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In LA, thinking of moving to New Orleans for work/union purposes. Any advice?


Luc Allein

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It's been recommended to me in the past, and it was very strongly driven home to me by an AC yesterday. He told me that they're so in need of camera people for it being so busy there that they're putting ads in the paper trying recruit union members. Im not sure if this is true of course, but the more he talked about it, the more it got me thinking about it.

 

Ive been in LA about 4 years, working camera stuff when I can, which is to say fairly sporadic. Most of the guys I know are union, so I have to try to finnagle my way onto union shows as a camera pa most times. Here and there I get commercials and low budget stuff. I worked at Panavision for a year too. Im making progress but at the same time Im really spinning my wheels. The union gets more exclusive every year, and the new trend of lower end digital cameras saturating the work place and offering low rates and often no pay is not helping.

 

First off, is anyone on here from New Orleans that can confirm or give me some intel as to whether or not it's really this apparent mecca of film making, and would I have a good shake at some work?

 

Second, if I invested some time down there and joined the union then moved back would I still be eligible to work here? And more importantly, has anyone on here ever done this or know of anyone that transplanted to New Orleans and wound up successful?

 

Honestly, it's kind of exciting for me the thought of gettin out of LA for a while and experiencing a whole different area of the US that is new to me too. I know there's a Panavision there too, so that's an option.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks peeps!

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He told me that they're so in need of camera people for it being so busy there that they're putting ads in the paper trying recruit union members. Im not sure if this is true of course, but the more he talked about it, the more it got me thinking about it.

 

Wow, this sounds exactly like the Grapes Of Wrath. People from Oklahoma head to California in search of fruit picking jobs because they heard there where jobs in CA.

 

Booming film biz in New Orleans? Shhhhhhh, don't tell Brian Dzyak, he'll be out there leading a parade to get it all shut down and moved back to Southern California. :D

 

R,

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Wow, this sounds exactly like the Grapes Of Wrath. People from Oklahoma head to California in search of fruit picking jobs because they heard there where jobs in CA.

 

Booming film biz in New Orleans? Shhhhhhh, don't tell Brian Dzyak, he'll be out there leading a parade to get it all shut down and moved back to Southern California. :D

 

R,

 

 

Cool, I got an unsolicited mention! ;)

 

To answer the original question, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The fact is that eventually, some other city/state/nation will hand out bigger bribes to productions than New Orleans currently does, so all of that "guaranteed" work will "runaway" for greener (as in money) pastures.

 

The choice for everyone to make is, is it worth the changes to your life and lifestyle to chase the work around the planet? If you don't care about uprooting your life and moving like a nomad to wherever the biggest Corporate bribes land every couple of years, then what the hell? Pack it all up and move. But if you value some semblance of stability and friends or whatever else brings happiness to life beyond work, then maybe chasing potential jobs around the globe isn't worth it. In a couple more years, that happy stable of crew in New Orleans will be bemoaning the lack of production as the tax-giveaways to profitable Corporations finally collapses under its own weight and the money for those bribes won't be available anymore. So, like the aliens in the movie INDEPENDENCE DAY, the Movie Production Machine will be done sucking another location dry and it will unsympathetically move on to another place that is all too happy to erode it's own well-being just for the chance to have a few movies made within its borders.

 

For the record, New Orleans isn't the only "hot spot" in the USA or the world right now. For a good overview of where all the work ran away (from LA) to, head over to http://www.realfilmcareer.com and click on the Film Incentives link on the right side of the screen.

 

Good luck! :)

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How well do you handle heat and humidity?

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

 

Um...not well. It was why I moved to LA. However, I was tinkering with the idea of going there for a year or two and then coming back, hopefully with a union card. Its not just to chase work, although that's the goal. I think it would be a cool life experience and...I dont know, adventurous. Im kind of psyched about the idea of going there for a bit.

 

I just didnt know if someone on here knew the deal or had contacts or could say for sure "Hell yes, you'll come out ahead..." Ive been trying to get into the union for years now and only had a handful of days to show for it. Guess Im just gettin frustrated.

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