Cristi Badea is a props master for films, TV series and commercials. He has been running his own business since 2005 and works with various production companies to construct stage props. In 2011 he sued Tandem Film production company for failing to pay what they owed him. I talked to Cristi about working conditions in the film\/commercial production industries, about the (im)possibility of unionizing and about taking production companies to court as a method of fighting back. <\/i>(David Schwartz)<\/p>\n
Did you ever discuss with other props masters the possibility of unionizing, or maybe just adopting some common work principles, to prevent companies from imposing their own contracts and terms & conditions?<\/i><\/p>\n
Yes, we did, but it\u2019s not doable. How do you keep everyone in check? How do we keep ourselves in check, for that matter? Let\u2019s say I have a team, others bring their teams and we get around five teams which agree not to go work and set some clear fees. That leaves ten other teams which will go work. They don\u2019t care, they\u2019re going to work anyways. There\u2019s a lack of solidarity. I think the only solution might be a union led by a racketeer. Seriously! I think someone like Nicu Ghear\u0103 might be very good at this. You know he\u2019s the head of the union and you\u2019re bullied into listening to him. Isn\u2019t this how unions also emerged in the US? Otherwise, how could you or me go up to a guy and ask him why he works for such little pay and argue with him? I couldn\u2019t do it. So a racketeer would be the best solution. Besides, it would make things simple \u2013 there would no longer be unpaid overtime, no shooting frantically for an entire day, for 12 hours, we\u2019d have normal lunch breaks…<\/p>\n
How are these things regulated right now?<\/i><\/p>\n
I think for the past one or two years there hasn\u2019t really been much of a lunch break anywhere. Everything is running lunch<\/i>, you eat as you go, these production people are obsessed, they keep saying \u201ccome on, eat faster!\u201d And there\u2019s not much you can do about it, production people are basically your bosses \u2013 they tell you what to do. At the end of the project, they\u2019re the ones you go to with the bill, so you can\u2019t argue with them.<\/p>\n
Is overtime a common practice?<\/i><\/p>\n
Yes, it is. And it\u2019s mostly unpaid. Because there\u2019s no precise moment when your work starts being considered overtime. If you stayed for 12 hours, it\u2019s implied you\u2019ll go on. Because you\u2019re paid by the day, so if they postpone shooting for the next day, they have to pay you an extra day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I could sue them, maybe so will other people!\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
Do you know of anyone who approached things the same way you did? Did anyone else get their money back after going to court or after hiring a repossession firm?<\/i><\/p>\n
I know the guy from Gastrom, he\u2019s the one who told me about it. Other than him, there\u2019s only Alo Casting that I know of. I know them from Facebook, they provide extras.<\/p>\n
So most people somehow put up with this?<\/i><\/p>\n
Well, they do, but how long can you put up with it? There are times when there\u2019s no job for you. And you wait and wait, you know you have money that\u2019s due, you know you have no work to do and you have to do something about it. You need to get your money back one way or another.<\/p>\n
Why do you think other people put up with this?<\/i><\/p>\n
They\u2019re scared they might not find other jobs, that no one else will hire them. But now I don\u2019t care anymore, because I don\u2019t want to work with them.<\/p>\n
Interview by David Schwartz<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cristi Badea is a props master for films, TV series and commercials. He has been running his own business since 2005 and works with various production companies to construct stage props. In 2011 he sued Tandem Film production company for failing to pay what they owed him. I talked to Cristi about working conditions in the film\/commercial production industries, about the (im)possibility of unionizing and about taking production companies to court as a method of fighting back. (David Schwartz) Did you ever discuss with other props masters the possibility of unionizing, or maybe just adopting some common work principles, to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[92],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3468,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions\/3468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artapolitica.ro\/gazetapolitica\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}