1999-early 2000: naive & new to the world of Ontario Film
*there have been some additions below, from the earlier post on 9/9/18. wanted to clarify a few things. they are unmarked.*
i had one of those mothers who always told me i could do and be what ever i wanted. probably because she lost a lot of her youth to nonsense (hey it was the late 60s early 70s, shit was happening), and had her first child stolen from her (a result of a long term high school relationship, not with my father, they met years after this) because her dad wasn't down with having one of his first grandchildren to be born out of wedlock. when i came around ('78), i only knew a loving kind sweet grandfather. not the man who beat my grandmother until she left him. not the man that forced my mother to move to hide her shame, and only come home once it was dealt with. don't worry: other family members hid her shame too, and helped this to happen, sent on a fast train to southern ontario. years later, my mother was misdiagnosed with a rash, when she really had skin cancer, and she died at the age of 30.
she didn't mince words, and i'm proud to be so much like her. i am 50% her DNA and it shows.
in the way that when i see that someone needs help i help them. when i see that someone needs someone to talk to, i listen.
unfortunately these rules do not transfer to the "old school" way of filmmaking that much of Ontario Film is based on. the casting couch. the financial abuse. the slander. the mob-like bullshit that is still happening, especially in Northern Ontario Film.
oh. and. the biggest thing: i was a secret buddhist. i will talk more about that at some other point, as it's kinda pivotal to the whole reason why i have been fighting, FOR YEARS, once secretly, NOW OPENLY, that the business in Ontario needs to change. i do not care what you do with private money, BUT WHEN OUR TAX DOLLARS are funding known abusers, and absolute SHIT PROGRAMMING... i have to protest.
in 1999 i talked myself into my first job, as an intern, at the now defunct Eyes Post Group in Toronto, at the time, one of the most successful independent post video facilities in Toronto. i wanted to work as an editor, and this placement was the only thing i could find in that department. i knew i needed anything i could get to get myself to move to Toronto, from Thunder Bay, the only place i'd ever lived for almost 20 years.
my first day of work: i was almost immediately sent home to "change". why? i had 1 inch of flesh revealed, IF i bent over, from my shirt to my jeans. my butt was fully contained. i, at the time, was extremely fit (5'6" 140lbs to my current 180lbs), and i actually had abs, as i had been hitting the gym daily for the months leading up to moving. in hindsight, i know now, that the woman (office manager) who told me to go change was: jealous of me. why? i was smart, confident, and was 30lbs lighter than her. she most likely thought: OH FUCK SHE IS SO GOING TO TAKE MY JOB. instantly my confidence was broken. on my FIRST day of work. i haven't told that story to a lot of people, and i've only recently been able to speak about it. it really scarred me. made me THINK i wasn't good enough to work in film. i know, fucked. made me super self conscious about clothing at work too, so i'd find myself picking at my appearance, often, when it really wasn't needed.
but as i had always done: nevertheless, I persisted. i just kicked ass at my job. oh, ya, i earned myself a job. like, the LAST DAY of my internship, when i'd already set myself up with a bartending gig at Bedford Ballroom, i was offered the shipping clerk/library job, and they fired the other girl who had "trained" me. she was a bit of a mess, and i never saw her again in the business, but, after getting in to the library, quite deep, i could tell she hadn't done shit in months, and i had just gotten myself a disaster to organize. but, i'm super good at organizing, so i cleaned house. still one of my spider skills that gets me random gigs, including developing systems, reorganizing and inventorying several seasons of a Disney stop motion show.
forgot to mention: i didn't get the receptionist job at Eyes Post Group (that i wanted) because i had a pierced tongue at the time. that you could not see unless i opened my mouth really wide or stuck my tongue out. but, of course, no one mentioned this until a month or so after i was offered the shipping/library job, so, another notch in my film work self esteem, as i'd lost out on not one but TWO opportunities working in this facility because of superficial reasons that had nothing to do with my strengths as an employee.
i also wasn't allowed to work in the tape room (a precursor to becoming an editor at the time), because, well, I HAD A VAGINA. and the last random girl they hired in the tape room had one too, and she fucked up too much shit. BECAUSE OF HER VAGINA, TOTALLY. this actually makes me laugh so much now, but, knowing that not only did i get treated like this here, many many many other women never got a job because of this bullshit. and i saw several of my other female coworkers be treated like garbage (including the VP of the company who is a fucking saviour to Ontario Indie Film and is now "pre-tired" from the business...or i'd say: "Out of the SHIT". her last few gigs were far more normal and i wish i could list all the films she has helped happen in Ontario and elsewhere because SHE KNOWS we don't ever get enough money to make these projects. and SHE KNOWS which producers are abusive, because they have reputations that everyone who has connections is aware of (i'm also aware of a lot of the producers in Ontario who are WELL KNOWN for not paying bills, to their vendors and crew because i have been privy to this information through DGC, IATSE 411 and other positions. yet, these producers are still being financed - with YOUR tax dollars. to pay themselves first, and run. FUN FACT: we alllllll talk about this shit. the stuff that pisses us off and we want to change. some of us have been fighting for small changes. i'm still proud i was part of the staff who brought Location Security into the DGC in Ontario. they were getting hosed, and now they have some rights , more then they had before. still waiting for VFX to have proper representation in Canada - they are over worked and over stressed for really low rates compared to a lot of other on set crew positions. and more and more shows are choosing to shoot in Canada because of our tax credit system, and our talent pool, made up of home grown talent and imports from other countries, either on temp work visas or trying to qualify for citizenship)
so much more happened while working at Eyes - 9 months that felt like years at the time. not much of it is relevant. though i have half of a journal full from this time, it's definitely an indie script i will write some day. simple location. lots of shit going down. i had a couple of successes within the chaos:
1) i got the boardroom cleared of film (when i started it was floor to ceiling packed with boxes, full of "pizza boxes" - film uses the same boxes to hold processed 35mm & 16mm negatives - or they use round cans that hold the pre-reeled film. the film in boxes is just on cores, for telecine transfer. the whole board room was only holding 2 series worth of film, for one season each. the whole room. 30 ft by 12ft at least, 7 ft high. the same amount of footage could be held on a few small hard drives that could fit into a hand carried pelican case now, so it's mind blowing to think about in hindsight). convinced the owner to renovate the library (i actually convinced them to knock out a wall, so it was not cheap). when i quit, the owner tried to guilt me into staying saying that he was "renovating for me" and i really wanted to say: "why don't you renovate my $9/hr pay cheque with no legal over time or vacation pay". they gave us "christmas bonuses" that were actually our vacation pay, and tried to pretend like they were being so generous. at the time i was broke as fuck, so all i remember is being stoked for a $700 chq i didn't know was coming. i figured out the vacation pay later. i remember getting called into accounting, to explain my work hours (an attempt to "catch" me lying, actually, i was working, and lots of people knew i was, and quickly they finally hired someone to work the night shift), which were like this: 9am open shipping, work until 6-7pm, then move to the reception desk and answer phones until midnight, repeat this extra shift as needed, as we were so short staffed that they eventually "got over" my tongue piercing as it ACTUALLY didn't prevent me from doing my job. (the only time i ever experienced this was at Eyes - i had a tongue piercing until 2007 or so, and worked a whole bunch - no one mentioned it.)
2) i met bryan while working there, as he had to pick stuff up from me often, and he is still one of my best friends in the whole universe as both of us have seen too much shit in this industry. though he got fired from the show he was working on when i met him for calling one of the other girls i worked with, from the client phone in our reception. like, dude ACTUALLY paged the facility and asked for her to come see him, while she was in session assisting a colourist. my boss (the fore mentioned VP) was so pissed off she called his boss and got him fired. for the rest of us who were friends with him, we thought he was the shit, and he eventually had a date or two with that girl, so, we both find that story really hilarious. he was fired from one other show, and that kickstarted his very successful business, so shit things happen sometimes to make good things happen. plus bryan told me that i'm the only person he personally knows who has had a film at Sundance that my DAD didn't pay for, which i found hilarious. we are friends bc i do not give a shit (as in, we both say what we have to say when we need to say it) and we are both huge film/music losers. this is how lasting film friendships last, you have to have real things in common, not just "working on a show" together once as the only thing you have in common.
3) we were working on AMERICAN PSYCHO at the time, while it was shooting in toronto, and it was a big deal film, and a lot of people were protesting it being made. owner was deathly afraid film was going to leak because the facility was being run behind the scenes by film nerd geeks. so, we had THE TALK. "IF ANYONE IS CAUGHT WATCHING THIS FILM OR LEAKING ANY FOOTAGE YOU WILL BE IMMEDIATELY FIRED." so we organized a 2am screening on Friday night (with the night shift staff being SO INVOLVED and CONDONING THIS HAPPENING). and i saw the final film, minus a few titles at the start, at least a week or two before it came out, and i told pretty much no one. still friends with several crew members from that production, as we had to talk a lot about shipping items, as things were constantly being shipped from TO to LA & NYC. it was a big show, and still proud i had a small hand in making it (i sent a lot of fedex's!!! LOL)
4) i can send a fedex blindfolded and have it clear US customs (it's a process. have fun fedex'ing duplicated DVDs to the US without proper paperwork - EVERYONE will think it's porn or worse, and it will be sent back!) i have been known to get annoyed at people who cannot send a fedex or a courier successfully. after sending thousands of packages in my career, i've earned the right to be annoyed, but, i try to keep it to myself. my assistant at Eyes Post once damaged a shipment to LA from TO, because he was too lazy/pissed off to PACK PAPER in the boxes to keep the film reels from rolling around inside and EXPLODING the boxes in transport. i do not know what happened to that guy either, he got fired after i left, i imagine for something just as smart. i do remember telling my bosses if they wanted to continue the success of my department after i left, that he should not be promoted to my position. he was super pissed at me my last few days of work. i was excited to leave to go work here. read that post if you want to see how my dreams faded quickly in that Ontario Film work space too.
5) one of the most satisfying points of the Toronto #AFTERMETOO conference last December was looking out of the window while in the new Globe & Mail building at the new condo where Eyes Post Group once stood. it was like i had survived the fire and they were long gone. it was cathartic.
i'm sure there is more. like that time the owner came into work limping, and wouldn't tell us what had happened. he eventually cracked and half yelled about how he was drunk golfing and he flipped his golf cart.
or all those times he invited in my male coworkers to "check something out" on his computer....100% pornography. this was 1999 - so - it was shit internet video gifs. i, alas, was never invited to look at the vaginas because I HAD A VAGINA.
who would of thought a VAGINA would keep you away from working and being all you could be. i didn't let it stop me, but, i can say, my career would be in a much better place if i was a man, or a woman who just shut up and kept my head down and just kept working and taking the abuse.
i did go through moments in my career where i was that person: the one who looked away. i just cannot and will not be that person.
and if no one else is doing it, then i was just waiting for ME. i'm the person a lot of people have been waiting for. for the choice few who know what i've been up to since HW fell, then you know only part of it.
lots more to come. stay tuned. my muse is strong right now and with the events in the last few months only lighting my writing fire stronger.
just wait for the archives. i have A LOT of information i've been sitting on, and i've only been sharing it with the people i trust. not to mention the countless conversations i've had with a ton of disgruntled and abused Ontario Film workers, union and non-union alike.
i had one of those mothers who always told me i could do and be what ever i wanted. probably because she lost a lot of her youth to nonsense (hey it was the late 60s early 70s, shit was happening), and had her first child stolen from her (a result of a long term high school relationship, not with my father, they met years after this) because her dad wasn't down with having one of his first grandchildren to be born out of wedlock. when i came around ('78), i only knew a loving kind sweet grandfather. not the man who beat my grandmother until she left him. not the man that forced my mother to move to hide her shame, and only come home once it was dealt with. don't worry: other family members hid her shame too, and helped this to happen, sent on a fast train to southern ontario. years later, my mother was misdiagnosed with a rash, when she really had skin cancer, and she died at the age of 30.
she didn't mince words, and i'm proud to be so much like her. i am 50% her DNA and it shows.
in the way that when i see that someone needs help i help them. when i see that someone needs someone to talk to, i listen.
unfortunately these rules do not transfer to the "old school" way of filmmaking that much of Ontario Film is based on. the casting couch. the financial abuse. the slander. the mob-like bullshit that is still happening, especially in Northern Ontario Film.
oh. and. the biggest thing: i was a secret buddhist. i will talk more about that at some other point, as it's kinda pivotal to the whole reason why i have been fighting, FOR YEARS, once secretly, NOW OPENLY, that the business in Ontario needs to change. i do not care what you do with private money, BUT WHEN OUR TAX DOLLARS are funding known abusers, and absolute SHIT PROGRAMMING... i have to protest.
in 1999 i talked myself into my first job, as an intern, at the now defunct Eyes Post Group in Toronto, at the time, one of the most successful independent post video facilities in Toronto. i wanted to work as an editor, and this placement was the only thing i could find in that department. i knew i needed anything i could get to get myself to move to Toronto, from Thunder Bay, the only place i'd ever lived for almost 20 years.
my first day of work: i was almost immediately sent home to "change". why? i had 1 inch of flesh revealed, IF i bent over, from my shirt to my jeans. my butt was fully contained. i, at the time, was extremely fit (5'6" 140lbs to my current 180lbs), and i actually had abs, as i had been hitting the gym daily for the months leading up to moving. in hindsight, i know now, that the woman (office manager) who told me to go change was: jealous of me. why? i was smart, confident, and was 30lbs lighter than her. she most likely thought: OH FUCK SHE IS SO GOING TO TAKE MY JOB. instantly my confidence was broken. on my FIRST day of work. i haven't told that story to a lot of people, and i've only recently been able to speak about it. it really scarred me. made me THINK i wasn't good enough to work in film. i know, fucked. made me super self conscious about clothing at work too, so i'd find myself picking at my appearance, often, when it really wasn't needed.
but as i had always done: nevertheless, I persisted. i just kicked ass at my job. oh, ya, i earned myself a job. like, the LAST DAY of my internship, when i'd already set myself up with a bartending gig at Bedford Ballroom, i was offered the shipping clerk/library job, and they fired the other girl who had "trained" me. she was a bit of a mess, and i never saw her again in the business, but, after getting in to the library, quite deep, i could tell she hadn't done shit in months, and i had just gotten myself a disaster to organize. but, i'm super good at organizing, so i cleaned house. still one of my spider skills that gets me random gigs, including developing systems, reorganizing and inventorying several seasons of a Disney stop motion show.
forgot to mention: i didn't get the receptionist job at Eyes Post Group (that i wanted) because i had a pierced tongue at the time. that you could not see unless i opened my mouth really wide or stuck my tongue out. but, of course, no one mentioned this until a month or so after i was offered the shipping/library job, so, another notch in my film work self esteem, as i'd lost out on not one but TWO opportunities working in this facility because of superficial reasons that had nothing to do with my strengths as an employee.
i also wasn't allowed to work in the tape room (a precursor to becoming an editor at the time), because, well, I HAD A VAGINA. and the last random girl they hired in the tape room had one too, and she fucked up too much shit. BECAUSE OF HER VAGINA, TOTALLY. this actually makes me laugh so much now, but, knowing that not only did i get treated like this here, many many many other women never got a job because of this bullshit. and i saw several of my other female coworkers be treated like garbage (including the VP of the company who is a fucking saviour to Ontario Indie Film and is now "pre-tired" from the business...or i'd say: "Out of the SHIT". her last few gigs were far more normal and i wish i could list all the films she has helped happen in Ontario and elsewhere because SHE KNOWS we don't ever get enough money to make these projects. and SHE KNOWS which producers are abusive, because they have reputations that everyone who has connections is aware of (i'm also aware of a lot of the producers in Ontario who are WELL KNOWN for not paying bills, to their vendors and crew because i have been privy to this information through DGC, IATSE 411 and other positions. yet, these producers are still being financed - with YOUR tax dollars. to pay themselves first, and run. FUN FACT: we alllllll talk about this shit. the stuff that pisses us off and we want to change. some of us have been fighting for small changes. i'm still proud i was part of the staff who brought Location Security into the DGC in Ontario. they were getting hosed, and now they have some rights , more then they had before. still waiting for VFX to have proper representation in Canada - they are over worked and over stressed for really low rates compared to a lot of other on set crew positions. and more and more shows are choosing to shoot in Canada because of our tax credit system, and our talent pool, made up of home grown talent and imports from other countries, either on temp work visas or trying to qualify for citizenship)
so much more happened while working at Eyes - 9 months that felt like years at the time. not much of it is relevant. though i have half of a journal full from this time, it's definitely an indie script i will write some day. simple location. lots of shit going down. i had a couple of successes within the chaos:
1) i got the boardroom cleared of film (when i started it was floor to ceiling packed with boxes, full of "pizza boxes" - film uses the same boxes to hold processed 35mm & 16mm negatives - or they use round cans that hold the pre-reeled film. the film in boxes is just on cores, for telecine transfer. the whole board room was only holding 2 series worth of film, for one season each. the whole room. 30 ft by 12ft at least, 7 ft high. the same amount of footage could be held on a few small hard drives that could fit into a hand carried pelican case now, so it's mind blowing to think about in hindsight). convinced the owner to renovate the library (i actually convinced them to knock out a wall, so it was not cheap). when i quit, the owner tried to guilt me into staying saying that he was "renovating for me" and i really wanted to say: "why don't you renovate my $9/hr pay cheque with no legal over time or vacation pay". they gave us "christmas bonuses" that were actually our vacation pay, and tried to pretend like they were being so generous. at the time i was broke as fuck, so all i remember is being stoked for a $700 chq i didn't know was coming. i figured out the vacation pay later. i remember getting called into accounting, to explain my work hours (an attempt to "catch" me lying, actually, i was working, and lots of people knew i was, and quickly they finally hired someone to work the night shift), which were like this: 9am open shipping, work until 6-7pm, then move to the reception desk and answer phones until midnight, repeat this extra shift as needed, as we were so short staffed that they eventually "got over" my tongue piercing as it ACTUALLY didn't prevent me from doing my job. (the only time i ever experienced this was at Eyes - i had a tongue piercing until 2007 or so, and worked a whole bunch - no one mentioned it.)
2) i met bryan while working there, as he had to pick stuff up from me often, and he is still one of my best friends in the whole universe as both of us have seen too much shit in this industry. though he got fired from the show he was working on when i met him for calling one of the other girls i worked with, from the client phone in our reception. like, dude ACTUALLY paged the facility and asked for her to come see him, while she was in session assisting a colourist. my boss (the fore mentioned VP) was so pissed off she called his boss and got him fired. for the rest of us who were friends with him, we thought he was the shit, and he eventually had a date or two with that girl, so, we both find that story really hilarious. he was fired from one other show, and that kickstarted his very successful business, so shit things happen sometimes to make good things happen. plus bryan told me that i'm the only person he personally knows who has had a film at Sundance that my DAD didn't pay for, which i found hilarious. we are friends bc i do not give a shit (as in, we both say what we have to say when we need to say it) and we are both huge film/music losers. this is how lasting film friendships last, you have to have real things in common, not just "working on a show" together once as the only thing you have in common.
3) we were working on AMERICAN PSYCHO at the time, while it was shooting in toronto, and it was a big deal film, and a lot of people were protesting it being made. owner was deathly afraid film was going to leak because the facility was being run behind the scenes by film nerd geeks. so, we had THE TALK. "IF ANYONE IS CAUGHT WATCHING THIS FILM OR LEAKING ANY FOOTAGE YOU WILL BE IMMEDIATELY FIRED." so we organized a 2am screening on Friday night (with the night shift staff being SO INVOLVED and CONDONING THIS HAPPENING). and i saw the final film, minus a few titles at the start, at least a week or two before it came out, and i told pretty much no one. still friends with several crew members from that production, as we had to talk a lot about shipping items, as things were constantly being shipped from TO to LA & NYC. it was a big show, and still proud i had a small hand in making it (i sent a lot of fedex's!!! LOL)
4) i can send a fedex blindfolded and have it clear US customs (it's a process. have fun fedex'ing duplicated DVDs to the US without proper paperwork - EVERYONE will think it's porn or worse, and it will be sent back!) i have been known to get annoyed at people who cannot send a fedex or a courier successfully. after sending thousands of packages in my career, i've earned the right to be annoyed, but, i try to keep it to myself. my assistant at Eyes Post once damaged a shipment to LA from TO, because he was too lazy/pissed off to PACK PAPER in the boxes to keep the film reels from rolling around inside and EXPLODING the boxes in transport. i do not know what happened to that guy either, he got fired after i left, i imagine for something just as smart. i do remember telling my bosses if they wanted to continue the success of my department after i left, that he should not be promoted to my position. he was super pissed at me my last few days of work. i was excited to leave to go work here. read that post if you want to see how my dreams faded quickly in that Ontario Film work space too.
5) one of the most satisfying points of the Toronto #AFTERMETOO conference last December was looking out of the window while in the new Globe & Mail building at the new condo where Eyes Post Group once stood. it was like i had survived the fire and they were long gone. it was cathartic.
this was around the point in the day i gave a TO history lesson to some of my other film peeps. i impressed people with my extensive knowledge of OG corkville. this is where Colonial Canada started in Ontario.
eyes post formerly of 320 king st east, now replaced by a condo
i'm sure there is more. like that time the owner came into work limping, and wouldn't tell us what had happened. he eventually cracked and half yelled about how he was drunk golfing and he flipped his golf cart.
or all those times he invited in my male coworkers to "check something out" on his computer....100% pornography. this was 1999 - so - it was shit internet video gifs. i, alas, was never invited to look at the vaginas because I HAD A VAGINA.
who would of thought a VAGINA would keep you away from working and being all you could be. i didn't let it stop me, but, i can say, my career would be in a much better place if i was a man, or a woman who just shut up and kept my head down and just kept working and taking the abuse.
i did go through moments in my career where i was that person: the one who looked away. i just cannot and will not be that person.
and if no one else is doing it, then i was just waiting for ME. i'm the person a lot of people have been waiting for. for the choice few who know what i've been up to since HW fell, then you know only part of it.
lots more to come. stay tuned. my muse is strong right now and with the events in the last few months only lighting my writing fire stronger.
just wait for the archives. i have A LOT of information i've been sitting on, and i've only been sharing it with the people i trust. not to mention the countless conversations i've had with a ton of disgruntled and abused Ontario Film workers, union and non-union alike.
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