You may run [away with your production], but you can't hide. That's the message from the Directors Guild to production companies, whether they are shooting in the U.S. or in other countries. It's a message bound to reassure directors and members of their teams, especially those who are working far from home and feeling isolated.
If DGA members were confined to soundstages or studios in the production centers of Los Angeles or New York, protecting their rights through vigorous enforcement of contract provisions would be easier. But members do work everywhere — from urban metropolises to rural farmlands to snake-and spider-infested jungles.
For those locales, as well as the soundstages, the DGA relies on its field representatives, who work out of three main bases: New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Even though they maintain offices in those cities, it's often hard to find field reps in the office. But that doesn't mean they aren't reachable on a moment's notice.
"We're pretty flexible and we're happy to go anywhere we have to go," said Bart Daudelin, speaking from a cell phone on his way back to New York from visiting a shoot in Philadelphia. He was scheduled to catch a plane up to Maine the next day to visit another shoot.
Daudelin, along with Andrew Slocum and Michael Ryan, works out of the East Coast office. Together they cover the entire Eastern seaboard from North Carolina, including the New York television studios and local television stations in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Boston, to the Canadian border from the Province of Quebec to the Maritime Provinces. Lisa Layer, who works from the Midwest office in Chicago, covers such far-flung locations as Cleveland, Nashville, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Alabama and Toronto. From DGA National Headquarters in Los Angeles, Don Gold, Phil Althouse and Roberta Hutcheson keep an eye on all the Hollywood studios as well as location shooting in San Diego, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, the Pacific Northwest, Vancouver, British Columbia and Mexico.
To conduct a successful "mission," a field rep must be able to pull off the element of surprise, arriving any time, any place. But outside of New York and Los Angeles, communities often do not have accessible paperwork trails from which field reps can determine a film's shooting location to ensure their visits are unannounced. That's where a bit of old-fashioned detective work comes into play, along with tips from members that something is amiss or personal familiarity with an area.
"I knew a company was shooting in Providence, R.I.," Daudelin explained. "I'd been there many times over the years, and I thought, 'Well, if I was going to shoot in Providence, where would I go?' I looked around, went to the Civic Center, then Kennedy Plaza and then College Hill, and, sure enough, that's where they were. It's a little bit of luck and a little bit of gut instinct. It's using your experience."
A production is difficult to hide. You can't easily mistake the trailers and equipment used for a professional shoot. On a recent day in the heart of Manhattan, Andrew Slocum was able to visit four units shooting within a five-minute walk of each other, including one that was in violation of DGA staffing requirements.
"I just kind of bumped into this 2nd Unit," Slocum explained. "I went over and said, 'Hey, who's directing this?' And they said, 'Uh,... well, ... you know, he's doing it by phone.' They were kidding around because they knew they were caught. I was shocked, but also was glad that as a DGA rep, I could actually resolve the situation right there, on the set, by getting someone who was appropriate to be the director of the 2nd Unit for that day."
Tips can come from anywhere. For instance Michael Ryan, who primarily covers the tape shows in New York and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., area, got a call from his mother who lives in the Baltimore vicinity. She mentioned there was a project filming nearby and told him the name of the director.
"They were non-signatory, but the director's name sounded familiar," Ryan said. "He was on one of our target lists as someone we'd like to have join the Guild. I did some investigating and found that a DGA member was working on that production doing DGA work. We confronted the member on the spot and got the production company to sign. The director subsequently signed, and they got rid of their non-union crew and brought on a union directing team. For that, I've got to give credit to Mom for keeping her eyes open."
All the field reps agreed that one of the chief problems they encounter is a company that fails to hire enough ADs, or hires PAs to do AD work. "They try to cheat on the staffing," Midwest rep Lisa Layer said. "Sometimes they'll try to do everything with a 1st and a 2nd and not hire a 2nd 2nd. The 2nd ends up working so many hours and with so much overtime, the company ends up paying that 2nd more than if they'd had an additional 2nd to begin with.
"There was a show in Louisiana that thought they'd only need a 1st and a 2nd AD," she added. "They were saying it was low budget — they were only going to work an eight-hour day because a child was the star, but then they put out a job description for a PA and on it were AD duties. Needless to say, they got a 2nd 2nd."
Layer also pointed out an interesting development in Toronto. She used to visit once a month and spend at least a week. Recently, with the reduced shooting there, she's only had to visit every other month and then only for a day or two.
L.A.–based Phil Althouse said that PAs are frequently asked to sign people out for the day, a role that is specifically a function of a 2nd AD. In that case, reps immediately point out that the company isn't following DGA staffing requirements.
Field reps have hundreds of stories they can tell about sets they've visited. For Roberta Hutcheson, her most memorable location visit was to a remote corner of Mexico.
"To show you how remote, they had one flight in and out per day. When I got off the plane and went to the rental car company they looked up at me and said, 'Roberta Hutcheson?' " she said.
"I went out to the set one night, then up and down what I call 'snake hill' to check on the 2nd Unit to make sure they weren't shooting any principle photography behind the director's back," she explained. "They warned me before I went up to keep looking at the lights for spider webs because the spiders had a nasty habit of jumping out of trees at you. Because of all the critters — scorpions, snakes, spiders — I made sure that the company had taken all the appropriate precautions given the location. Anyway, everything was fine, while I was there.
"More importantly, my visit made the point that we take these things seriously," she said. "It's not just the set you go to. There's a grapevine and word of mouth that travels very fast among people. They soon hear that we're looking, and they will think twice about doing stuff in the future. We take directors' creative rights seriously."
So seriously that when the reps find out a new director is working for the first time, they make a point of visiting that person on the set early on in the schedule. "We all try to hit new directors as quickly as we can and give them a brief introduction into their creative rights," said Don Gold, who has been from Vancouver to Israel to ensure DGA members were protected. "We tell new directors when their cut is supposed to start, how long it's supposed to be and that there can't be any interference or cutting behind the director from anyone with the company. We also urge them to call us immediately if they run into any kind of a problem, even during their post-production. We can make it right."
"We also make sure that we leave a copy of the Creative Rights Handbook with these new directors," Althouse added. "It outlines all the creative rights they have under the Basic Agreement."
So, near and far, DGA field reps are like a cop on patrol, ready to enforce provisions and protect members at a moment's notice. They drop in unexpectedly and through tips from members, other members of a production crew, family and friends of members, are always on the lookout.
If you feel your rights are being violated, or something isn't quite right, give them a call. All calls are kept in strictest confidence.
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