Affected community includes tens-of-thousands of people
“We are dealing with the situation regarding COVID-19 as it unfolds in real time. With things changing so quickly we can’t comment on any specifics. This is an unprecedented situation, not only locally but globally, and we continue to work in the best interest of the professional artists and technicians of the (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) Local 891 through this difficult time,” said IATSE spokesman Phil Klapwyk in an email to Postmedia News.
The community, of course, reaches well beyond the faces you see on the screen. It literally takes a village to make a TV show or film. The tens-of-thousands of people the industry employs around B.C. include food-vendors, drivers, rental companies, special effects people, hair and makeup folks, and on and on.
“In this industry, historically, people are always a bit jumpy about when the next job is coming because you don’t always know. But, in the last few years, we have never had to really worry about that,” said Vancouver TV/film hairstylist Jim Dreichel (See and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), referring to the rebound in the industry after a slow period about seven years ago. “It’s been massive. Most of us turn down work all the time because we are already working.
“Now there is nothing.” Co-owner Glenn Ennis of Vancouver specialty camera team Peacemaker Filmworks (Deadpool 1 & 2, The Predator, Arrow, Supergirl) said the company wrapped a major car commercial March 15, and now is looking at two months of nada.
“It has been resilient in that before you could just go somewhere else. Some other centre picks up the slack when somewhere else can’t work for whatever reason. But this one is worldwide, and a complete unknown,” said Ennis, who’s also a stunt actor who has now lost a lot of work. “A lot of people live paycheque-to-paycheque in the film world, depending on what part of it you are in and it can be pretty nasty. I mean, at the best of times you don’t know when your next job is.”
Ennis and company are trying to figure out a way to keep some of their lights on and equipment running.
“At Peacemaker, we are trying to reach out and offer up our services to produce stuff in-house on our own. For instance, we can remotely do a car commercial for somebody,” said Ennis, referring to a system that allows them to send footage over cellphone signals. This way a director can see footage, wherever they are, in real time.
“We could potentially go out and shoot a car commercial, which we have done a million times and we are good at it, and in real time people could be sitting in their agency office in New York and watching the filming and then by phone say, ‘Yeah, that looks great but can you get it from another angle’ ... We have done that before when a director was unavailable.
“So yeah, we’re trying to get people to look at other ways to do things in order to carry on,” added Ennis. “But, at this point, it is pretty early in the process to figure out what is going to evolve from this in the short-term.”
Well-known Vancouver stage and screen actor Brian Markinson (Mad Men, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce, the L Word, DaVinci’s Inquest) says he’s lucky that his three-decade-long busy career has allowed him to save and buy a house, but he still feels the pinch when jobs are gone. He lost a gig thanks to this shutdown and remembers what it was like having to live paycheque-to-paycheque.
“It’s tough,” said Markinson, who has had to cancel teaching gigs, as well. “But I know we will be there for each other.”
Over his 30-year career Markinson has read many, many scripts and doesn’t hesitate when asked if this current crisis would be inspiration for a Hollywood movie.
“I think this is going to have to be a miniseries. I don’t think a movie will hold it,” said Markinson, adding that tough times have a history of inspiring artists to create. “Out of these crises, that’s when great art comes. Great scripts came out of the WPA (U.S. New Deal Works Progress Administration) and the Great Depression and the Vietnam War era. Shakespeare, it’s said, wrote King Lear during the plague.
“So hopefully, maybe great art will come out of this time.”