I booked a SAG background gig on Angel. It was the last day of the last episode of the last season of the series. The series finale. Not only that, but the last shot of the series.I was a demon, that's all I knew. Call time was 6:00 pm. And we're expecting a night shoot. We showed up and they gave us various demon clothes and masks. They just needed a bunch of generic demons. So we get all dressed and they show us to holding, some abandoned old-school, wood paneled office in downtown LA, tucked between a couple of warehouses. They tell us to get comfortable because we're here for the last shot of the night.
Two uneventful hours go by. It's 8:00 pm. At this point, I should mention that all film/TV union contracts, SAG included, require a meal break after 6 hours of work. (For an extra, "work" also includes time sitting around waiting to be used). The crew's call time had been 2:00 pm, so now that it was 8:00, they broke the crew for lunch.
They were very pleasant, they came in to our office-holding area and said "We're breaking the crew now for lunch from 8:00 to 9:00, since you guys came in later and we won't need you until later, we're going to break you from 9:00 to 10:00." Ok, cool. That's fine. We had only been there for 2 hours.
So we hang out, we hover a little bit and see what the spread is. And boy, what a spread. It was, after all, the last day. Prime rib and lobster were the main courses. But, boy wow there are a lot of people here...
At 9:00, they break us for lunch. We get in line and get to the truck...
"I'll have some prime rib please."
"Sorry, we're out."
"Oh...um, ok...lobster then?"
"No more lobster. We've got a little bit of pasta left", he says as he scrapes the 4 remaining fettuccini noodles from the pan.
"Um..."
No main courses, save the 4 noodles, no sides. I look at the salad bar. There's some romaine lettuce and a couple of ears of baby corn. Now, I hate to sound like a picky diva actor or something, but a meal this is not.
You see, since this was the last day and all, everybody and their mother showed up for lunch. Suits from Paramount, producers, family and friends and a whole messload of people who were going to go home after dinner and not be stuck here until the wee hours of the morning with nothing to eat.
A few of us give up on the leftovers and go to find an A.D. or a P.A. We track one down and mention the lack of food. Now since the crew is done with lunch and they're back to shooting, she's a bit frazzled. After 10 minutes, she comes back with "Well, we've worked it out so you can make some sandwiches off the truck." That's the craft services truck. A couple of us check out the sandwich bar. It hadn't been well taken care of since it was put out 7 hours ago. We give up and make do with the soda and chips we find at crafty. We didn't get a meal, so we decide that we're getting paid for not being broken for lunch.
At 11:00, a producer's assistant comes in and offers to buy us all pizza. (Keep in mind that pizza does not count as a meal. It's specifically mentioned in the contract as being "not a meal") A smarter-than-me extra asks "Is this to eliminate any meal penalties you might owe us, or is this just a courtesy?"
"Just a courtesy," he says, "because we know you guys are hungry."
"Ok"
We got pizza. We finally worked at 5:00 am. It was wet and cold and artificial-rainy and we were running down an alley toward the camera, presumably to kick the shit out of Angel and his remaining team. I don't know about the other demons, but I was pretending that I was running down the alley to kick the shit out of the people who ate our food and went home. We wrapped at 6:30 am.
When we signed out, we tried to claim the meal penalties that we were owed. In the twelve and a half hours that we were there, we weren't technically given a meal. They crossed out the meal penalties and signed us out.
Me and another guy told everyone to call SAG that afternoon to file a grievance.
Me and that other guy were the only ones who did.
Paramount hummed and hawed and dragged their feet and even said "Can't we just buy this guy a lobster dinner and be done with this?"
It took a year and a half for that grievance to finally come through. But come through it did. I got my $97.50 in meal penalties. Suck it, Paramount lawyers.
trigger: voucher, photos
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