So I'm guessing most of you don't have the first clue who Sarah Jones is. That's probably because your Facebook feed isn't 70% below-the-line Hollywood crew.
Sarah Jones was a 2nd AC (of the 5 or so people on camera, 2nd AC is pretty much the bottom) on a film in Georgia that got killed by a train. Not the sort of thing most people expect to encounter in their jobs and indeed, there are all sorts of safety protocols on a legit shoot that prevent this stuff.
The problem is most shoots aren't legit.
I've got scars from this where I had to sneak past a cameraman in a doorway with exposed rusty nails (yes, I got a tetanus booster out of it). I've walked off some other stuff with my name on it, so I won't link. But while I work in a Union industry with lots of theoretical oversight, you can still end up dead because someone told you to put a bed on the train tracks.
- One scene in CBGB was filmed at a private home that had been secured with permission by the producers, although the house’s owners were not fully aware that a piano would be dropped down a set of stairs in the process – an omission Miller laughs about on the film’s DVD commentary, saying “So this is a real house and I don’t think they fully knew that we were going to drop a piano down their staircase.” In another scene exec producer Gant’s young son runs through a field of cows, to which Miller says, “I don’t think it’s dangerous at all to have a little kid run through cows – do you think?” One CBGB crew member told Deadline the production crew “never got a single safety bulletin” including a heat advisory, despite shooting through the hot Georgia summer.
Anyway. I've come to blows on this site before; as the central-casting nemesis of all piracy discussion, that's the sort of thing that happens. But I felt like sharing the kinds of shit that goes into the movies that you watch.
You wouldn't think a town like LA could rally around something completely and utterly. Sharia law? well yes, actually. And the fact that this production is trying to start over in LA has prompted a pretty impressive groundswell of people refusing to work on it.
Anyway. I felt like sharing.
Generally speaking, the unions shoots I've worked on have been safe. Though, I haven't worked too much in the industry professionally. It's the indie shoots that I'm extremely cautious about. I'm quite aware of the story here and it's incredibly sad what happened. It is great that there has been a backlash on the production though... the producers on this need to be prosecuted.
Very interesting. I am in the construction which requires permits for almost everything and huge oversight to make sure that nothing is done without a permit. My company has a few people who are tasked with acquiring permits and licenses, and this has been the same at the other construction company I worked at. Is this something that is often overlooked on smaller budget films? It is just a huge surprise to me that something would be done without the proper oversight. I can get passed the idea of trying to work without a permit, but the flagrant damage that was done and went unfixed is amazing. It seems that you are more familiar with the film making world. Do you have any additional insight into things like permits/licenses and damage to property?
Right. So the thing about a movie is you can build it anywhere it fits, whereas a building has to be built where people want it. I know one producer who took a script set in Santa Fe, NM (land of massive incentives) and had it rewritten to shoot in London because it worked out to be cheaper due to assorted bullshit 1-time things. The other thing about a movie is if you can get away with it, you got away with it. Lars von Trier took one look at the permitting process in and around Seattle and decided to steal every.single.shot in Dancer in the Dark. As in, didn't even tell the film office he was in town. Permitted nothing. Shooting in Los Angeles, everyone is hypersensitive to how much money you can make squeezing productions for cash (and how many productions will absolutely trample you if given half a chance). Buddy shot a commercial in his loft when he was in grad school. His landlord noticed he had a lot of people parking on the street. She blackmailed him for $6k so she didn't call the film office and have them crack down for $20k in fines. Compare and contrast: you can lock off entire streets in Bangkok by giving the local cops a pizza and 20 bucks. With a building, it takes a long time to build and will be there for a long time after. There's plenty of time and plenty of process for enforcement. With a film, the violation may be gone an hour later and once it's in the can there's no evidence, really, of any wrongdoing. So people sneak shit all the time. Less so if it's a full Union pop production, but like I said, most indie films aren't. I've got shit at Walmart you could go buy right now where nobody (except me) made more than $100. I've got shit on SyFy where the entity that profited the most was SAG.