on working in canadian kids television...behind the scenes. PART 1
quick question: have you ever had to force a very smart 12 year old to go to tutoring? when they try every single trick in the book to get out of it, and you have to explain to them how there are rules for a reason, and maybe, some day when he is older, he may need, to, IDK, like: KNOW HOW TO SPELL?
kid is now a man who still works, thank god. and i proposed to him that just getting the tutoring over with every day may be the best approach.
it's actually pretty well reflected as a perfect example in present day media. have you caught the series LOVE on netflix? don't let the smooooshy title throw you off (alpha males) bc it's a beautiful, hilarious, real show about LOVE...and the damn film & media industry. there is a wicked scene in Season 2 involving child actors, in tutoring. it made me laugh so hard, because that was my every day working on that show.
oh and typing the daily production reports with all the math for the unions on this stuff. the unions are strict about this, and i appreciate it. because it makes the office staff move on on the assistant directors to get 'er done. on that show we worked in the same building as the studio, it was shot in a old elementary school in the college little italy area of toronto. our office was a class room. they turned the gym into a studio, and the craft service area was in the old servery, most likely previously used for school hot dog & pizza days.
and one day, when everything was going to hell, i was speaking to a now former friend who was working on THE LOVE GURU, and he said: "sounds like you are on a goat rodeo, just like us." (more on that here, believe me, A LOT more went on that would probably be mentioned in his wanna be book. LOL)
so i just wrote this on our chalk board in our office. i cannot remember how long it stayed there for, but, it helped me. dark days in that office.
i quit this show bc of harassment, remember? oh wait. i haven't written about that here...yet. already reported it to their union, last november. that did squat. press releases? speeches? what about letting female directors join for free for a few years, to get the parity up??? (great idea)
probably will sample that choice email, if i ever go deeper on this. i will admit - we called her a cougar. we apologized. then she tried to get me fired, by framing me with her errors on the call sheet, for months, and every day i photocopied her hand written scribbles i typed for her, and every time there was an error, i would compare the final error to her notes, and i'm telling you - EVERY G-D DAMN TIME it was her error. i eventually called my union on her, then my union rep yelled at my PM, and i still quit the show, and i still got shit on when i left.
on this show, i also had to convince one of my production assistants to take our producer to the labour board, after she was in a no fault accident while driving a production car. producer tried to take a $500 deductible out of her $650/wk pay cheque. producer even had the nerve to force her on a phone call before he would pay her the money, where he tried to shame her. and she yelled back at him: "KEVIN MAY: HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU MAKE A WEEK? DO YOU KNOW THAT IS ONLY PART OF MY RENT MONEY?" after that, he got flustered and let her go. her pay cheque was released, as she had already quit the show, i left shortly after, in solidarity but also bc i was UP TO MY EARS in nonsense that was avoidable, and so sick of being bullied by the 2nd AD (who didn't stop picking on me this whole time, even after i "called my union"). it was the first time i got treated like crap as an assistant production coordinator almost constantly, by the female PM and the female 2nd AD. most of my bullies in the work place, in production offices in Toronto, have been females. more on that later, my former SISTERS ;)
many of my former union sisters wouldn't know solidarity if it smacked them in the damn face, like a runny rotten wet fish. never seen more back stabbing and job stealing in my life then in that union...or, perhaps, northern ontario film.
more on that later...too.
kid is now a man who still works, thank god. and i proposed to him that just getting the tutoring over with every day may be the best approach.
it's actually pretty well reflected as a perfect example in present day media. have you caught the series LOVE on netflix? don't let the smooooshy title throw you off (alpha males) bc it's a beautiful, hilarious, real show about LOVE...and the damn film & media industry. there is a wicked scene in Season 2 involving child actors, in tutoring. it made me laugh so hard, because that was my every day working on that show.
oh and typing the daily production reports with all the math for the unions on this stuff. the unions are strict about this, and i appreciate it. because it makes the office staff move on on the assistant directors to get 'er done. on that show we worked in the same building as the studio, it was shot in a old elementary school in the college little italy area of toronto. our office was a class room. they turned the gym into a studio, and the craft service area was in the old servery, most likely previously used for school hot dog & pizza days.
and one day, when everything was going to hell, i was speaking to a now former friend who was working on THE LOVE GURU, and he said: "sounds like you are on a goat rodeo, just like us." (more on that here, believe me, A LOT more went on that would probably be mentioned in his wanna be book. LOL)
so i just wrote this on our chalk board in our office. i cannot remember how long it stayed there for, but, it helped me. dark days in that office.
i quit this show bc of harassment, remember? oh wait. i haven't written about that here...yet. already reported it to their union, last november. that did squat. press releases? speeches? what about letting female directors join for free for a few years, to get the parity up??? (great idea)
probably will sample that choice email, if i ever go deeper on this. i will admit - we called her a cougar. we apologized. then she tried to get me fired, by framing me with her errors on the call sheet, for months, and every day i photocopied her hand written scribbles i typed for her, and every time there was an error, i would compare the final error to her notes, and i'm telling you - EVERY G-D DAMN TIME it was her error. i eventually called my union on her, then my union rep yelled at my PM, and i still quit the show, and i still got shit on when i left.
on this show, i also had to convince one of my production assistants to take our producer to the labour board, after she was in a no fault accident while driving a production car. producer tried to take a $500 deductible out of her $650/wk pay cheque. producer even had the nerve to force her on a phone call before he would pay her the money, where he tried to shame her. and she yelled back at him: "KEVIN MAY: HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU MAKE A WEEK? DO YOU KNOW THAT IS ONLY PART OF MY RENT MONEY?" after that, he got flustered and let her go. her pay cheque was released, as she had already quit the show, i left shortly after, in solidarity but also bc i was UP TO MY EARS in nonsense that was avoidable, and so sick of being bullied by the 2nd AD (who didn't stop picking on me this whole time, even after i "called my union"). it was the first time i got treated like crap as an assistant production coordinator almost constantly, by the female PM and the female 2nd AD. most of my bullies in the work place, in production offices in Toronto, have been females. more on that later, my former SISTERS ;)
many of my former union sisters wouldn't know solidarity if it smacked them in the damn face, like a runny rotten wet fish. never seen more back stabbing and job stealing in my life then in that union...or, perhaps, northern ontario film.
more on that later...too.
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