, with many of the biggest players in the industry consolidating under fewer banners. 20th Century Fox, once a central pillar of the entertainment industry, is now a subsidy of the Walt Disney Corporation. Warner Bros. Studios, as it was known for over a century, is now Warner Bros. Discovery. Plus, the rise of streaming has fundamentally changed the way that entertainment is sold. Ticket sales and ratings are down across the board, but the industry is more profitable than ever. Movies and television don’t need to individually make a profit anymore because their real value is to be part of a bundle of content sold for a monthly subscription fee. This dwindling competition and complete control of distribution by the studios has effectively locked creatives and crews out of their fair compensation.

This is why the WGA proposal for residuals based on subscriber numbers makes sense. But the streaming companies don’t want to share that information. Why? Because then the creatives would know who’s watching what shows on the streaming service and how much they should be compensated for the number of subscribers watching the content they created.

The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are part of a larger trend growing throughout our country. We’ve seen thousands of school workers, hotel workers, and manufacturing workers go on strike. Companies once thought to be “union proof” like Starbucks and Amazon have been forced to come to the bargaining table and sign union contracts with their employees. An August 2022 Gallup Poll showed that approval for labor unions had reached 71%, which is the highest it’s been in nearly sixty years! Across the country, workers are standing up in demand of a fair deal. In all my years with this IATSE, I have never seen such momentum in the labor movement. But I know I’m excited to have that momentum behind us as we go into next year’s contract negotiations.

Hollywood might be Broken. But Labor is Stronger than Ever.

In Solidarity,

Scott Bernard
Business Representative
scottb@local695.com

News & Announcements

The Writers Guild of America Strike

On May 2, after weeks of stalled negotiations, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) initiated a worker strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP). The right to strike is fundamental to the labor movement. Local 695 stands in support of the WGA and its members. All workers are entitled to work under a contract that includes fair compensation and working conditions. IATSE contracts are still in effect and you are not required to withhold work services from your employer. However, choosing to honor a lawful picket line is your right. If you work under the IATSE Basic Agreement, Area Standards Agreement, New York Production Locals Agreements, the Low Budget Theatrical Agreement, the Videotape Electronics Supplemental Agreement, or the Commercial Production Agreement, you are not required to cross the picket line if you so choose not to. That said, if you do intend to withhold services in honor of a picket line, you must email your employer and declare that you will not be reporting to work out of respect for the picket line. Failure to do so could result in a declaration of job abandonment and can result in lawful job termination.

Furthermore, it has been brought to our attention that studios have been calling IATSE members and asking if they are willing to cross picket lines in order to come to work. This line of questioning is illegal, and you are not required to answer these questions. In fact, we recommend that you refuse to answer and then please report the call to the Local immediately. It is important to report these calls to us so that we can report this to the IATSE, who will contact the employer and let them know they are in violation of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 and remind them that they should not be pressuring IATSE members in this manner. Please call the office immediately to report that you have been asked these questions, and don’t hesitate to call and ask to speak to one of your Representatives if you have questions relating to crossing the picket line or if your production is impacted by the strike.

IATSE Education

The IATSE provides a multitude of continuing education opportunities for its members.

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an excellent source of online training tutorials covering topics such as Avid Pro Tools, Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Rhino, Vectorworks, Final Cut Pro, Filemaker, AutoCad, Cubase, Logic Pro, Shot Put Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Vegas Pro, as well as Project Management, Software Development, Network Administration, Finance and Accounting, Marketing and much more. All IATSE members are eligible to sign up for a free LinkedIn Learning Account by visiting https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil.

From the Young Workers Committee

The IATSE Local 695 Young Workers Committee is dedicated to bridging the gap between experienced members and newcomers while also providing a sense of community within IATSE Local 695 and the other IATSE locals through a combination of entertainment, education, and ecological events.

The committee has become most recognized for our bimonthly hikes. In 2023, we have organized two hikes thus far, each with a large turnout of more than forty hikers. We open these up to prospective and inter-local IATSE memberships so we can foster mentorship and solidarity amongst other departments. Each hike has diverse representation from 600, 700, TAG, 80, 800, 705, 729, 44, and of course, 695. Quickly becoming a favorite aspect of these hikes is our labor-and-union-based educational trivia, complete with prizes! So please join if you like exercise or flexing those trivia skills. Massive thanks to Local 695 member David Franklin for being the main hand in putting these hikes together!

The committee has also had a hand in environmental and political actions. On Earth Day, we participated in Friends of the LA River’s yearly LA River cleanup at Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve! For May Day, members of the committee proudly represented IATSE Local 695 in the yearly city-wide May Day Rally and March. We marched alongside not only other IATSE locals, but members from every union in town, as well as organizations fighting for immigrants’ rights.

Our biggest accomplishment this year has been organizing an educational screening of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight with live commentary from the production sound team!! We were extremely fortunate to host Boom Ops Tom Hartig and Patrick Martens, then-sound trainee Ray Westman, as well as Production Sound Mixer, and former Local 695 President, Mark Ulano, who Zoomed from out of the country! Sound Utility Mitchell Gebhard couldn’t attend in person, so he made some detailed notes that proved to be super helpful. Thanks to the generous support of Scott Bernard and the Executive Board, we were able to have this event at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater at the Pickford Center of Motion Pictures and Television. Endless thanks to the presenters, our volunteers, the theater staff, including a Local 695 projectionist, Chris Seo, and Ryan Carpenter who authorized, prepped, and presented the Academy’s own 70mm roadshow print of the film. This was a truly special evening and could not have happened without the care of all involved!

The committee is slowly filling out the calendar for the rest of the year with more events and projects. We have a host of entertainment and educational events on the horizon, so feel free to email us at YWC@local695.com and follow us on Instagram @695ywc to get more involved!

Late & Unreported MPI Hours

The Local has received complaints of late and unreported MPI Plan hours. All members are encouraged to check their MPI accounts through the MPI website. If any hours appear to be missing, you can call the support line at (818) 769-0007, ext. 2381 or email support at CPParticipantInquiries@mpiphp.org.

New Members

Local 695 Welcomes its New Members

Frank Clayton A-2
Juan Luevano A-7
Rodney Orin Smith Y-4
Joseph Fiorillo Y-3
Nicholas Nebeker Y-4
Greg Sextro Y-1
Cody Takacs Y-1
Zachary Mueller Y-1
Dylan Henning Y-7A
Jorge Del Valle Y-7A
Patrick Hurley Y-1
Fredie Sanchez Y-1
Martyn Marquez Y-9
Ignacio Martinez Y-7
Andrew Justin Berrington Y-4
Marielle Dia Donnelly Y-8
Axel Ledezma Y-4
Ryan Steward Y-4
Dmitry Kovalev Y-4

In Memoriam

Keith Champlin
Projectionist
December 14, 1944 – January 9, 2023

Ronald Tavalaro
Projectionist
September 9, 1953 – February 3, 2023

Update Skills in Membership Directory

Following last year’s website rebuild, the membership profiles were reset and many of the profiles in the directory are still empty. The Membership Directory can be a powerful tool for finding work when used correctly. Everyone is advised to log in to the Local 695 website to update their information in the directory and their status in the Available for Work list so that they can be recommended for work as needed.

COVID-19 Return to Work Protocols

On May 11, the federal government and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced an official end to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency in the United States. By prior agreement between the Hollywood unions and the AMPTP, the majority of Return to Work Protocols were set to sunset at this time. However, the following provisions will remain in effect for the remainder of 2023. Productions that have already established a vaccination policy in Zone A prior to the end of the Public Health Emergency may keep that policy for the duration of the production. For episodic productions, this applies only to the season in production prior to May 11, not for subsequent seasons. All employees remain eligible for five paid COVID-19 sick days through the end of 2023. If you have any questions or are facing COVID-related issues at work, please call the Local 695 office.

Our Contributors

Amanda Beggs CAS

Amanda Beggs CAS has been working as a Production Sound Mixer in LA for over 15 years and has worked on both features and television. She’s been honored with CAS Award nominations and an Emmy nomination. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Television Academy, and the Cinema Audio Society. Most recent projects include the first season of Shrinking, the soon-to-be-released High Desert and Jeff Nichols’ upcoming film The Bikeriders.

Bryan Cahill

Julian Howarth

Born in the UK and with a background in music. Julian Howarth has been working in production sound on film and television shows for over 27 years. Julian moved to the United States in 2010 after working on the award-winning BBC flagship show Doctor Who, continuing his sonic journey. Beginning with Hollyoaks all the way through working with James Cameron on the Avatar sequels. It has been a remarkable journey.

Blas Kisic

Born in Venezuela, Blas earned a BA in mass media, then moved to Los Angeles. His sound career began working on weekly shows produced for Univisión. Later joining Local 695, where he moved on to mixing commercials and episodic TV. Besides his work as a mixer, he also enjoys sharing what he’s learned, teaching at Local 695, CSUN, and Art Center of Design.

Brandon Loulias

Brandon is a Sound Engineer from Los Angeles. He got his start in 2002, working at music studios as a freelance mixing engineer and touring session musician in his teens. In his early twenties, he worked in post sound for a company called King Soundworks, eventually expanding his palette to production and beyond. He now works in various capacities, such as production, post, music, and live broadcast. Coming from low-budget shorts and documentaries to movies with Scorsese and Spielberg, he’s grateful to the 695 community for these opportunities, growth, and development. He’s encountered different styles of work all over the world—in any climate and conditions imaginable and continues to solve sonic equations to make a living. His biggest accomplishment is qualifying for MPI.

Dan Moore

Dan has been a member of Local 695 since 1984. He has worked on over 700 commercials and 100 feature films. His recent projects have been Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water. He is the owner of Video Hawks and can be reached at videohawks@gmail.com or through the Video Hawks website.

Eli Joel Moskowitz

Lucky enough to be born and raised on set in Hollywood. A member of Local 695 for over a decade now, he has worked in single-camera, sitcom, features, and live events all around Southern California.

Ric Teller

I’ve been very fortunate in my more than forty years working in television, going places, and doing things that a kid from a small town in Nebraska could not have imagined.

From the Editors

Welcome. The summer edition is bursting at the seams with interesting content. Dan Moore tells us about the groundbreaking video technology needed on Avatar: The Way of Water. Amanda Beggs CAS writes about Dahmer – Monster and Eli Moskowitz demos the XO-Boom.

Julian Howarth describes his team’s contribution to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Brandon Loulias shows us “The Way of the Day Player.” Blas Kisic brings us Jury Duty and Bryan Cahill continues his series with Luke Kelly’s on-set exercises.

Co-editor James Delhauer gives us a review of this year’s NAB, Ric Teller returns with “Ric Rambles,” and Doc Justice on Halter Technical … and there’s more!

Enjoy the read.

In Solidarity,

Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS & James Delhauer

From the President

Let’s talk about Cherry Garcia … or Chunky Monkey.

Let’s talk about a scoop of each.

Summer is here and, if you’re like me, you will be enjoying a scoop or two of ice cream. The employees of that old sweet and delicious ice cream label, Ben & Jerry’s, voted to unionize at their Burlington, Vermont flagship location this past spring.

Their reasons for organizing were pretty normal. Like Starbucks, Amazon, and so many others, the workers cited safety concerns, poor working conditions, and low wages as the basis for their interest in unionizing. Ben & Jerry’s is another in a long list of companies whose workers are demanding more from their relationship with their employers. Support for unions and workers’ rights are at a half-century high and stories like this one are becoming more commonplace.

L to R: Local 695 President Jillian Arnold, AFL-CIO Executive Secretary-Treasurer Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, AFL-CIO President Elizabeth Shuler, and LA Federation of Labor President Yvonne Wheeler attend the “Union Strikes Back” rally in Hollywood, May 26, 2023.

However, according to The New York Times, the tipping point in this particular case was Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day. This was an annual tradition that, owing to the pandemic, was put on hiatus, but made its “triumphant” return this year. Though a welcome treat for customers, Free Cone Day proved contentious among the company’s staff, as management demanded that their workers refuse all tips for the day. The goal had been to give customers a truly “free” experience, but this decision disregarded the fact that the workers, most of whom make minimum wage, depend on tips as part of their income.

What stood out to me as I ate my way through a quart of Americone Dream was that the ice cream might be free, but that does not mean that the labor involved in delivering it to customers has changed. So why should they be making less when they are performing the same labor scoop they always have? More importantly, we face a similar issue within our jurisdiction at Local 695.

As the technical local of Hollywood, our work is among the most subject to evolution. As technology develops, the methods of executing our crafts develop with it. The technical advances we’ve seen in the worlds of video, playback, projection, and production sound have all accelerated with the implementation of IT infrastructures and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI) platforms. Members of Local 695 are expected to not only be aware of upcoming changes, but also to make sure they’re trained on the latest technologies in addition to their existing skill sets—often so they can earn the same wage doing more work than before.

A few examples include cloud-based recording, digital intercom systems, and virtual production.

Cloud-based recording has been utilized in the live and broadcast production world for the last several years and is beginning to make its way into episodic and narrative productions now as well. Rather than recording primarily onto physical media (hard drives, tape, etc.) via decks or servers, we are now researching and developing cloud-based hubs for our newly created ones and zeros to safely store. The physicality of storing intellectual property is evolving, but the act of labor to record a show has not.

Digital intercom systems are infiltrating feature and episodic areas of production. These technologies have been used in broadcast environments for decades and we are proud to see their expansion. But these communication systems in new environments does not mean that this work should not be performed and executed by anyone other than Local 695 members.

Video wall playback architectures have advanced using state-of-the-art graphics and gaming engines to map LED panels. The hardware and the software may evolve, but the physical act of playing back content, whether as part of a live graphical overlay, for purposes of review, or to be photographed by the camera falls under the jurisdiction of Local 695.

All of these innovations affect the way that we do our jobs, but our jurisdictions remain unchanged. Work intended for these primary purposes fall under the contractual obligation of Local 695 members, who are committed to being on the forefront of this evolution.

The employees of Ben and Jerry’s are professional scoopers. I personally cannot create a perfectly shaped circular ice cream scoop, nor can I make a perfectly golden waffle cone to hold it. The members of Local 695 are trained to be expert technicians and craftspeople in the areas of sound, video, and projection. The act of our labor does not change, even if the parameters and requirements of our day-to-day do.

Have a good summer.

In Solidarity,

PS In other union news, those cargo pants you bought from REI—those are going union as well.

From the Business Representative

Are you ready to take advantage of the changes that are coming our way?
After the conclusion of our second quarter membership meeting on Saturday, April 15, I drove straight to Las Vegas for the 100th NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Convention. I have always been excited to attend this show as it offers a glimpse into the future of production. Let’s face it, we are all technology enthusiasts and love to try out new equipment. I have been going to this convention for many years and have formed numerous relationships with people working for various manufacturers. Some of these relationships go back to my time as the sales manager at Location Sound Corporation. During my visit this year, I met up with James Delhauer and we spent three days exploring the new ways in which manufacturers are developing products to enhance our work. In his article, James will discuss several new products that caught our attention and how they may be of interest to you.

It is crucial that we, as video and audio engineers, embrace and contribute to the development of new technology. “Virtual Production,” a buzzword that has been circulating in Hollywood for the past few years, was one of the highlights of this year’s convention. While several of the new products and software were labeled Virtual Production, it is clear that the term is still being used in a very broad way. Some are using the term to describe work that has been around for decades, such as the Process Shot. We see the term In-Camera VFX on “LED Walls,” which I believe was coined by post-production VFX houses to describe playback work on set. This is work that our members have been performing for decades. We saw several booths displaying LED Video Walls playing back images to be captured during live performances. All of this represents the latest use of the Process Shot. The difference between manufacturers lies in the software and hardware used to get the image on the screen.

Similarly, AI (artificial intelligence) is one of the hottest topics in the news, and we have heard how it is going to revolutionize the way we do just about everything. While some companies at NAB were only dipping their toes into the market, I believe that AI will be the leading item at the next NAB convention. Mobius Labs, one company we encountered, was promoting the advanced use of AI to automate the mundane task of tagging metadata. I think this is an excellent use for AI. It is clear that we have a unique opportunity to learn about these new workflows right now. The future job opportunities for our Video and Audio Engineers are vast. Our Education Department has already started offering classes on some of this new hardware and software. There are new engineering jobs in production, some of which are being developed by our members. For instance, setting up and managing a tracking system that is used with game engine software to control playback. This system tracks the location of the camera in space so that the image on the video LED wall can respond to the camera’s location. This is just one area on which our members can focus. Look around, learn a new skill, and if you find a piece of software or hardware that is relevant to our field and you want to have our Local train our members, reach out to the Education Department. Together, we can bring these new innovations to production and continue to lead in technology advancements in the motion picture industry.

In Solidarity,

Scott Bernard, Business Representative
scottb@local695.com

News & Announcements

Local 695 Constitution & Bylaws Amendments

On Saturday, January 14, Local 695 held its Q1 General Membership Meeting. This historic meeting was conducted both in a hybrid format, with members gathering in person at Local 80 and members joining in remotely via Zoom. Amongst the topics for discussion were two amendments to the Local 695 Constitution & Bylaws, which were brought before the membership for a vote. The hybrid voting process is a complex one, as many factors need to be taken into account in order to ensure compliance with the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, as well as the governing mandates of the IATSE. Local 695 is now one of the first labor unions in the nation to host an LMRDA-compliant hybrid vote of this nature and many of our finest engineers remarked on how impressed they were with the quality of the remote integration. The leadership would like to thank Zak Holley of Holley Video for engineering the live switch camera setup that allowed remote members to fully see, hear, and participate in the proceedings. They would also like to thank members Bill Kaplan and Oscar Alva for prepping and operating the sound component of the meeting. Local 695 has been referred to as the Technical Crown Jewel of the IATSE by the International leadership and these gentlemen worked hard to ensure we lived up to that title. The results of the vote have been forwarded to the Office of the IATSE International President and, pending his approval, will be adopted into the Local’s Constitution & Bylaws. For the full language of the amendments, please check your Local 695 emails, call the Local 695 office at (818) 985-9204, or see the Members Only section of the Local 695 website at www.local695.com.

Update Skills in Membership Directory
The membership directory can be a powerful tool for finding work when used correctly. Everyone is advised to log in to the Local 695 website to update their information in the directory and their status in the Available of Work list so that they can be recommended for work as needed.

Local 695 Holiday Party at Pickwick Gardens

The Local 695 Office staff at the 2022 Holiday Party.

On Saturday, December 3, Local 695 hosted its first holiday party since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than two hundred Local 695 members and guests came together at the Pickwick Gardens Grand Ballroom for a night of celebration, relaxation, and charity. Assistant Business Rep & LA Federation of Labor Vice President Heidi Nakamura spearheaded a toy drive through the Federation, which gathered dozens of toys and gifts for children in need. Our Local was able to make the season just a little bit brighter for those in our community who needed it most.

Additionally, we hosted a grand raffle, with prizes sponsored or donated by the Cinema Audio Society, Pronology, Halter Technical, K-Tek, and Denecke, Inc. The proceeds of the raffle and the event’s ticket sales were donated to the Motion Picture Television Fund to the tune of $8,625. It was wonderful to see so many of our members and their families, as well as to come together in support of such good causes. The Local’s leadership would like to thank our office staff for the many hours of work they put into such a phenomenal event.

IATSE Education

The IATSE provides a multitude of continuing education opportunities for its members.

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an excellent source of online training tutorials covering topics such as Avid Pro Tools, Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Rhino, Vectorworks, Final Cut Pro, FileMaker, AutoCad, Cubase, Logic Pro, ShotPut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Vegas Pro, as well as Project Management, Software Development, Network Administration, Finance and Accounting, Marketing and much more. All IATSE members are eligible to sign up for a free LinkedIn Learning Account by visiting https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil.

Late & Unreported MPI Hours

The Local has received complaints of late and unreported MPI Plan hours. All members are encouraged to check their MPI accounts through the MPI website. If any hours appear to be missing, you can call the support line at (818) 769-0007, ext. 2381 or email support at CPParticipantInquiries@mpiphp.org.

New Members

Local 695 Welcomes its New Member

Bernard Sissel Y-7A
Elizabeth Smith Y-7A
Jeffrey Thatcher Y-7
Alan Barber Y-16
Tristen Poliseno Y-4
Keith La Masney Y-1
Brian Bednar A-2
Jim Bloomquist Y-4

In Memoriam

Anthony Jarvis – Y-7
May 6, 1952 – October 13, 2022

Mark Grech – Y-8
June 29, 1954 – November 22, 2022

Monte Swann – Y-4
June 6, 1954 – December 6, 2022