So You Want to Be a Painter… Part Two

First, a shout out to Corinne, who wrote in a couple of weeks ago and wanted to know how to get into the movie business as a scenic artist or set painter: this is Part Two of your answer.   As much of an answer as I can give, anyway, because as you’ll see—that first step through the stage door relies on a certain amount of luck or, depending on your philosophy, synchronicity.

Is making it into Show Business as dependent on luck as winning the lottery?  Probably not, if you have the prerequisite skills as a painter, along with a tendency to work hard without complaint for a minimum of ten hours a day and up to sixteen (or more if you get the dreaded all-nighter emergency set job).  But in the end, you’ll have to depend on the undependable, because that’s what luck or synchronicity is: an unpredictable, nonlinear cause and effect sort of grace from the universe.  The movie The Secret is popular with a lot of us show biz types for probably this reason.

I asked three of my friends, two in LA (where I also got my start) and one in the great state of Oregon (where I now base my own operations out of my secret lair) to tell us how they made that transition from an “artist” to an “artist working in films as a painter”.  With names changed to protect the innocent and the guilty, here are their stories.

Mel is a beautiful woman who hails from England, originally, but made her way here to the states via the Bahamas and a technical background in rock and roll history that is just as colorful as she is (she once spent an entire night conversing with David Bowie in his room after a show).  She was always an artist, self trained, and through her work with various bands, she did graphic art on album covers.  Then as a result of knowing someone else from the rock band road technical crowd, she got her first gig on a low budget film doing wardrobe.  Which she hated.

However, the cinematographer on that show knew her from her work on the album covers, and he had an ultra low budget film that needed a painter, so he asked her.  They did three shows together and by that time, she knew somebody else who asked her to work on their next film, and from then on out she kept getting work through a network of people who had all worked on some of the same shows together—a “social network”, although this was before Facebook or email or websites.

By the time I met Mel, she was sculpting foam with a chain saw for a remake of a 50’s science fiction classic out in the wilds of Malibu State Park.  It was a nonunion show, but she had learned an immense amount of stuff about painting and sculpting, almost all of it self-taught, as she didn’t go through the union apprenticeship process. It was my first movie as a real set painter, rather than a miniature artist working in a shop completely removed from the real movie filming.  We took a shine to each other the first day out on location, and we’ve been friends ever since.

Mel didn’t get into the union until ’91, because before then, like me, she was leading shows and making good money on nonunion films, which were plentiful in those days.  Nobody sought you out to ask you to join the union, and at that time, a number of the LA unions were notoriously hard to join unless 1) you were related to someone already inside, or; 2) you were friends with someone already inside, and; 3) you were not a woman.  Generations of men and their brothers or uncles or buddies formed the old school majority of union members, and there were very few women painters. Still, the union shows paid more, and there was a health plan and benefits, something unheard of on nonunion shows.

Mel eventually got asked to lead a film about Jack Nicholson trying to romance Ellen Barkin.  The show was going union, and because by now she had accumulated enough days here and there on union shows that had called her in because they had run out of union guys on the books, she decided to take it and join the union, bringing along her fiancé, Bart.

Bart is a tall, strapping fellow who used to wear his hair almost down to his waist in a ponytail that Mel and I would often admire with not-so-secret envy.  He got his start as a painter in LA also, but through another route that eventually led to his working with Mel and then marrying her.

I have to say at this juncture that I introduced Mel and Bart, when they both agreed to help me out on one of those dreaded “all nighters” during a show about Melanie Griffith having real estate problems involving Michael Keaton.  Mel and Bart each asked me separately whether the other one was single, and then they took it from there.  They’ve been happily married ever since, somehow being the perfect fit for one another although separately they’re both so weird that you would think they had no equivalent match on this planet (and I mean that in the best way).  We’re still buddies after all these years, which is one of the perks of being in this business: the weird ones find each other and support each other all along this journey we call life.

Back to Bart, who was an artist from the Midwest who relocated to LA, and had landed an art director job for a low budget kids’ morning television show which was filming at Culver Studios.  From that job, he got work at Carthay, a set shop which did business with the kids show, and it was there he learned the basics of scenic painting.  Through one of his Carthay friends he got a job as a set painter on a nonunion show about comic book characters that are fighting skull-faced villains who are out to destroy the universe.  The show later went union, months after he had finished on it.  This gave him his 30 days, and the union sent him a letter telling him he was eligible, but he looked at the initiation fees, and decided to stay nonunion until Mel got her Jack Nicholson show.

Now the both of them have been union since ’91, and have done well enough to buy real estate other than their own home, which is telling you something, this being in LA, after all, where even after the implosion of the housing market, a one bedroom 1930’s bungalow with a postage stamp sized yard still goes for $600,000 if you’re in the right neighborhood.

Our third painter, Bella, is the only one of us who had actually trained in college to do the job she ended up with.  However, I think she would agree with me that the majority of her real training happened on the job, because nothing can take the place of those ten hour plus days where real sets need to happen and they need to look real nice, and real professional, like.

Bella moved to Portland after college, and got work in the local theater scene, first.  This is a good way to get your knowledge, but not a good way to make a living.  Too many people love the theater to distraction, and are willing to work there for little to no pay, because— Well, there’s an old theater joke that goes: How do get an elephant out of the theater?  Answer: You can’t.  It’s in their blood.

So that’s why.

Bella got a better paying job at a set shop that specialized in opera and theater sets, and that shop went union.  Now she was in the union, which is my union, IATSE (which stands for International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) Local 488, which, in Oregon and Washington covers almost all technical job classes, from painter to craft service to electrician, and many others.

However, she was basically in a slot within this shop, not moving up or forward, just working for a living, until the shop came on hard times or some such unpleasantness, and she cast about for something different.  She then heard about a film starting up in which Tommy Lee Jones chases Benicio Del Toro all over the woods and into a cold river.

The film’s art department needed lots of union painters because they had decided to create fake trees and fake river rocks even though Oregon and Washington, where they were filming and chasing, was chock full of the real things.  From knowing someone on that film who had worked at her old set shop, she jumped on that show, did a good job, and kept getting work on films coming to town.

By the way, ‘films coming to town’ is too euphemistic a description, because there have been years when little or no films have come to the town of Portland.  But, as you may remember from my earlier blogs, we fought the good fight this last legislative session, and got our Oregon state incentive package increased, so our town (our state, actually) really will have films coming in, hopefully in numbers that will sustain a working girl like myself and all the other members of our union.

So these are the stories.  Every one is different, but each depended on the chance person to person connection and the chance that they connected somehow with a film production that found itself looking for a painter who more or less knew what they were doing.  But not all painters necessarily know the business when they get on their first film.  We ran out of union painters during the last show and hired house painters, some of whom were future union material, some of whom were not.

Remember, the film business is very much like running away to join the carnival, except the work isn’t as steady or as glamorous.  It takes a certain something to make a go of it as a scenic artist in the film business.  Is it desperation? A blind, unreasoning infatuation with films and filmmaking? A Pollyanna-like faith in your future work? Willingness to settle for uncertainty and lean times?  Yes, something like all those, plus a work ethic that makes you stupidly happy to be driven like a rented mule in a single-minded race to get the next set done on time and done well.

Which reminds me of the last night of filming on the Wonder Years, their next-to-final season.  It was an experience somewhat typical of the scenic artist life.  Everybody else on the crew was off to a big wrap party, a karaoke phantasmagoria open bar epic event in upscale Westwood.  Me, I had to (by myself, because they had no budget left) repaint the seedy diner in the Valley where they shot their last scene, working all night to finish it in time for the breakfast crowd.

I missed the wrap party, just like I had missed almost every other party on that entire show, and when I complained to the construction coordinator afterwards, he accused me of being just like that guy who follows the big circus parade, sweeping up all the piles of elephant dung that got left behind.  Someone asks him: Why don’t you get a better job? Answer: What?!  And quit Show Business?

 PS I noticed the discussion about a comment I made in Part One, and I’ve clarified (I hope) or excused (I hope) my words with a note after that article, if you want to check it out.   

Killer Vacation

No, this isn’t the title of the latest cinematic summer slashfest.  I just wanted to announce that I will be on hiatus this week and next because I am going to be in Washington state looking for killer whales (Orcinus orca) via kayak, boat, shore or whatever I can afford, while I can.  This is the time for ‘da kine’, and unfortunately my frequent flyer miles won’t get me to Hawaii and my lovely spinner dolphins just yet.  Also, it looks like another series is coming to Oregon in September (yeehah!) and I may be tied up on that one or another film for months.  So, I make my escape.

In the meantime, for a short look at filmmaking and the environment, please check out my article on green film production for the magazine Media Inc. which you can read online at http://www.media-inc.com/.  Click on the magazine cover that says “Green Issue”.  And for those of you interested in more information on Lolita the killer whale or the killer whales I mention in that article, take a look at http://www.orcanetwork.org/.  This site has fantastic photos as well as amazing amounts of information about killer whales from the latest orca research around the world.   If you want to learn more about Harrison Ford’s conservation organization, Conservation International, jump on over to http://www.conservation.org/learn/oceans/Pages/overview.aspx.  This is the “Oceans” page, but you can check out any number of issues from there and even learn what you might be able to do to make a difference.  Because you can make a difference.  Every day.  Even if you’re working on a film with absolutely no redeeming artistic value—yes, even if you’re working on a cinematic summer slashfest—you can still do something to make that film greener just because you were there.

So You Want to Be a Painter… Are You Sure?

Every few weeks I get an email from someone who wants to know how to get into this business as a scenic artist or set painter for film.  So, because I don’t usually have the time to repeatedly answer these emails, I thought I’d go over that question and try to answer it as best I can. This will take two blog entries, and we’ll continue with the conclusion next Monday. I’ll try to be practical and thorough with my answers.

My first suggestion is to think about it carefully.  Is being a painter the absolute apex and dreamed-of final culmination of your career path?  Is that what you really want?  Because, unlike a lot of “beginners’ jobs”, like PA’s or set dressers, or personal assistants, who can all move up to any number of different careers once they get going and prove themselves to be reasonably capable and dedicated human beings, once you establish yourself as a painter, you will almost never, ever be able to redefine yourself.  You will always be a painter, for the rest of your film career.

I learned too late that I wasn’t going to be fulfilled if I just painted on films for the rest of my life.  I had to mix it up, see what I could do, get creative.  Since I was a painter already, though, those hopes and plans were pointless.  Everybody I worked with knew I was a painter, and there was no way anyone in the Business would un-see me as a painter and consider hiring me to be something else.

I had to leave LA and start over completely; ask for work on an uber-low budget film, and get lucky enough to be hired by a director and producer who accepted me as a potential art director.  More importantly, neither of them knew me as a good, experienced painter.  Because if they had seen me as that particular thing, I would have been out of consideration for art director, prop master, or even PA.  And they wouldn’t have been able to afford me as a good, experienced painter with their budget, so therefore, I wouldn’t have had a place on their film in any job capacity.

I think it’s safe to say that for most scenic painters, they are going to be living under a glass ceiling and they’re going to be further constrained by glass walls.  They are always going to be painters, not art directors, not DP’s, not directors, not producers, not even propmakers.  Painters.

So do you love painting more than any other job you can think of doing in the film business?

Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to maybe work in the camera department?  They get paid much more than painters do.  Or what about working as a grip or an electrician?  You don’t need nearly as much training, and they get paid more than painters do.  If you work in the production office, on that side of things you have the potential to advance into producing, which is right up there with the director, hierarchy-wise.  How about directing?  Are you sure you don’t want to direct?

Or, what about set dressing?  If you work as a set decorator or a buyer, you’re going to make much more money than a painter, and guess what?  You won’t have to learn thousands of painting tricks with hundreds of different poisonous substances while worrying about toxic effects on you and your unborn children and whether your carbon and pollution job footprint will grow too big to ever be erased within you and your grandchildren’s lifetimes.

And then there are the real artists of the art department—the art director and the production designer and the set designers and the draftspeople.  Are you absolutely certain you don’t want to ease into one of these positions? To all intents and purposes they are the ones creating the film, while you are going to merely follow their orders, trying to do everything they ask in as short a time and as efficient a way as possible.  Also (do I really need to say it?), they get paid more than painters.

I almost forgot to mention writing the script.  Don’t you want to do that, instead? Don’t you want to make $100,000 plus per film?  No painter on earth, even an Oscar-winning painter (I really did know one, and he only made so-so money), is going to close in on six figures per show, and that’s just the bottom, the first-time lowest rung for writers.  It’s hard to break into writing, sure.  And you need to have talent, as well as incredible luck simply to make your first sale.  Hmmm… So, okay, maybe you’re smart not to think about getting into screenwriting.

But how about being the script person, who is the right hand of the director and really holds the essence of the film in her hands at every moment because she knows every beat and timing sequence and each action for every scene of the whole shebang.  Needless to say, she gets paid more than a painter.  You have to get training and experience for that, sure, but if you’re smart and hardworking, you’ll make a very good living and be part of the inner circle: director, DP and actors, privy to all the action at the eye of the storm, all through filming.

And you might also want to consider the editing side of the film equation.  They get paid lots of money, too, and they are quite often above the line, which is something you, a painter, will never be.  No, even if you have the talent and genius of Van Gogh, Matisse, and David Hockney combined, if you are a set painter, you will live your life below the line, and nobody will ever suspect you are an incredible artistic phenomenon.

So, are you still convinced that painting for films is your heart’s desire and true calling above all others?  If you can say yes, then stay tuned for Part 2, when I give the specific step-by-step pathways that led to their jobs working in film for several different painters, including this one.  If you still want in, maybe one of those stories will help you on your own job quest.   I hope so.  If that’s what you really want…

Hey, what about acting?

Animal Movies for Grownups: Seven Horrible Pitches

I’m not working on a film right now, but I am very busy writing something that has nothing to do with this blog.  However, I don’t want to skip out on sending you a blog entry this week, so here’s a short list I came up with late last night when I couldn’t sleep because it was close to 100 degrees and the air conditioning wasn’t working.  I may have been delirious with heat exhaustion.  Feel free to use any of these yourself should you find yourself at your next meeting with producers from Paramount or Fox trying to pitch an idea when you’ve run out of options.

 Animal Movies for Grownups: Seven Horrible Pitches

1. It’s Die Hard meets Free Willy!

2. A hybrid thriller that combines My Friend Flicka with The Manchurian Candidate.

3. It’s a nonlinear Pulp Fiction take on March of the Penguins.

4. Gladiator goes under the sea in Moby Dick’s Fight Club!

5. It’s a Goodfellas with heart—just add orphaned migrating geese.                 

6. Amadeus had a beloved dog named Old Yeller…

7. Think Das Boot with cats!