THE PEG-BOARD -- December 1994
MPSC Local 839 IATSE
This is a monthly posting of excerpts from THE PEG-BOARD, the newsletter of
the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists and Affiliated Optical Electronic and
Graphic Arts, Local 839 IATSE. THE PEG-BOARD is also published in printed
format.
This file is available by anonymous ftp, along with a number of other files
about Local 839. The address is:
ftp.netcom.com:/pub/mp/mpsc839
Local 839 IATSE is the largest local union of motion picture graphic artists
in the world. We have over 1,600 active members employed in animation and
CGI in Southern California.
In this month's issue:
* Membership approves 401(k) plan
* "Lion" still king of box office
* From the President, by Tom Sito
* From the Business Representative, by Steve Hulett
* Where do my dues go?
* Animation in the news
* At the water cooler
* Classified ads
* In memoriam
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MEMBERSHIP APPROVES 401(K) PLAN
Disney, H-B to sign on soon; others still waiting
On November 29, the Local 839 membership unanimously approved the Screen
Cartoonists 401(k) plan which is expected to roll out in early 1995. Disney
and Hanna-Barbera have already indicated they will participate in the plan,
which means that over half of Local 839's employed members will be eligible
for voluntary tax-deferred savings.
At the November 29 meeting, the membership authorized expenditures covering
the startup costs of the plan, and all administrative expenses for the first
year. Bill Clingen of Principal Financial Group, which will be administering
the plan, reported that they will be setting up meetings with Disney and H-B
employees in early '95 to explain the plan and sign up enrollees.
Most other employers have taken a wait-and-see approach to the 401(k)
proposal, with only Warner Bros. delivering a flat no to date. We are
optimistic that, before long, all of our employed members will have these
savings available to them.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
LION STILL KING
"Princess" swoons; "Pagemaster" still on the books
The box office for Disney's re-release of The Lion King has swamped its
animated competitors, Turner's The Pagemaster and Rich's The Swan Princess.
As of December 6, Lion King has grossed $19 million since its re-release in
late November, compared to $6.6 million for Swan Princess which debuted the
same day. The Pagemaster is at a respectable $7.5 million after twelve days
in theaters. Undeterred, both Turner and Rich are working on new animated
feature projects.
As we go to press, Disney's latest animated blockbuster stands at $285
million. It's about to become the fifth-largest domestic grossing movie of
all time -- confirming Disney's continued dominance of animated theatrical
features.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Family values
Young and alone on a long road, Once I lost my way:
Rich I felt when I found another, Man rejoices in man.
-- the Viking Elder Edda
Remember during the riots when the mob pulled out that trucker Reginald
Denny and beat him almost to death? A black man saw it happen on TV, rushed
out of his house and pulled him out of danger, saving his life. When asked
why he did it he replied: "I didn't see a white man. I saw a fellow trucker
like me in trouble."
A fellow trucker ... tribes ... family ... animators ... that's a lot like
us.
Admit it, animators are a strange breed. But despite our various tastes and
temperaments we are all of a kind. We have an invisible bond. A bond that
drew us to this little known field, the bastard child of Hollywood, who
never gets respect even when it outshines all other movies. We know we'll
never become stinking rich, we'll be comfortable. Just so long as we can get
to animate. To create. To spend hours and days lost in concentration, making
funny little drawings that move in a split second. Strained eyes, sore
wrists, crooked backs. We love it .We scowl about the work load then feel
sad when the job ends. We have shattering fights and nervous exhaustion over
the follow through on Peter Piggy and Funny Fish, no wonder people think
we're crazy.
But we understand each other. Many of us like to think we're only looking
out for number one. Remember after the Northridge quake last January how we
all visited and helped each other and how the studios coordinated cleanup
and loans and temporary shelter ... We've shown we have the capacity for
united action when the goal is clear.
Strike issues aside, you gotta admire the solidarity of the baseball and
hockey players' unions. Millionaires to rookies, nobody is breaking ranks.
Someone once said to me unions only reward mediocrities. The negotiators of
the players are Barry Bonilla, Brett Butler, Tom Seaver. Mediocrities? And
when did those guys begin to get those monster salaries? When they
unionized. Before they were traded and sold like pieces of meat and the
average salary was $35,000. Cecil Fielder tried to fight the system alone
and was destroyed and banned from baseball. He was talented, but alone he
still failed.
Disney director Barry Cook and I once talked about how we're a lot like
ballplayers. You have so many years of peak performance in you. What you do
and what you set up when you're strong will have to carry you when your
powers begin to fail. Like Sugar Ray Leonard, who invested shrewdly and
became an independent corporation, to some old toothless hockey player who
had enough left over from the good times to buy a bar and hang his jersey in
the window.
If you live for today and set up nothing you'll have nothing when you want
to rest. When I was in my twenties, retirement was unthinkable. Next year
I'll be twenty years in animation and the idea of resting doesn't seem so
awful.
So in this Holiday Season when the love of family is all important, think of
what you have invested in your animation family. You're not just Dagwood
Bumstead going to the office and getting yelled at by Mr. Dithers. You have
a legacy behind you. You are the direct heirs of Bill Tytla, Mary Blair and
Bob Clampett. Your work is constantly being compared to theirs. You will
pass your knowledge to young people as they did. Those pioneers also made
you a union with the highest standard of living and the best health care in
the animation world.
When you meet any of our retired gods and goddesses, say thank you to them,
artist to artist, for doing so much that we benefit from now. They don't
hear that nearly enough. Benefits that if you waited for the employer to
pass down to you, you'd still be waiting. (Funny, I'm always taking potshots
at the bad ol' producers and lately I've found out we have a number of
producers who are still active dues paying members! Hey, love you folks too!
)
My Christmas Wish is that when we retire and pass Local 839 on to our
students and successors it'll be bigger, do more and be all around more
baddass than ever! Not to benefit some AFL-CIO bigshot, but for the benefit
of us, cartoon people. The Hollywood Animation community's common good.
Love the legacy. Love your family. Love your animation family. Have a Safe
and Happy Holiday! (and those of you still on overtime, remember to pause to
smell the Xmas trees ...)
-- Tom Sito
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
FROM THE BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE
Reflections on an off-year election
The November elections have come and gone. Republicans are now jubilantly
ascendant, with Newt Gingrich, Jesse Helms and other GOP high rollers
issuing sound bites trashing Clinton and other "Liberal Big Spenders." Rush
Limbaugh announces daily that national liberation is at hand. ("Free at
last, free at last, thank God almighty we're free at last.")
And surviving Democrats have been, for the most part, gloomily silent.
Now, I'm a Democrat, have been for twenty-odd years, and most everything I
voted for went down to defeat. And not just defeat, like 52%-48%, but
crushing defeat. Like obliteration. Vaporization. Like buried under a
landslide fifteen feet deep and a mile wide. And you would think that me,
the long-time Democrat, would be devastated, but I'm not depressed about
this election, not at all. I'm actually kind of upbeat and bouncy, eager to
see what the Republicans come up with in the next twenty-four months. Why?
Maybe it's because deep in my inner core, there are remnants of the Youth
for Goldwater I once was (move over, Hillary). Maybe it's the
twenty-something buried in my psyche who once cast his first vote for
Governor Ronald Reagan and first presidential vote for Richard Nixon (and
how many Americans will admit to that?).
But actually, I think it's something else. Late at night, as I'm sliding off
to sleep, I've had the sneaking suspicion that Democrats, and particularly
House of Representative Democrats, have come to believe that chairing
Congressional committees is a birthright reserved only for them. I guess
part of me is pleased that their bloated complacency has been deflated like
a cheap birthday balloon and they now have to rethink some of their
positions. I mean, I don't smoke, don't like smoke, but Congressman's Henry
Waxman's unending inquisition of the tobacco companies gets to be just a
little tiresome. Either outlaw tobacco or get off it already. Stop the damn
preaching.
And I am pleased because Democrats won't be the ones with the responsibility
anymore. Newt Gingrich and his flying circus will now have the job of
holding the hearings and passing the legislation. If Aid to Dependent
Children is abolished and infants begin dying in the gutter, we'll know just
who to give the credit to. If tax cuts kick in and the deficit explodes and
Alan Greenspan raises interest rates to double digits, we'll know just who
to applaud. But most of all, we'll now get to see if the New Republican
Majority is serious about cutting entitlements. It's easy enough to kick the
supports out from under teenage mothers and toddlers. And rail against
illegal immigrants. Those people don't vote. What I'm anxious to see is if
the Republicans will end farm subsidies or make the millionaire ranchers in
Wyoming and Montana pay market rates for grazing their cattle on public
lands. Will Republicans start making cuts in Medicare and Social Security,
which is where most of the entitlement spending is?
Somehow, I doubt the boys and girls in the GOP will touch the big
entitlements. Bob Dole and Newt have already said that Social Security and
Medicare are "off the table." Damn right they're off the table. Bob and Newt
don't want twenty million enraged senior citizens kicking their butts out of
office in the next election, no matter how much economic sense trims in
Social Security and Medicare might make. Those people do vote.
So, like I say, although I'm a Democrat, I take perverse pleasure in seeing
the Republicans tall in the saddle. Even though unions will get stomped on a
bit more, even though the poor will have to scrabble a little harder, we'll
no doubt get to hear more threats and bluster against Bill Clinton from
Chairman Helms. We'll be enlightened by lectures on public morality from
that well-known avoider of alimony payments, Newt Gingrich.
And we'll get to see if the "Contract With America" leads us to the broad,
sunlit uplands of greater economic prosperity and the rescue of the
disgruntled middle class. We'll get to see if a Constitutional Amendment for
Prayer in Schools will raise those SATs and lower those illegitimate births.
Who knows? Maybe it will bring us, in January 1997, to the inauguration of
President Dan Quayle.
Should be an interesting two years.
-- Steve Hulett
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
WHERE MY DUES GO?
Assuming you pay the full journey dues of $87.00 per quarter, over a third
of your dues goes to so-called "head taxes" to the IATSE and other
organizations (see below). The remainder pay's Local 839's overhead.
Local 839 Expenses...............63%
IATSE Head Tax...................34.5%
Other head taxes..................2.5%
The overhead includes salaries for the office staff, consisting of the
Business Representative (Steve Hulett), the Office Manager (Lyn Mantta), the
Assistant to the Business Representative (Jeff Massie), and a part-time
receptionist (Shawn Carlson).
The Business Representative negotiates and polices the contract, files
grievances (official complaints against employer misconduct), visits union
studios, and organizes non-union studios. He reviews members' personal
service contracts and supervises the office staff. The staff writes and
publishes The Peg-Board, keeps the books, sends out dues bills, runs the
computers, and mails out correspondence. The staff also oversees the
operation of The American Animation Institute, the art and animation school
operated by the union.
The best way to keep abreast of where your dues go is to attend our
bimonthly membership meetings, which are held at the union office at 4729
Lankershim in North Hollywood. The next membership meeting is scheduled for
January 31, 1995 at 6:30 pm.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ANIMATION IN THE NEWS
Disney announced in late November that the huge success of The Lion King
enabled the company to surge to record revenue for the fourth quarter and
the year. For the first time in decades, the Mouse Factory made more money
from its films than its theme parks. For the quarter, the Walt Disney Co.
earned $225.9 million. For the year, profits came in at $1.1 billion ...
Walt's golden oldie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs sold 17 million
videocassettes in its first three weeks of release. Through November 15, it
had generated $300 million in sales -- and since it was produced in the
pre-union thirties, not a nickel of residual money goes to anyone. Pure
profit for Disney stockholders ... and Disney management.
Warner Bros. has been developing an animated/live-action feature which is
slated to team Michael Jordan with Bugs, Daffy and other WB characters (last
seen together in a pair of "Hare Jordan" TV ads for Nike). No release date
has been announced ...
The American Animation Institute, the Screen Cartoonists' "little art school
that could," was profiled in the Valley editions of the Los Angeles Times on
November 18. Glenn Vilppu, longtime AAI drawing teacher, said that AAI
students work harder than many he taught at other schools: "They're here to
learn. Students here are more realistic and down-to-earth." The AAI's
introductory seminars begin on January 3, and the spring semester begins
February 13 ...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AT THE WATER COOLER
Local 839's second annual Christmas party on December 2 was a smashing
success, with over five hundred attendees flocking to the Grand Ballroom of
the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in Studio City. As always, the best
entertainment of the evening was to be found in the companionship of fellow
members, greeting old friends and catching up on each other's news. The
union buttons supplied by Tom Sito and Jeff Massie were well-received. We
hope to make this an annual event -- so if you missed it, shame on you and
see you there next year!
On December 4, Rich layout assistant Tyrone Elliott and wife Daniella had
their first baby, Deanna ... Disney artists Don and Marcia Dougherty had a
new baby, Evan Richard Yoshio, on November 13 ... Dave Hancock and his wife
became the proud parents of Brandon on December 5 ... Louis Tate married his
ladylove Tracey Renata on November 26.
On December 4, paintballs whistled through the trees as Disney and Warners
artists squared off to do battle in one of the largest paintball games yet
seen in animation annals. Sixty artists and friends went up to Close
Encounters field in Newhall to laugh, run and shoot each other for the
Holidays ...
Our apologies to Debbie Kupczyk who was misidentified in last month's
Peg-Board; she is in fact the supervisor of effects animators at Rich
Entertainment.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Orange County High School of the Arts in Los Alamitos, is developing an
emphasis in animation production. We are looking for experienced animators
to talk about the industry, share their portfolios, exaluate student work,
etc. Fax a letter of interest to Geoff Black at (310) 431-7602.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For sale: 20" FAX model 20-12-2MB animation disk; top condition. Plus full
set of field guides. Best offer. Jim Willoughby, (602) 778-7987.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IN MEMORIAM
Designer, layout and storyboard artist GEORGE GOODE died on November 11. He
was 42 years old. Since 1973, he had worked at Filmation, Ruby-Spears,
DePatie-Freleng, Marvel, Disney and Hanna-Barbera.
Friends of George Goode gathered at the Beverly Garland Theater on the
afternoon of December 3 to remember a talented artist. Jim and Sue
Willoughby, unable to attend, sent this tribute:
Adios, George. You only stayed a short time. We who knew you, worked with
you, drew with you loved you.
We'll miss you, kid, and those exceptional qualities about you -- your
unequaled drawing talent, your relaxed Texas way of walking, those Wednesday
chili dinners and drawing sessions at Sue's house, your shy smile which
showed the tooth that got busted by a zooming Frisbee in Filmation's
upstairs hallway ...
Wherever you are going now, George -- that mysterious place beyond this life
we won't really know about until we get there -- our thoughts, our love go
with you.
* * * * * *
Retired inker and painter LILLIAN HOODKISS died on September 30. From 1960
until her retirement in 1983 she worked for TV Spots, Auril Thompson,
Filmation, DePatie-Freleng, Kurtz and Hanna-Barbera.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MOTION PICTURE SCREEN CARTOONISTS
AND AFFILIATED OPTICAL ELECTRONIC AND GRAPHIC ARTS,
LOCAL 839 IATSE
4729 Lankershim Boulevard, North Hollywood, CA 91602-1864
phone (818) 766-7151 * fax (818) 506-4805
E-mail inquiries: mps...@netcom.com
Anonymous FTP: ftp.netcom.com:/pub/mp/mpsc839
PRESIDENT -- Tom Sito
BUSINESS REPRESENTATIVE -- Steve Hulett
VICE-PRESIDENT -- George Sukara
RECORDING SECRETARY -- Jeff Massie
SERGEANT-AT-ARMS -- David Teague
PEG-BOARD EDITOR -- Jeff Massie
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Viki Anderson * Bronwen Barry * Sheila Brown * Jan Browning
James Davis * Earl Kress * Craig Littell-Herrick * Tom Ray
Pat Sito * Ann Sullivan * Stephan Zupkas
TRUSTEES -- Pat Sito * Ann Sullivan * Stephan Zupkas
Contents (c) 1994 by MPSC Local 839 IATSE. All rights reserved.
Publications of bona fide labor organizations may reprint articles from
this newsletter so long as attribution is given. Permission is also
given to distribute this newsletter electronically so long as the ENTIRE
contents are distributed, including this notice.
--
_______________________________________________________________________________
Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists and 4729 Lankershim Blvd.
Affiliated Optical Electronic and North Hollywood, CA 91602-1864
Graphic Arts, Local 839 IATSE phone (818) 766-7151 * fax (818) 506-4805
ftp://ftp.netcom.com:/pub/mp/mpsc839 mailto://mps...@netcom.com