Departments

News & Announcements

California Governor Proposes Expanded Film & TV Tax Incentives

On October 27, California Gov. Gavin Newsom held a press conference in which he proposed expanding California’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program to $750 million a year in an effort to bring work back to the state. The current tax incentive program sits at $330 million. This effort is supported by the IATSE, the California IATSE Council, the Entertainment Union Coalition, the California Federation of Labor, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s Entertainment Industry Council.

For more information on California’s Tax Incentive Program, check out the article “What’s Next for the California Film Incentives?” on page 14.

IATSE PAC

Following the 2024 election, you might consider donating to the IATSE PAC. This Political Action Committee (PAC) is run entirely by the IATSE Political/Legislative Department and funded entirely by the donations of IATSE members and staffers. It backs pro-labor candidates whose values align with the IATSE Federal Issue Agenda, and all campaigns are thoroughly vetted before the PAC distributes a dime. This is one of the safest ways to donate and be assured that your contribution is supporting candidates who support your livelihood. Since its inception in 1999, the PAC has contributed to candidates who have helped create thousands of IATSE jobs, provided financial support to IATSE members during times of crisis, and expanded the power and budget of the National Labor Relations Board.

Recurring donors receive a quarterly newsletter outlining PAC expenditures and current political updates from the union so that you can remain in the loop as to how your money is being spent. If you pledge to donate at the $10, $20, or $40 a month funding level, you’ll receive a membership pin.

Our Local is proud to be a Bronze Level participant in the PAC, thanks to the participation of our members. Our continued support has an impact on the lives of workers and the entertainment community across the nation.

Financial Relief for Entertainment Workers

Though the strikes have ended, the financial impact will continue to be felt for some time and both MPTF and the Entertainment Community Fund still have resources available to help. If you work in entertainment and you or your family are in need, please visit their websites online at www.mptf.com and www.entertainmentcommunity.org.

Hollywood Boom Operators

Back row (L-R): Beau Baker, Andy Adams, Rick Hays, Mark Burton, Roger Stevenson, Rene Defrancesch, Jonathan Fu, Fredrik Winberg, Chuck Homyak, Todd Bassman. Front row: Tom Hartig, Tim Song Jones, Patrick Martens, Jeff Wexler, Peggy Names, Randy Johnson, Rocky Quiroz, Mychal Smith.

You take a beautiful Saturday in November and populate the Sagebrush Cantina in Calabasas with some Hollywood old Boom Operators and some young ones. Sprinkle in a few iconic Production Sound Mixers, and you have a most enjoyable gathering!

Local 695 welcomes its New Members

Aisha Akins Y-7a
Noelle Aleman Proj.
Brandon Boldroff Y-4
Cam Broadbent Y-4
John Capps Y-4
Benjamin Cohen Y-13
Quinn Commans Y-8
Corey Dodd Y-4
Jared Flejter Y-7
Milken Gardner Y-1
Naola Greaves Y-16a
Jake Greenberg Y-7
Michael Hahn Y-4
Billy Hansard III Proj.
Richard Harvey Y-1
Andrew Hodges A2
Zak Holley Y-4
Tom Hopper Y-16a
Amy Khuong Y-4
Armando Lopez Y-7a
Matt McAdam Y-4
Bryce Mercier A2
Daniel Morez Proj.
Chris Nakamura Y-4
Maribeth Powers Y-16a
Parker Rasmussen Y-4
Omar Rodriguez Y-4
Shane Rovello Y-4
Brandon Schulleri Y-4
Robbi Sutherland A2
Garret Vander Leek Y-4
Steve Vaughn Y-4

In Memoriam

Pat Lucatorto Y-1
August 8, 1948 – February 23, 2024

IATSE Education

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an excellent source of online training tutorials covering topics such as Avid Pro Tools, Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Rhino, Vectorworks, Final Cut Pro, Filemaker, AutoCad, Cubase, Logic Pro, ShotPut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Vegas Pro, as well as Project Management, Software Development, Network Administration, Finance and Accounting, Marketing, and much more. All IATSE members are eligible to sign up for a free LinkedIn Learning Account by visiting https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil

You can also view a multitude of free educational webinars sponsored by the IA Training Trust Fund online at www.gotostage.com/channel/iaeducationforall. These webinars cover a range of topics from labor and voting rights; the basics of equity, diversity, and inclusion; mental health subjects such as depression, substance abuse; physical safety and well-being at work; and so much more.

From the Editors

Welcome to the winter edition of Production Sound & Video and a wealth of articles. There is “Matlock” by Ross Levy, Ryan Pedersen and James Delhauer contribute “What’s Next for California’s Film Tax Credit Incentives?”

Simon Hayes does a deep dive on his team’s work on Wicked, and an “An Interview With Willie Burton CAS.” A discussion on the new wireless multichannel audio signal protocol in “WMAS: Next Generation Wireless.” There’s also “The Stream Team.”

This marks the 16th year of the Local’s magazine, starting back in 2008. We are very proud to continue to give you interesting content that serves the membership of Local 695 and the film community at large.

We wish you all safe and happy holidays and a Happy New Year. Onto 2025!

In Solidarity,
Richard Lightstone & James Delhauer
Production Sound & Video Co-editors

Our Contributors

Willie D. Burton CAS

He is a two-time Oscar winner, Bird (1988) and Dreamgirls (2006), and one of two African Americans to receive the Academy Award for Best Sound. His Academy Award nominations include his work on The Buddy Holly Story, Altered States, War Games, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and Oppenheimer. His recent credits include Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Haunted Mansion, Beverly Hills Cop 4, Origin, and RIP

James Delhauer

James Delhauer was born in Southern California and never made it very far from home. Since 2014, he has worked as a television engineer specializing in Pronology’s mRes platform. He joined Local 695 because he desperately needed friends. James is Co-editor of Production Sound & Video.

Simon Hayes AMPS CAS

Simon Hayes received an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and CAS Award for Tom Hooper’s groundbreaking Les Miserables, which featured live sung vocals. An advocate of educating the next generation of Production Sound Mixers, he champions creative collaborations as a filmmaker and supporting actors’ original performances. A strong believer in building relationships between production and post sound professionals, he continues to forge ties between both communities.

Ross Levy CAS

Ross is a Southern Californian native and has been a member of Local 695 since 1996. He spent the first eighteen years working primarily in feature films and episodic television as a Utility Sound Technician. He made the jump to Production Sound Mixer on NCIS: Los Angeles in 2016, mixing nearly one hundred and eighty episodes. Ross just wrapped Matlock season one and is looking forward to season two in the summer of 2025.

Ryan Pedersen

Ryan Pedersen has loved sound his whole life, even as a little kid. He originally planned on working in live sound or recording music in studios but found his way into film production and has been doing that ever since. He has seen a large portion of the world from his early documentary work but now spends most of his time in Los Angeles doing music playback or mixing scripted projects. When not on set or at home with his wife and four kids, he finds refuge at his train club at Griffith Park.

From the President

Let’s talk about Lee Smith.

Congratulations to the 2024 World Series Champions: The Los Angeles Dodgers. What a fun and exciting series to watch!

A further congratulations goes to all the crew who make baseball and any sport a reality for our viewers. The days are long, the turnarounds can be a grind, and I know from personal experience that crew support is not as verbalized as it should be. Thank you for your hard work.

To all of you who are New York Yankee fans out there … Well … as we say in Chicago, there’s always next year.

If we’re being honest, the Dodgers are not my team. I was rooting for them, but I’m a Chicago fan through and through. It’s something that I inherited from my grandmother. She moved from South Dakota to the big city because of the Chicago Cubs. To this day, there are certain players we don’t mention in front of Grandpa and my mother used to tell me stories about when dinner was usually burned when the Cubs lost. Grandma’s a woman after my own heart.

One of my favorite players, Lee Smith, was drafted in 1975. He was described as an intimidating figure on the pitcher’s mound, standing at six feet, six inches, with a ninety-five mile-per-hour fastball.

He holds the current Cubs’ team record for career saves with one hundred eighty. Smith was never inducted into the Hall of Fame, despite being one of the best closing pitchers in MLB history—a fact which has puzzled some baseball historians. However, despite Smith being one “of the best one-inning pitchers the game has ever seen,” my respect for this man was earned on his exit from the bullpen.

Smith is credited by starting the slow walk from the bullpen to the mound. This technique has been adopted by many closing pitchers, some taking it to more dramatic levels like Los Angeles Dodger Eric Gagne between 2002 and 2004.

In an interview where he was asked about why his pre-pitching routine lacked urgency, Smith replied by saying, “I had a lot of friends on the grounds crew at Wrigley Field. I found out they got time and a half if the game went past 4:30 pm, so I took my time getting to the mound. The slow walk to the mound became part of my routine.”

Smith took care of his crew.

As a union leader, I find that very inspiring. The day-to-day stressors of today’s political, economic, and industry-wide climate have had an impact on all of us, but it’s important to take a moment to make sure the teams we work with are also taken care of. It’s the little things we can do for our coworkers or our teams that help create a better and more productive work environment. What may have started as a slow walk to get a few extra dollars in the pockets of the turf management, helped families pay for food on the table, healthcare, mortgages, and more. These small acts of thoughtfulness, I know firsthand pay dividends in ways we will never expect.

Now, onto hockey season! Let’s talk about the Blackhawks.

In Solidarity,

President Jillian Arnold

From the Business Representative

This magazine is a record of our union’s history.

When I first took office in 2015, my goal was to make sure that everyone, including the employers, knew that we were not just the “Sound Local.” That may have been our humble beginning in 1930, before the advent of video, but our role in our entertainment community goes far beyond that now. My first order of business was to change the title of our 695 Quarterly magazine and, in the spring of 2016, we launched our revamped publication entitled Production Sound & Video—the very same magazine you are reading now. We’ve come a long way since 2015.

We have a one-on-one with Academy Oscar winner Willie Burton on his time working with Eddie Murphy. On a personal note, Wille is a longtime friend of our family. He worked with my father on Gunsmoke, and I spent a few long cold nights working with Willie and Microphone Boom Operator Marvin Lewis as their Utility Sound Tech. I highly encourage you all to read it and learn from a man who taught me so much.

As this is our final issue of 2024, I wish everyone a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. I know that for many, this year has been challenging as we’ve experienced California’s entertainment industry contraction. In this edition of Production Sound & Video, we closely examine California’s Film & Television Tax Incentive Program and give you a timeline of where we are and where we need to go in 2025.

Local 695 is one of the founding members of the California IATSE Council (CIC) and we were boots on the ground in 2009 to get the first film and television tax incentive program in our state. Our Local is now involved in efforts to expand the current program and will take a leadership role in fighting to bring work back to California.

However, we will need your help. Just as we needed our members to succeed in negotiations in 2024, we will need our members in order to succeed in lobbying for new legislation in 2025. So, keep an eye on your communications from the Local on ways to get involved in the new year.

Happy holidays everyone. Here’s to a phenomenal 2025.

Scott Bernard

News & Announcements

IATSE Negotiations Contract Ratification

On July 18, the IATSE announced that its members had overwhelmingly voted to ratify the 2024-2027 Basic, Videotape Electronic Supplemental, and Area Standards Agreements. This brings an end to this year’s IATSE negotiations with the AMPTP. The new Basic and Videotape Agreements took effect on August 1, 2024, while the Videotape Agreement takes effect on October 1, 2024.

The new agreement includes wage increase of 7%, 4%, and 3.5% in the first, second, and third years of the contract, respectively. New residual funding mechanisms have been created to keep the union’s health and pension plan strong and eliminate funding deficits in the coming years. First-of-their-kind AI protections will keep union members at the forefront of technological change in our industry.

In our Local Agreement, new provisions include individual wage increases for boom operators, critical staffing protections for both the Sound and Video Departments, and added the titles of “First Assistant Sound” and “Second Assisstant Sound” to Y-8 Boom Opeator and Y-7A Utility Sound Technician classifications in order to create common language with the sound community across the globe.

Local 695 members can find the complete Memorandum of Agreement and a detailed summart of all changes in these new contracts on our website.

Financial Relief for Entertainment Workers

IATSE Education
LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an excellent source of online training tutorials covering topics such as Avid Pro Tools, Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Rhino, Vectorworks, Final Cut Pro, Filemaker, AutoCad, Cubase, Logic Pro, Shot Put Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Vegas Pro, as well as Project Management, Software Development, Network Administration, Finance and Accounting, Marketing, and much more. All IATSE members are eligible to sign up for a free LinkedIn Learning Account by visiting https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil

IATSE PAC

If you are going to donate money during this political cycle, you are highly encouraged to do your research and make sure your money is going where you think it is going. Only donate to reputable, verifiable services that are affiliated with official campaigns. Most political campaigns are only too happy to direct you to their official donation page if you contact them via their official website.

You might also consider donating to the IATSE PAC. This Political Action Committee is run entirely by the IATSE Political/Legislative Department and funded entirely by the donations of IATSE members and staffers. It backs pro-labor candidates whose values align with the IATSE Federal Issue Agenda and all campaigns are thoroughly vetted before the PAC distributes a dime. This is one of the safest ways to donate and be assured that your contribution is supporting candidates who support your liveihood. Since its inception in 1999, the PAC has contributed to candidates who have helped create thousands of IATSE jobs, provided financial support to IATSE members during times of crisis, and expanded the power and budget of the National Labor Relations Board.

Our Local is pround to be a Bronze Level participant in the PAC, thanks to the participation of our members. Our continued support has an impact on the lives of workers and the entertainment community across the nation.

New Members

Local 695 welcomes its new members

Jeffery Coombs Y-4
Sydnee Crichi Y-7A
Joseph Hartshorn Y-8
Paul Padilla Y-3
Nasser Saededdin Y-7A
John Skoglund Y-1
Shayla Tates Y-16A
Barry Weaver Y-4

Our Contributors

Beau Baker CAS
With a degree from the renowned USC School of Cinema, Beau Baker CAS has over 46 years of experience in production sound recording. He has traveled worldwide on such films as Ladyhawke, nominated for a Best Sound Academy Award, and all over the US with over 30 features to his credit, including Twister, Blade Runner, and Cruel Intentions. He has over 400 episodes of popular television such as Grey’s Anatomy, Angel, One Mississippi, and House M.D.

Juan Cisneros CAS
Juan Cisneros CAS is from Lima, Peru, and has been based in Los Angeles since 1989. With over 26 years of experience, he has won two Emmys, and three Emmy nominations. His work includes shows like House M.D., Real Husbands of Hollywood, Pam & Tommy, Mayans MC, Truth be Told, and Station 19. Juan is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Cinema Audio Society, having served on the Board of Directors for Local 695 and currently serving on the Board of Directors for the Cinema Audio Society. His career reflects his unwavering dedication, talent, and commitment to excellence in the entertainment industry.

Devendra Cleary CAS
Devendra Cleary CAS is a Los Angeles-based Y-1 Production Sound Mixer. Recently completed filming Star Wars: Skeleton Crew for Lucasfilm, Wolfs for Apple Original Films, and Twisters for Universal Pictures. Currently serving his second term as Vice President here at I.A.T.S.E. Local 695 and has served on the Board of Directors since 2015. He’s also currently a Board member for the Cinema Audio Society. He joined Local 695 as a Y-7a in 2001.

Bill Kaplan CAS
My father started in film in the silent days. My first Local 695 feature was Animal House, 47 years ago. I have received seven Oscar nominations. I have two wonderfully successful children. I’m almost 80, still working full time and loving it.

Josh Levy
Joshua Levy Owner/Operator Joshvideo LLC on-set video services. 30-Year member Local 695. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Josh’s parents were both in the entertainment business. His grandfather was a Sound Editor for Filmation Animation and Josh was lucky enough to get the a call one day to try out “Video-Assist.” He started his journey in feature films and now finds himself working primarily on streaming episodic productions. He feels that we are all blessed to be a part of the best Local in the motion picture industry, stating that “The talent and skill levels of our members is second to none.”

Ryan Pedersen
Ryan Pedersen has loved sound his whole life, even as a little kid. He originally planned on working in live sound or recording music in studios but found his way into film production and has been doing that ever since. He has seen a large portion of the world from his early documentary work but now spends most of his time in Los Angeles doing music playback or mixing scripted projects. When not on set or at home with his wife and four kids, he finds refuge at his train club at Griffith Park.

From the Editors

Welcome to the (almost) fall edition of our magazine.

This edition comes at the conclusion of the IATSE’s Basic and Videotape Supplemental Negotiations with the AMPTP and has been tremendously challenging to produce during this busy time. We’d like to thank our partners at IngleDodd Media and our various contributors for their patience throughout this process. Our partnerships are what have always made this publication a success, but that has never been more true than with this edition.

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have just as much content for you to enjoy! We spotlight William B. Kaplan in “My Path in Sound.” Devendra Cleary, Beau Baker, and Juan Cisneros take us behind the scenes of the Sound Departments of Twisters, Grey’s Anatomy, and Station 19. Then Josh Levy shares his story at the bargaining table with the AMPTP in “My Last Monday.” Ryan Pedersen shares some insights about the mental health of the filmmaking community during the recent work shortages.

There’s a lot to enjoy in this one and we hope you do.

In Solidarity,
James Delhauer & Richard Lightstone
Production Sound & Video Co-editors.

From the President

Let’s talk about Zarya of the Dawn.

As I write this, I’m currently en route to work as the Recordist for The Daily Show’s coverage of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee. In August, I’ll fly home to Chicago to work the Democratic National Convention. These events have been a career bucket list item for as long as I can remember. Though I was supposed to check them off my list in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced me to postpone endeavors until now. But this year’s election seems to hit a little closer to home. For the past year, I have poured my heart and soul into my research on artificial intelligence (AI) for this year’s Basic and Videotape Supplemental Agreement negotiations. A large part of that research revolved around copyright laws and how they pertain to our industry.

According to the U.S. Copyright Office, AI or generative AI, models “train” on vast quantities of unstructured, preexisting human-authored data. A human “prompts” or creates a text instruction, which is converted into tokens that the AI model uses to find patterns within that data set to draw from. The machine then uses those inferences from the trained data set to generate new content or output. This output can be text, audio, or visual in format.

The questions becomes who is the author of the output? The human who wrote the prompt or the AI model?

The Copyright Act defines the scope of copyright protection as an “original work of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” The term “original,” according to the Supreme Court, consists of two components: independent creation and sufficient creativity. The work must be independently created by a human author and must possess sufficient creativity. “Works of authorship” have uniformly been limited to human creation. Therefore, an output from an AI system is authored by the machine, not by the human prompting it.

Several case studies are available on the U.S. Copyright Office website (www.copyright.gov) for a leisurely Friday-night read. However, one stands out amongst the rest. Zarya of the Dawn is an eighteen-page comic book consisting of both text and visual material. Upon further investigation by the US copyright office, the comic book text was human authored, but the images were generated by a text-to-image AI service called Midjourney. Midjourney, which operates on top of a third-party communication service called Discord, takes a user’s input text and generates images based on Midjourney’s individual server data.

In February 2023, the Copyright Office concluded that Zarya of the Dawn was comprised of human-authored text, which did constitute a copyrightable work. However, the individual images themselves generated by Midjourney could not be protected by copyright because the authorship of the content is attributed to the AI model or the machine, not the person prompting it. Therefore, parts of the comic book are copyrightable, but because AI was used in the creation of the totality of the project, the finished product is not. I recommend reading the full document on the copyright website for more information.

The current copyright laws mandate human authorship in the process of creation in order for corporations to apply and receive copyright. This is critical to the future of our industry. It ensures the need for human creativity—the very soul of what we bring to the table—to be a part of the process when producing works deserving of legal protection in our country. This not only ensures a level of protection for our jobs in the future as more AI systems become available, but also ensures that the product we strive to make has the ability to connect with our audiences on a real and human level—For Humans, By Humans.

This fall’s presidential election results could change all of that though. AI and tech companies, as well as major corporations, are lobbying to change the laws to economize labor and receive copyright protections for non-human authored work. This could do indescribable harm to our workers, our industry as a whole, and other industries like ours. When you vote this fall (and if you’re not planning to vote, please vote this fall), it is important that you do so in a manner that reflects your stance on these laws and the need to keep our industry and its content safe.

I have been working with International Political Affairs Director Tyler Macintosh and Local 695 Political Affairs Director James Delhauer to educate our members going into the 2024 election. Our Local will be releasing voter information guides outlining candidates supported by the IATSE, the California IATSE Council, and the California Federation of Labor for their worker-first records of service so that you know which candidates have your best interests at heart.

UPDATE (and editorial plot twist): Five days later, I’m revising my second pass at this article on the way back to Los Angeles, a day before the RNC commences. Producers of The Daily Show canceled our Milwaukee RNC shows three hours after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

As their press release said, “Our apologies for the inconvenience, but due to logistical issues and the evoling situation in Milwaukee, we need to reschedule our events…” We wrapped two days before we went to air, and three days into ESU.

I applaud the producers of The Daily Show for making crew safety a priority. Despite the growing number of pre-production hours by the entire crew to get that show off the ground, execs made the choice to put the safety of the cast and crew before all. Production was incredibly generous, empathetic, and flexible to our needs. They are a model crew top to bottom.

As you know, our political season is already layered with complexity. Stay Safe. Stay Curious. Vote.

In Solidarity,

President Jillian Arnold

From the Business Representative

Sometimes I hear IATSE members say, “I don’t know why the union is so involved in politics.”

This is an understandable sentiment, as politics in our country have become more divisive in the past decade. It is essential that union members understand the role politics play in achieving success within the labor unions’ mission. The fact is, as Business Agents, our primary job is to negotiate the best contracts we possibly can for our members and enforce those contracts, but what we win at the bargaining table can be lost at the ballot box if not supported by our elected officials.

As a union, we need to support candidates who support workers’ rights and labor unions and for this reason, I recommend you consider supporting Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

Vice President Harris has been a friend and ally to the IATSE and the Labor Movement during her time in Washington. She has been a champion for unions for many years. President Biden and Vice President Harris care about union families and I believe that is why he selected her to be his Vice President. I have personally spoken with Kamala regarding labor issues and have seen firsthand how she supports union workers.

In 2021, it was Harris’ tie-breaking vote that helped pass the American Rescue Plan Act that supports union members. This bill provides expanded unemployment benefits, healthcare subsidies, and direct support to trade union members. IATSE members were given the space to voice their needs to the White House, and because of this opportunity, we gained substantial benefits.

In 2022, Harris opened the door for IATSE Organizer Rachel Gitlevich to visit the White House and allowed Gitlevich the opportunity to give her input to the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment. Our union’s recommendations on grant funding were reflected in the seventy policy proposals set forth by the Biden-Harris Administration focusing on worker protections and making the federal government a model employer benefiting our members.

Beginning in 2023, the IATSE participated in multiple discussions with the Executive Branch to set guidelines surrounding the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Then, in 2024, Vice President Harris unveiled safe, secure, and responsible AI guidelines for federal agencies, guidelines that were developed with the participation of IATSE and other labor organizations in mind.

Adam Schiff, one of our union’s closest allies in Washington, has endorsed Harris. Adam is a friend of the IATSE and calls Burbank home. Schiff’s support of the union is so strong. He kicked off his Senate campaign in the parking lot of Local 80. His support of Kamala Harris’ candidacy speaks volumes.

We’ve made tremendous improvements in our contract this year, and all of them could be at stake without proper support from Washington. The President appoints the Labor Secretary, who heads the Department of Labor. This position is critical to the union as this official can and will directly affect your daily work life. So, when you vote, look closely at the candidate and ask yourself, do they have my best interest at heart?

In Solidarity,

Scott Bernard

News & Announcements

IATSE-AMPTP Negotiations

On March 4, the IATSE and AMPTP began negotiations for the 2024 Hollywood Basic Agreement, the Videotape Supplemental Agreement, and the Area Standards Agreement. These contracts form the basis of narrative-driven union productions in the United States. IATSE is joined in its negotiations for the Motion Picture Industry Health & Pension Plans by the Hollywood Teamsters, Local 399, and Hollywood Basic Crafts in order to collectively bargain our shared benefits.

On March 25, Local 695 reached a tentative agreement for the Local collective Bargaining Agreement with the producers, securing important gains that members have been requesting for years. The Local’s proposals focused on pay equity, on-set safety, and adequate staffing in the Sound & Video Departments on set. After Local negotiations concluded, general negotiations for the Basic Agreement began. Hollywood leaders and representatives for the studios bargained for three weeks. Though significant progress has been made, an agreement has not yet been reached. These talks will resume in June, following negotiations for the Area Standards Agreement.

IATSE Education

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an excellent source of online training tutorials covering topics such as Avid Pro Tools, Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Rhino, Vectorworks, Final Cut Pro, Filemaker, AutoCad, Cubase, Logic Pro, Shot Put Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Vegas Pro, as well as Project Management, Software Development, Network Administration, Finance and Accounting, Marketing, and much more. All IATSE members are eligible to sign up for a free LinkedIn Learning Account by visiting https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil

Financial Relief for Entertainment Workers

New Members

Local 695 welcomes its new members

Richard Armstrong Y-4
Dan Battista Y-9
Colin Brant Proj.
Kenneth Bromberek Y-8
John Paul Golaski Y-1
Damian Gordon Y-7a
David Hecht Y-16a
Erik Jue Y-4
Sean Milburn Y-1
Nancy Perry A2
Alex Saededdin Y-7a
James Salini Y-1
Preston Soper Y-7a
Seung Sul Y-4
Craig Vincent Y-1

In Memoriam

Douglas Barry Y-4
February 25, 1953 – January 6, 2024

Timothy Burke Projectionist
March 16, 1961 – February 24, 2024

Thomas Dickson Projectionist
August 15, 1958 – September 19, 2023

Robert Harris Y-7a
April 29, 1942 – April 14, 2024

Scott Nall Projectionist
August 15, 1958 – January 30, 2024

Negotiations Solidarity Rally

Local 695 video engineering members with IATSE International President Matthew Loeb & International Vice President Michael Miller.

On March 3, the IATSE, Teamsters, and Basic Crafts came together in a rally of solidarity and support before beginning this year’s contract negotiations with the AMPTP. More than 2,000 members of the entertainment unions showed up in person to voice their support for below-the-line workers as they prepared to negotiate for better terms and conditions for the next three years. Speakers from the IATSE, Teamsters, Basic Crafts, DGA, WGA, SAG-AFTRA, the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, and the California Federation of Labor all came out with the same message: “Though we are many crafts, we are joined in one fight.”

The event was livestreamed to an audience of almost 6,000 addition viewers, making this one of the largest solidarity events in the history of our unions. The livestream was engineered and overseen by Holley Video, a boutique video consultation company owned by Local 695 member Zak Holley. The video team consisted of 695 members Zak Holley, Tristen Poliseno, Brandon Boldroff, and Cam Broadbent, while members Bill Kaplan and Patrick Simon engineered and mixed the sound for the event. Local 695 would like to thank all of its members who contributed to making this a successful show of solidarity and support for our union, our fellow unions, and the labor movement as a whole.

L-R: International Vice President Michael Miller, Local 695 members Tristen Poliseno, Cameron Broadbent, Brandon Boldroff, Zak Holley, International President Matthew Loeb, and 695 Communications Director James Delhauer.

The Local would also like to thank James Wood (IATSE Secretary-Treasurer), Jonas Loeb (IATSE Director of Communications), Sean Miller (IATSE Press Secretary), Amy Gorton (Teamsters 399 Communication & Operations Director), Jill Wilk (Local 600 Director of Communications), Scott Collins (Local 700 Director of Communications), Doug Boney (Local 892 Assistant Business Agent), Anthony Pawluc (International Representative), and the many members of the IATSE Negotiations Subcommittees for Communications & Logistics who worked so hard to bring this event together.

Local 695 Office New Hire

In March, Local 695 hired Lauren Sorrells as our new Director of Operations. Lauren brings with her a wealth of experience from working to improve efficiency for companies like Verizon, American Express, and Kaiser Permanente. It will be her responsibility to coordinate internal office affairs and external partnerships so that the Local can offer more services to its members going forward.

Our Contributors

Amanda Beggs CAS

Amanda Beggs CAS works as a Production Sound Mixer in Los Angeles and has worked on both features and television. She received a BFA in film & television from SCAD. She’s been honored with two CAS Award nominations and two Emmy nominations. She is currently serving on IATSE Local 695’s Executive Board, and she is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Television Academy, and the Cinema Audio Society.

James Delhauer

Steven A. Morrow CAS

Steven A. Morrow CAS has been a member of Local 695 for the past 27 years. He currently works almost exclusively on feature films but enjoys the occasional TV series. He loves to mentor and learn from all of our collective experiences.

Gary Raymond

Gary Raymond is a thirty-year member of Local 695 and has provided music playback & recording on over 120 films, including the Best Sound Emmy Award-winning episode of Scrubs, “My Musical.” He’s also worked on Sound Oscar and Emmy-nominated projects Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Dexter. In addition to his work on production, Gary has provided sound and lighting for over 400 music bands and developed several industry tools for use in live music.

Ric Teller

I’ve been very fortunate in my more than forty years working in television, going places and doing things that a kid from a small town in Nebraska could not have imagined.

Tarn Willers AMPS

Academy Award winner Tarn Willers AMPS has worked in film production sound since graduating from the UK’s National Film and Television School in 2003. After serving his time as a trainee, Boom Op and 2nd Unit Mixer, he has established himself as a Production Sound Mixer, both in the UK and Europe. In 2024, along with an Academy Award, Tarn’s work on The Zone of Interest also received recognition at the BAFTA’s, the European Film Awards, and by AMPS. He is also an Ambassador for Ciné Schools whose mission is to create a safe, communal space for primary schoolchildren to create and make films, regardless of their background.

From the Editors

Welcome to the summer edition and to bountiful reading.

Oscar winner for sound, Tarn Willers, describes The Zone of Interest. Amanda Beggs writes about The Bikeriders and Steve Morrow explains his team’s work on the live recording of music and overlapping dialog on Maestro.

On the topic of music, Gary Raymond gives us “Music Playback Audio Ninja.” Co-editor James Delhauer interviews Rene Amador, CEO of ARwall, a virtual production company about the new tools and technologies available for members of Local 695 at this year’s NAB.

We also have “An Interview with Jenn Raudman,” a career in the broadcast reality world, “Ric Rambles” returns by Ric Teller, and Dmitry Kovalev explores how the process shot has evolved over the years in a virtual production/video wall environment in “Exploring the Virtual Process Shot.”

Settle back with your favorite beverage and enjoy all the content.

In Solidarity,
Richard Lightstone & James Delhauer,
Production Sound & Video Co-editors

From the President

Note: At the time of this editorial’s submission deadline, the Hollywood locals had just concluded local negotiations for craft-specific issues with the AMPTP and we were preparing to enter general negotiations to bargain on issues impacting all members of our union. Unfortunately, this deadline and the timing of this edition of our magazine’s release do not allow for us to cover the most timely information with regards to negotiations. IATSE members should keep an eye on their local announcement emails and official correspondence from the union to remain up-to-date on the state of negotiations.

Let’s Meet the Press…

When I was in high school, one of my first real paid jobs was as a student journalist in my city’s printed newspaper. My first article was above the fold, front page, in print. Yes, I have just dated myself, but I am proud of it. I was unofficially interning at the Chicago Tribune in the photo department and was editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper. I loved to research and get the story. It was one of my favorite high school activities. And I still write on steno pads, rather than legal. At the time, my goal was to go to school for journalism. My journalism career was side-swiped by a more glamorous and lucrative career in TV and film, but the lessons imposed on me in Mr. Venetucci’s junior and senior year broadcast TV class have never left my system.

I am and will always be a skeptic of the press.

Earlier this year, panic swept through our industry as OpenAI announced Sora—their text-to-video artificial intelligence (AI) program. Initial promos for the service were impressive, particularly if viewed on small displays such as those of a cellphone, tablet, or laptop. News then followed that OpenAI was attempting to court Hollywood studios with this new product and shortly after that, The Hollywood Reporter announced that producer and studio owner Tyler Perry would be halting construction on an $800 million expansion of his Atlanta-based studio because of his belief that Sora and similar AI tools would fundamentally change the way our industry functions. Perry called for guardrails to be placed on the use of AI, citing that it would be a job killer. Then in April, OpenAI released Air Head, a short film produced by ShyKids using Sora to demonstrate the capabilities of this new tool. All these stories paint a bleak picture for our business if taken at face value.

But let’s dissect what we’re seeing.

Over the past six months, I have received hundreds of articles, social media posts, YouTube videos, and white papers on the subject of AI. KTLA recently did a story on AI-generated news reports, demonstrating how you can find examples of the fully generated news stories on various social media outlets. It made me think about my skepticism with the press and how much skepticism could potentially grow as a result of AI-generated news outlets.

In the same interview where Tyler Perry voiced his concerns around AI, he acknowledged incorporating AI tools into his own productions, which “kept [him] out of makeup for hours.” How can a man call for regulations and guardrails around the very tools he’s using; how can he call for worker protections while simultaneously displacing workers? And two weeks after Air Head released, the crew behind it revealed that Sora was not solely responsible for its creation. Instead, the team had to employ a variety of traditional filmmaking and VFX processes to complete the project, as Sora repeatedly struggled to generate assets without errors.

There is a narrative being created around artificial intelligence and it is being created by those who have embraced AI. As I continue to dive deep into this new area of our industry, I am continuously skeptical about the news circulating around this cultural change. It takes me twice as long as the average person to read the daily news. When I read one news source, I search for the opposing view on the same subject and compare the two. Usually more than two. Then I often ask myself a series of questions:

“Why did this article come out today?”

“What is the cultural context of this information?”

“Who are the sources and how do they know this journalist?”

“What are the contributing factors that go into why this story was published?”

“Who is the writer?”

“What is the publication?” and more importantly,
“Who owns this publication?”

On April 29, 2024, Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal News Group, attended a sit-down with the leaders of five major news organizations in which he said, “I think we are in an era where misinformation and disinformation [are] proliferating. I think it’s being exacerbated by so many technologies. So that is clearly a headwind. The fact that we are seeing such a massive change in how our consumers are wanting to engage and consume news and information, that’s a real change for all of us.”

Conde also added, “I think in a world where audiences are going to be inundated with so much information, news from so many places … I think this dynamic will increase, which is why they are going to gravitate toward trusted brands, news organizations that have long records focused on accuracy, extraordinarily high standards. News organizations that invest in original journalism. I think we will continue to see that trend of audiences looking and seeking out those trusted brands.”

As we continue into the election year and artificial intelligence remains to be a topic of conversation in our zeitgeist, I encourage you to ask the same questions when you read the Sunday paper or scroll through TikTok. Let’s not displace our research skills or thought process for a machine processing data and disseminating potentially harmful information.

In Solidarity

President Jillian Arnold

From the Business Representative

Working for the Future

On March 4, the IATSE began negotiations with the AMPTP for the Hollywood Basic Agreement and Videotape Supplemental Agreement. This is the foundational contract under which the majority of productions in Los Angeles work. Bargaining began with craft-specific Local negotiations, during which time each of the thirteen Hollywood Locals went in with the goal of improving their individual collective bargaining agreements. On March 25, Local 695 sat down with the employers. The proposals we presented had been carefully crafted after months of surveys, town halls, set visits, and one-on-one conversations with the many craftspeople, artists, and technicians in our Local. I made this clear to the employers. I also made it clear that although our bargaining committee consisted of 33 members, we were there on behalf of 1,725 active members and over 300 retired members.

Through the efforts of the bargaining committee, our Board of Directors, our office staff, and the many members who gave up their valuable time to help craft our platform, our proposals, and our presentation, we achieved a successful outcome. We made improvements to our Local agreement that our members have been requesting for years. As I write this, general negotiations for the Basic Agreement are still ongoing, meaning that our Local Agreement is a tentative one. I look forward to sharing the details of our accomplishments and the gains we reached in the next edition of this magazine, pending a ratification vote in favor of the new agreement. But I would be remiss if I did not thank those whose dedicated work helped win these gains. Thank you to Jamie Gambell, Bryan Cahill, Shawn Holden, and Josh Levy, all of whom presented on behalf of the members working in their respective crafts. Thank you to James Delhauer and Casey Weiss, who worked late into the night to shape our many proposals and surveys into a visual presentation that demonstrated our members’ needs to the producers. Thank you to the Local 695 Board of Directors for their leadership and expertise in this time, especially to Joe Aredas, Heidi Nakamura, Blas Kisic, Mark Ulano and Edward L. Moskovitz—all of whom served on our Local Bargaining Committee. And thank you to Jillian Arnold for being the best bargaining partner a BA could ever ask for.

As far as the Basic Agreement and Videotape Supplemental Agreement negotiations are concerned, your bargaining team consists of the leaders of the thirteen Hollywood Locals, representatives from the IATSE, the IATSE’s legal counsel, our pension and health plan actuaries, and rank & file members from the crafts. We brought a very comprehensive list of improvements to the table that will require a substantial amount of funding for the term of the agreement. We are seeking many important improvements on the issues of rest periods, overtime wages, pension & healthcare benefits, travel provisions, sick pay, improvement for compensation for reality TV workers, safeguards for the use of artificial intelligence, subcontractors performing our covered work, the overabundance of side letters in our contract, and—last but not least—wages.

We may not achieve everything we desire in this singular contract, but I believe we will achieve more than we ever have before. I also believe the old adage that you are always marching toward the next agreement. I’ve been at the bargaining table representing our Local since 1997 and I’ve never experienced this much engagement and participation from our members. The momentum we have built going into these negotiations will carry forward as we work to change the culture of Hollywood.

We are not done. There is always work that needs to be done. So, stay involved, report contract violations to the office. Support each other on set. Let’s continue to build on our success.

In Solidarity,

Scott Bernard

News & Announcements

Local 695 Election of Officers & Delegates

On December 21, 2023, Miller Kaplan certified the results of Local 695’s 2023 Election of Officers for the 2024-2026 Executive Board and Delegates to the 2025 IATSE International Convention.

The following members have been elected to a three-year term in the following roles:

Business Representative
Scott Bernard

President
Jillian Arnold

Vice President
Devendra D. Cleary

Recording Secretary
Heidi Nakamura

Treasurer
Phillip W. Palmer CAS
Sergeant-at-Arms
Jamie Gambell

Trustees
Shawn Holden CAS
Jay Patterson CAS
Jennifer Winslow

Board Members
Joseph A. Aredas Jr.
Amanda Beggs
Blas Kisic
Edward L. Moskowitz CAS
Steve Nelson CAS
Mark Ulano CAS AMPS

The following members have been elected to serve as Delegates to the 2025 International Convention:

Heidi Nakamura
Amanda Beggs
Jennifer Winslow
Phillip W. Palmer CAS
Jay Patterson CAS
Eva Rismanforoush
Joseph A. Aredas Jr.
Edward L. Moskowitz CAS
Anna Wilborn
Mark Ulano CAS AMPS
Veronica Kahn
Beau Baker
Bryan Cahill
Richard Lightstone CAS AMPS
James Delhauer
Sara Glaser CAS

The new Executive Board began its term of office on January 20, 2024, at the Local’s Q1 General Membership Meeting, where they were sworn in and took their Oaths of Office. Local 695 congratulates both our new and returning Board members and offers a profound thank you to those who served on the 2021-2023 Board of Directors for their service.

Financial Relief for Entertainment Workers

This year’s prolonged work stoppages have been devastating to the entertainment community across the nation. In Hollywood, our community has been supported by the profound efforts of the Motion Picture Television Fund (MPTF) and the Entertainment Community Fund (formerly The Actors Fund). Both of these charities have long histories of offering safety-net services and aid for entertainment workers and their families. Both of these organizations aided the entertainment unions, including Local 695, in administering their relief funds throughout the 2023 WGA & SAG-AFTRA strikes against the AMPTP.
Though the strikes have ended, the financial impact will continue to be felt for some time and both MPTF and the Entertainment Community Fund still have resources available to help. If you work in entertainment and you or your family are in need, please visit their websites online at www.mptf.com and www.entertainmentcommunity.org

Lean In & Lean On Holiday Toy Drive

After a difficult year, many families within our union community were struggling. That is why the IATSE, Teamsters, Basic Crafts, and IBEW 40 joined forces to host the Lean In & Lean On Solidarity Holiday events in order to provide for our own who were in need. The overwhelming generosity from our 695 family went a long way as we filled two full donation boxes with gift items for children and received a 4’5” stuffed giraffe (pictured left with our 4’10” Director of Education & Training Casey Weiss and 1’3” Head of Security Chewie). The Local thanks all of its members for their kind and generous donations during the holiday season.

MLK Breakfast

(L-R) Local 695 Asst. Bus. Agent Joe Aredas, member Veronica Kahn, Y-7A Leslie Metts, Y-16A Naola Greaves, Business Rep Scott Bernard, and Asst. Bus. Agent Heidi Nakamura

Local 695 would like to thank the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor for hosting this year’s MLK Day Breakfast at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This was a monumental undertaking in honor of one of our country’s greatest Civil Rights leaders and a testament to the important work his movement continues to do to this day.

IATSE Education

LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is an excellent source of online training tutorials covering topics such as Avid Pro Tools, Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Rhino, Vectorworks, Final Cut Pro, Filemaker, AutoCad, Cubase, Logic Pro, Shot Put Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Vegas Pro, as well as Project Management, Software Development, Network Administration, Finance and Accounting, Marketing and much more. All IATSE members are eligible to sign up for a free LinkedIn Learning Account by visiting https://www.iatsetrainingtrust.org/lil.

New Members

Local 695 Welcomes its New Members

Stephen “Stepho” Evans Y-7
Adam Sanchez Y-1
Evan Millard Y-8
Richard Carlos Y-1

TRANSFER IN

Aaron Walk – Local 700

In Memoriam

John Coffey Y-7A
November 17, 1953 – October 15, 2023

Richard Geerts Y-8
October 16, 1963 – January 20, 2023

Our Contributors

Richard Bullock CAS
Richard is from New York originally and began his film career in Seattle in 1995, transitioning from video assist to sound in 1999. His recent credits include The Color Purple, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, 1883, and Mare of Easttown.

Püd Cusack
Püd has been working in the film industry since graduating from film school at The Dominican University, Chicago. After her first eight years as a Boom Operator, she moved on to production sound mixing. Receiving an Oscar nomination for The Mask of Zorro, and an Emmy nomination for Marvel’s Hawkeye, her third Marvel project. With more than eighty films on her resume, she has worked all over the US, as well as twelve countries and counting. Püd’s passion & devotion to the sound film industry continues to grow & flourish.

James Delhauer
James Delhauer was born in Southern California and never made it very far from home. Since 2014, he has worked as a television engineer specializing in Pronology’s mRes platform. He joined Local 695 because he desperately needed friends and has served as the Local’s Director of Communications since 2022. James is Co-editor of Production Sound & Video.

Sean O’Malley
Sean O’Malley was born in Youngstown, Ohio. He began his professional career in music as an Engineer at Track Record Studios, and has been a Production Sound Mixer since 2004. He cut his teeth working with the Duplass brothers on many low-budget features and followed them to scripted television with HBO’s Togetherness. Sean is a member of the Television Academy and has earned two Emmy nominations for Euphoria and BEEF. His most recent projects include The Idol and an upcoming feature, On Swift Horses.

Mark Ulano CAS AMPS
Mark Ulano has been recording sound for film since 1976 mixing more than 150 film and television projects. He is a four-time Oscar nominee, most recently for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ad Astra, and Inglorious Basterds. His work on Titanic won him an Academy Award for Sound Mixing, as well as the Cinema Audio Society Award for Best Sound Mixing for a Feature Film. Most recently, his work can be heard on Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody and in 2023 on the new Martin Scorsese spring release, Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.

From the Editors

Happy New Year!

2024 is sure to be an exciting year for Production Sound & Video as we expect to cover a wealth of exciting projects spearheaded by Local 695 members, delve into the contract negotiations between the IATSE and AMPTP, and look ahead toward this year’s presidential election.

In this edition, Püd Cusack takes us behind the scenes of NYAD, while Richard Bullock shares a bit about his experiences working on 1923. We hear a bit about the production of BEEF from Sean O’Malley. Then we get to hear about the philosophy of sound in “A Conversation with Mark Ulano.” Members interested in on-set communications should take a look at the evolution of communication with Cine-Comm and last, but not least, James Delhauer shares the story of how IATSE solidarity played a key role in the wildfire crisis in Hawaii last August.

Do you have a story you’d like to share with the world? Production Sound & Video is seeking new writers from Local 695 to contribute articles to our quarterly publication. If you have a story you’d like to write or submit as an interview, please contact Co-editors James Delhauer & Richard Lightstone at mag@local695.com.

In Solidarity,
James Delhauer & Richard Lightstone
Production Sound & Video Co-editors

From the President

Let’s chat about GPT.

A year after I finished my graduate degree, I got a call. It was one of those life-changing calls. In fact, I thought it was a prank. But within a few days, my resume was polished and I was sitting in reception of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, interviewing for an unnamed show. On May 25, 2008, I shot Mission Control as JPL’s Phoenix Mars lander descended onto our neighboring planet. It was absolutely surreal and I was convinced I had peaked early in my career. Little did I know, I would continue on a path entrenched in technology change that was always pushing the boundaries of what was to come.

I have learned many valuable lessons over the last sixteen years of my partnership with the space agency, but one that sticks out from all the others is the role that fear plays when approaching emerging technology or cultural shifts in the technical space. On the one hand, feelings of fear are very organic. The idea of the unknown is unsettling and anxiety-inducing, but it’s also essential. Fear starts the process of problem solving. It is the catalyst to creativity. The two exist in an inseparable dichotomy with one another. I believe an unspoken requirement of our technical local membership is the understanding that we cannot create when we are overcome with fear, but both are necessary ingredients to a successful project.

In my time with JPL, I have worked on over a dozen high-profile missions from the earliest stages of conception. Almost ten years ago,when we did a test at NASA’s Ames Aeronautical Laboratory at Moffett Field, we were in the midst of incorporating a lot of new technology while performing a very high profile test. I was terrified. Ames contains the world’s largest wind tunnel test facility. Their facility’s test section is eighty feet high by one hundred and twenty feet long, producing wind speeds up to 250 mph. This tunnel is used in anything where wind speed is a factor in transit, ranging from semi-trucks to jet engines. Our job was to conduct a series of parachute tests for the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) system of the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. Curiosity’s EDL was newly designed and developed with the most radical design in the history of Mars missions. I encourage you to google “Seven Minutes of Terror” for the full breakdown.

My job was to set up a series of high frame rate cameras and video assist in the wind tunnel in order to capture the parachute so that its success or failure could be thoroughly assessed after the fact. One of the angles necessary to document the test required me to climb sixty feet up the side of the building to rig a camera for a profiled point of view of the deployment. The scope of the test would require an operator. The vibration from the wind tunnel hitting the walls and the glass of the window was potentially too problematic to be left unattended for such an expensive test.

So, for over an hour, I was harnessed in above a seven story drop while being bombarded with 250 mph winds. The facility’s manager, the safety managers, a fellow video engineer, and I worked to ensure that I would be safe and that the camera would be rigged in such a manner that I couldn’t drop it, but that couldn’t block out the fear; the gnawing sense of anxiety that came with knowing that any unaccounted variable could be fatal and the responsibility of being tasked with shooting this one and done multi-million dollar test.

As the fans started to warm up, the lights across the facility and the neighboring town of Mountainview dimmed from the fan’s power consumption. The walls started to sway and breathe cold drafts of air. The wind continued to ramp up and the walls began to shake. The vibration grew in decibel level. I could barely hear the project manager on the walkie, but I faintly made out a voice calling, “Go!”

Another voice called, “Jil, hit record!”

My breathing was heavy, but I hit record. “Record system is Go!” I called back.

“All systems are a go. 5…4…3…2…1…Deploy.”

The noise from the vibration seemed to fade away as the parachute unfolded into a magical floating silk of orange and white. In the end, creativity won. On August 12, 2012, the Curiosity rover landed on the surface of Mars following a successful deployment of its EDL.

The skills that I acquired as a young video engineer—setting up full installation flypacks in the middle of desert and water proving grounds—were invaluable for the rest of my career. I learned to do the highest quality of work on a government budget, while pushing technology and vendors to improve their products so that we could better analyze space-flight hardware for successful launch and landing. The diligent, methodical, and scientific structure of these tests has carried with me into my work as a recordist in live TV or live-to-tape production.

Last fall, the IATSE appointed me Chair of the Artificial Intelligence Basic Negotiations Subcommittee. This is a subject where fear is prevalent and so this recent appointment forced me to assess what role fear and creativity will play in our upcoming negotiations. My research in the artificial intelligence (AI) space started years ago with privately funded projects and government assignments. I had the chance to work with Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI, in 2021. His talk on AI changed my thinking of everything to come. The earliest forms of ChatGPT were debuted to us and it set me into a multi-year analysis of how AI and generative tools would affect our industry.

As Don Draper from Mad Men once said, “Change is neither good or bad. It just is.” Artificial intelligence is inevitable at this point and we can greet it with either terror or curiosity. But if we do find ourselves filled with fear about this industry and cultural evolution, we have to remember to take a pause and grow past the unknown so we can embrace the creativity of the prospective.

I’m here to tell you, we do not have to fear this change. Instead, let’s get creative.

In Solidarity,

President Jillian Arnold

PS As we wrap up awards season, I want to take the time to acknowledge and thank all of the members of our Local who worked on nominated or award-winning projects. We have a very limited number of people in our Local who are eligible to receive a statue, but they do so with the help of all of those within the department whose talents, skills, and knowledge are creatively poured into these projects. If your name is on that list of nominees, please take the time to reach out to your crew and thank them one more time. And for those of us in fields that will never hold that Emmy or that Oscar or that CAS Award because your jurisdiction is deemed to be not creative enough to warrant one; I see you, I hear you, and I stand with you. Your talents and efforts are not unnoticed by the leadership of this Local. Congratulations to all who worked on projects that were nominated, and also to the crews that work the award show circuits for another great season.

Jillian Arnold standing beside the Mars Curiosity rover, 2013

From the Business Representative

To the average viewer, it might come as a surprise to find out that an hour of television or the latest two-and-a-half-hour blockbuster took hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of working hours to produce.

All that time spent making it, only to be consumed in a short sitting. For the uninitiated, there’s no way to understand all the various facets of our crafts that go into making such a short piece of artistic content.

Much the same is true of how our union functions. While our members are hard at work on set (or marching the picket lines as was the case last year), your representatives are hard at work managing the day-to-day tasks of running a union and preparing for bargaining on your behalf. So today, I thought I might shed a little light on what your union has been doing to prepare for the 2024 Basic Agreement & Videotape Supplemental Agreement Negotiations with the AMPTP.

Following unprecedented member participation in the 2021 Contract Negotiations, this year’s bargaining platform began development in early 2022. Knowing what we achieved in 2021 and what gains we still needed to achieve, we began compiling case precedent for proposals we knew or suspected would be priorities for the membership. This involved tracking economic trends over the lifetime of the contract and documenting safety concerns or incidents reported by members. We also began soliciting feedback on whether or not the new provisions from 2021 were effective in combating the issues they were intended to address. For example, almost every Local 695 email sent out in the last two years has included links to Job Report and Working Condition Report forms that our members can use to keep us appraised of changes or issues that arise on set.

From there, we launched our 2022 Membership Survey. This survey covered a wide variety of issues reported by members over the previous year and allowed members to rank issues in terms of importance and offer free response answers surrounding issues that the office may not have known about already. This information was used to assist in further research and helped us shape an outline of what our 2024 bargaining platform might look like.

The most commonly reported issues were those involving encroachment into our work jurisdiction by members of other locals or non-union workers, which we have been pleased to mostly resolve without needing to wait for the 2024 contract. 2022 and 2023 both saw jurisdictional clarifications from the IATSE that have helped put Local 695 members back to work when productions had been calling upon others to do their jobs.

In 2023, we continued to follow up on the data we’d gathered in 2022 by engaging with industry experts to help come up with solutions to the problems commonly reported by our members. This included the newly emerging field of artificial intelligence, with more and more members raising concerns about automation and job elimination on the set.

Of course, the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes came with their fair share of work for the union as well. As members found themselves out of work, it became our job to ensure that healthcare benefits were disrupted as little as possible. As a member of the Motion Picture Industry Health & Pension Plan Board, I personally worked with other representatives from the IA and the employers to secure No-Cost COBRA benefits for our members who were in danger of losing coverage. Our members had not been the ones to initiate a strike. Why should they have lost health coverage for it? In a year when tens of thousands of workers found themselves at home for months on end, less than 3% of participants covered by MPI fell out of the plan.

The strikes did not halt our negotiations preparation though. In fact, the swell of success within the labor movement as a whole allowed us to develop new strategies and proposals. Additionally, the gains achieved by the writers and actors have created new possibilities for our own union. Following the launch of the IATSE Census and IATSE Survey, our Local began directly engaging our membership through a series of town halls, general issue-based surveys, classification-based surveys, and one-on-one conversations. Our bargaining committees were formed and have been among the most active groups in 695’s 94-year history. We’ve received more member-penned proposals in the last year than we have since I became Business Agent in 2015.

Now our proposals have been submitted to the IATSE, where they have been combined with proposals from our sister Locals here in Hollywood. The IATSE formed seven bargaining subcommittees that are in the process of reviewing the various proposals. I’m pleased to report that our Locals are very well represented on these committees, with seats on the Wages & Economics, Communications, Logistics, Working Conditions, and New Media committees. Moreover, I have been tasked with chairing this year’s Benefits Committee, while President Jillian Arnold was assigned to chair the first-ever Artificial Intelligence Subcommittee. This means that our Local has a presence on all seven committees. Over the coming weeks, we will continue to narrow down our proposals until we’ve developed a comprehensive, progressive, and achievable bargaining platform that will best serve our members. We’ve been attentive to the feedback we’ve received in the last two years and have carefully considered every single proposal our members have submitted (no matter how profanely written they may have been in surveys or on social media).

In March, negotiations with the AMPTP will begin. At this time, none of us know what will happen, but I firmly believe that the IATSE has never been more prepared. We are resolute in our belief that our members deserve better and that in the ever-evolving technological landscape, a fair and equitable deal can be achieved. When negotiations begin, we will do everything in our power to be as open and transparent as possible. We will not be able to share everything with you, as some strategies will require secrecy so as not to tip our hand toward the employers. But know that your Executive Board, your bargaining committees, the Local 695 office staff, and I have worked tirelessly so that we can go in and do the job you sent us in to do. We are ready.

In Solidarity,

Scott Bernard