Joining a union can be expensive, but is it worth the investment?
This week, Saul Cervantes, Local Union 728 member, shares why he joined the union and how it’s helped him achieve his career goals. Saul talks about why he joined the union, what it takes to join, and the looming strike in Hollywood.
Listen to see if joining the union is the right investment for you to achieve your career goals.
Key Points:
1:21 – How he got started
3:11 – Strategies to achieve his goal
4:01 – Difference between rigging and striking
5:24 – Qualifications to join the union
7:37 – Joining another union
28:04 – 10 years to12:17 – Safety on set
14:57 – What he looks for in a beginner
18:56 – Tools he uses on set
20:50 – Reliable old tools
21:25 – Favorite new gear
22:19 – Current project
25:16 – Why you shouldn’t go to film filmschool
Links:
Full Transcript:
Saul: Make sure you save your money, because guess what, you do have initiation fees. A lot of people, you know, they they don’t save up their money. They just spend it. They get excited, like, oh, shit, I’m getting union wages not knowing, hey, after the 30 days, you got to pay up. So for seven twenty eight, it’s… I joined two years ago. Every year it goes up. I paid about seven thousand five hundred.
Yeah. Big pill to swallow.
Tanya: Welcome to The Practical Filmmaker an educational podcast brought to you by the Filmmaker Institute and Sunscreen Film Festival, where industry professionals talk nuts and bolts and the steps they took to find their success today.
On today’s show Saul Cervantes takes us into the world of the electricians, the looming union strike and detail/tips for noobs so they don’t seem as green. Find the full transcripts and more, at thepracticalfilmmaker.com.
I’m your host, Tanya Musgrave. And today we have Saul Cervantes, an electrician and local 728 rigging and striking and working within the warehouses of the Universal Studio backlot. He’s worked on indie film and television. Welcome to the show.
Saul: Wow. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Tanya.
Tanya: Okay. First off, I’m actually I’m really stoked because this is the first time I’ve had any rigging anybody. And I don’t know. I’m I’m excited because we’ve never had one of those on the show.
So set the stage for us. How did you get where you are right now?
Saul: Oh, wow. How did I get. Well, I just, you mentioned I’m part of a local 728. I recently about two years ago got in. So my my rigging as far as union goes is is fairly new. But I’ve been doing this since. Oh, gosh. I mean, I’m thirty one. I’ve been doing this for about eight years. In the end, nonunion world, you know, and the way I got into it is just kind of fell into it. I’ve always wanted to kind of have a job where you work with people and you have that kind of relationship, you know, just working towards building something amazing. And I always love films. I figure I just feel like I naturally graduate went towards that. Yeah. Yeah.
Tanya: So did you go to school for like film or like electricians or…
Saul: Oh, I went to Cal State Long Beach for film and Electronic Arts. Oh. With an emphasis in cinematography. So they had multiple tracks, you know, directing, producing, editing. I applied and was accepted and graduated through the cinematography track.
Tanya: Is that something where like that’s the goal, cinematography or is this something like. Actually, I kind of like where I’m at.
Saul: Honestly, that’s that’s the goal. Even though people have told me I got to concentrate on one thing, man, I got to say, I still there’s that little kind of you know, I still have that little passion in me. You know, I still want to be a DP and write, you know, I minored in creative writing. I want to write. I want to DP my own stuff. And directing, not so much, but I don’t know. I’ve always just kind of pull a Steven Soderbergh, you know, or Charlie Chaplin or, you know, you have a lot of people that just kind of you know, they they they produce, they write, they they just do their own thing. And I love that.
Tanya: So what are your current strategies right now for getting closer to your goal?
Saul: Meeting people, meeting people and also not giving up and not giving up is probably the biggest one. Even though I graduated, I, I don’t know, maybe seven years ago. You know, I’m still working on on shorts. I’m still working on on indie projects as a DP. You know, right now I’m not a union DP. I’m not DPing big multi-million dollar projects. And it can be hard and and discouraging. But, you know, that’s what I’m doing right now. You know, I this year I’ve been through the whole Covid thing. I’ve shot about two, three projects already. And you just got to do it on your own time, you know, just kind of keep that passion alive, keep that fire, you know, alive, and then on your own time, kind of go for it. Do what you want, you know.
Tanya: Okay. You had mentioned like rigging and striking. You have to forgive me because I have no idea what was striking means.
Saul: Striking is basically just taking down the the equipment, you know, so rigging, you know,
Tanya: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Of course. OK, yes. Yeah.
Saul: Yeah. So, you know, with yeah, that that’s that’s what’s striking is when you hear, hey, you’re going to be part of the striking crew, that means you’re going to go to a location or our studio is set and just take down all the lights, all the, you know, the cable and all the gear.
Tanya: So you said that you had worked fairly long, I guess, like, what, seven or six years within like nonunion projects. Why union? Safer?
Saul: And it’s also another big step towards the bigger goal being in the union. I get to be, you know, even though I’m, you know, just a regular electrician, I’m not a big, you know, gaffer DP. You know, I’m shooting you know, I’m with the crew that’s shooting a feature film with, you know, big actors. Some big producers and guess what? Big DP’s, right, it’s almost like a. I love it because it’s almost like a second school. Right. I get to see how the actual DP’s and gaffer’s light stuff like, oh, shit. Like I have never seen that technique. Like, oh, really? That’s the light you’re going to use, you know? Yeah. And it’s really interesting. It’s just it takes my my education, my knowledge to a next level, being a union member.
Tanya: I have never heard of local 728. So like, what does it take for your particular union? For local 728?
Saul: You have to work 30 days as a permit, which is, you know, you have to work 30 days in a union project, shoom. You know, you have to get 30 permit days. Once you get 30 permit days, then you can apply to be in the union, make sure you save your money, because guess what? You do have initiation fees on that. Yeah. A lot of people, you know, they they don’t save up their money. They just spend it. They get excited, like, oh, shit, I’m getting union wages not knowing, hey, after the 30 days, you got to pay up.
Tanya: Do you mind if I ask?
Saul: No, of course not. No. Anything to help a fellow brother and sister out, you know,whatever they you know. So for 728, it’s I joined two years ago. Every year it goes up. I paid about seven thousand five hundred. Yeah. Big pill to swallow.
Tanya: All at once?
Saul: They recommend all at once you can do two payments. But for the two payments, I believe they charge you a fee. If they if they don’t charge you a fee, then you have to pay it within like a week of something like that. It’s it’s just if you don’t have the $7500. You’re not going to make it.
Like I remember like that that was the thinking about that, like, oh, shit, like the second option,
which is two payments, it’s it’s not worth it.
Tanya: So is this something OK? Because I remember there is another guy who is talking about quarterly payments, even on top of those kind of initiation fees.
Saul: Union dues.
Tanya: Is that doable? Like is that thats every quarter? Is it like a couple grand? Is it like a couple? A hundred?
Saul: No, no, absolutely not. No, it’s it’s it’s way cheaper for for us. I believe it’s about like a little more than three hundred, I believe.
Tanya: OK, OK. OK.
Saul: Which is not bad every quarter. You know, it is a good amount of money. So, you know, make sure that you save up your your money. You know, you mentioned it’s every quarter. It’s not every month or anything like that. But yeah, it’s it’s not as big as the initiation fee.
Tanya:So when you like because you’re wanting to get into, I’m assuming local 600 eventually. So is it easier to just kind of like hop or do you have to like go through that whole entire initiation again is like, well, you’re joining a different union or is this like all kind of like within the union?
Saul: It’s a little bit of both. Since I’m in a union, it’s a little bit I feel like easier for me to kind of meet people, because once again, if I’m on a shoot or something, like, you know, I have the camera departments union so I can, you know, talk to them and network.
Well, I’m talking about like officially like if you are in local 728, but you want to be in local 600, would they let you just switch your union status from like one to another, or do you have to go through that whole entire.
Saul: Yes, you have to go through the whole entire thing. I would still have to get 30 day as a permit within the local 600 union. And once I get all the permit days, I’m going to pay the initiation fee. Still paid quarterly dues. Yeah.
Tanya: So any of the benefits that you earn through 728, like, you know,like pension and that kind of thing, does that just roll over?
Saul: I believe it’s all one big thing because local 600 and 700 are all part of the IATSE. Yeah. Yeah. So I think the pension is part of that. So it covers, you know, it’s all within that umbrella. 600 and 728, yeah.
Tanya: Speaking of IASTE I, you know, you’re hearing some rumblings of happenings.
Saul: Yeah.
Tanya: Happening there. I hear it through the grapevine. But tell me more about what’s going on in there.
Saul: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure I can. I mean, it’s all over the news. Yeah, I read a lot of the articles about it. So basically a lot of unions that are part of the IATSE umbrella are kind of threatening the studios and companies to go on strike. The reason for that, it’s and I heard that it’s mainly, you know, usually it’s nothing new. Right. Studios and unions have been working together for many years, you know, since the beginning of film. And usually there’s an understanding, right. The studios want one thing, the unions want one thing, and they usually compromise and meet in the middle. But now. You have bigger ball players rights, no longer the studios, the studios are not the big dogs, the big dogs are the Netflix, the Amazon, the Disney’s. These are like bigger.
Tanya: Mm hmm.
Saul: They don’t want to compromise. They kind of want things done their way.
Tanya: Hmm.
Saul: And the unions are kind of demanding that they kind of not demanding, but they kind of want to you know, they want to talk. They want to compromise. It’s a contract like, hey, not like look, you know, when you work on at a private company, you get every year you get a raise. Right. So we want to raise. Right. Like, look, there’s a you know, for years and years and years, we’ve been every year we get a raise. You know, we want that to still happen. We want you know, our jobs can seem fun and exciting and they are. But they’re also dangerous. A grip fell down, perms. I think it was like 40 or 50 feet thankfully I heard that he survived. I heard that he survived, but obviously just badly injured, broke a lot.
Tanya: Oh, my stars.
Saul: Everything you hear of electricians, you know, getting electrocuted because, you know, whatever you hear people getting into car crashes because they’re working 16 hours, you know, a day for seven days. And, you know, they’re driving home. And, you know, so so our jobs can be demanding that it’s labor is what it is. It can be physically demanding and it’s dangerous.
We know the consequences. But the same time, we want to have certain rules and safety nets. Yeah. And the big companies kind of want to take that away because obviously that means money. They want it now. Now, now, look, let’s just you four months, six days a week, you know, 12, 14 hours a day with minimal breaks. You know, let’s just do the bare minimum. And we’re like, well, wait, hold on. You know, no, this is not this is dangerous. I heard that they were like wanting to push for some ten hour.
Tanya: Ten hour days, huh?
Saul: Yeah. Right now the minimum is eight hours, which is, you know, an eight hour workday. Yeah. Right. But they want to push ten hours. And here’s the thing. The eight hours, kind of like the minimum. Obviously, we go more than eight hours. But for them to kind of say, well, you know, what about the ten hour, then that just means that, well, ten hours is going to be the standard. So that means that we can totally go 14 hours. You know, if if when it was eight hours, we could go 12, then, you know, we could definitely keep pushing and pushing it because it’s about that. Right. Yeah, that’s the thing.
Tanya: I’ve got a I’ve got a question on the safety part of it, because you were saying I mean, like obviously with the amount of hours. That’s definitely a safety issue. But then also, does this ever reach into like safety regulations on set?
Saul: When we do our you know, because when you joined the union, you have to take certain safety classes, you know, nonprofit organization, I believe they’re nonprofit organization. But we we take classes through this organization called Contract Services, where we go over the safety of, you know, whatever it is, you know, file protection, electricity, chemicals and whatnot. There’s a list of 30 classes that we’ve got to take.
Tanya: Do those cost?
Saul: No.
Tanya: Are they like, oh, and how long are those classes? Is it like a one night a week thing or is it like an online thing?
Saul: It varies. Now, it started to be an online because of Covid. Yeah, but usually when I first got in before Covid, it was all in-person. And they’re very some of them are an hour long. Some of them are. I think the longest one that I took was. Oh, geez.Almost like five hours long. Oh. Oh, yeah. But once again, it’s safety, right? So you really can’t, you know, mess around safety, you know. No, not at all. You want to make sure that you know what you’re doing, because it’s it’s you know, it’s it’s fun. It’s great. But at the same time, you’re doing dangerous work. You’re you’re working with with with lights. One wrong thing, especially as an electrician, you know, you plug in, you know, for a wrong or a plug into like a hot power with the neutral. Like it’s just you can definitely find ways to hurt yourself.
It’s not really about yourself. It’s also about your brothers and sisters. Right? It’s about you’re the the people you’re working with. Keeping them safe as well.
Tanya: Does any of this strike does it does it only really kind of deal with pay or is it more on kind of like safety like or at all with safety regulation and stuff like that, too?
Saul: It’s also safety regulations, you know, especially with Covid. There’s certain regulations that, you know, whether it’s OSHA or, you know, the government wants us to to take. But then you have companies kind of saying like, well, there’s kind of this costs money. Do we really need this?
Tanya: I’m guessing that you follow shitty rigs.
Saul: I’m not on social media anymore, but when I was. Yes, I love shitty rigs. Yes. Yes. Shout out to shitty rigs.
Tanya: So I mean, OK, I remember seeing this one where they had like this C-stand like sideways on a wall, used it as a spreader and rigged lights on it. Right. And of course, like comment after comment underneath was like mentioning safety and how they would never like. All right. Now, like now you’re just being reckless and you’re just like kind of promoting these kinds of hazards. Right. I kind of want to know. Within your job, what that kind of difference is like is something that you look for. It’s the difference between a meh and a stupid kind of job and a solid I’m going to hire you back because that is ingenious and safe. But like, what would you look for in a beginner?
Saul: Someone who listens honestly. Someone who listens whether it’s, you know, working with someone who’s new or, you know, I’m working on an indie project. And, you know, the producer tells me, hey, I got these guys that are willing to help, but they’re new. I always say, look, you know what? It’s it’s fine. Just give me someone that that will listen and is willing to work. Because I’ve had my share of people who know their stuff but are just lazy or don’t want to you know, they just want to collect the check. They don’t care. They don’t care about the project. They don’t want to be there. Screw that. I don’t want that. I’d rather get someone who wants to be there, who wants to learn, who listens, and I’ll teach him.
You know, we make films. We’re not brain surgeons. You know, we’re not rocket scientists. It doesn’t take a long time to teach someone how to set up a C-stand how to put up a light or this. Right. It just takes patience. Yeah. You know. Yeah. So that’s something that I look forward to. You know, if you don’t know anything, that’s fine. Just just listen, listen, listen, listen. That’s the biggest thing, because you also have people that don’t know what they’re doing and they just talk. And I’m not talking about questions. You know, if you ask questions, please ask questions. That’s the most important thing. Don’t don’t assume anything. You know, you don’t know what something is. Ask questions.
Tanya: Talking about just people just rambling, you know, nonsense or whatever. I was on a set the summer and oh my stars like this kid. Oh, he didn’t listen. It was so freaking frustrating. They are never hiring you again. But past that. What is a skill, though, that somebody could develop that you were just like, OK, this is actually very useful for you to know in this particular field?
Saul: Study your knots. Right. It’s such a weird thing. But especially if you’re going to be rigging, you got to know your knots. You’re, trust me when you’re lifting a, you know, four aught up in the perms, you don’t want to hold that for for a long time, you know, especially if you’re dropping down like you’ve got to know you’re knots. Your voltage. That’s very important as well. That’s really more if you want to be like a gaffer, a best boy. But if you’re just starting off, learn basic cable. What’s a four aught? What’s a two? What Socco? Learn little tricks. It’s it’s detail. That’s the thing. Because as you go up in the ladder, right, that’s when you got to know kind of like, all right, you know, the voltage, the wattage or this and that, because you’re going to you’re building the rig, right? You’re you’re the one that’s making the decisions. Hey, we’re going to have a light here. We’re going to have an 18-K here, a little baby here. When you’re just starting off, you’re not making those calls. Right. But what you do need to know is you’re the one that’s setting up the cable. So if someone tells you, hey, go go to the car, you know, go go to the truck, get me a 50 foot four aught, know what that is.
Just know your gear, know your equipment, know how to label them. Right. That’s very, very important, because you’re also going to be labeling organization is key. Right. Know your 4/0 knots. If the people that you know, don’t know what four aught knots is just, you know, a way to distinguish every, you know, a four aught piece has a sash string and you kind of do not, according to the color.
So know that that’s very important because, you know, it keeps you organized, but it’s also safety, you know, something for safety.
Tanya: Yeah, that’s a huge thing in climbing even. I mean, like experienced climbers have fallen to their deaths because their their knots we’re not dressed and they use like they like their colors, I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. Knots what what knots?
Saul: You know, you have your your clove hitch, your square knot, your high knot, which I don’t
you know, it’s more of a that that’s definitely like a rigging knot. Bowline. Really. Those are like the three knots, you know, not that many knots, only like three or four knots, but they’re very important. And the honestly, the little small details like that will kind of you’ll stand out.
Tanya: OK. Tools to continue.
Saul: Yeah. Tools. Well, I got my my my my big tools. I got my tool bag. I don’t like tools. You need tools, tools, tools, tools.
Tanya: Do you mind actually just kind of like walking us through just like a little bit of what you have and why. Well, or maybe not even why. Just like what do you what you have?
Saul: Sure. I mean, most of my tools I left at the warehouse because I have a locker room. OK, tool belt. Don’t be carrying your tools in your pocket. You know, it’s it’s just not safe. Right. You bent down or whatever it makes. You know, you got to have a tool belt and you don’t even need that many tools. Just have like a like a like a C ranch, a leatherman. You got a tester, sharpies. A lot of people don’t really realize like Sharpies, red, blue and black Sharpie. Those are very important. Right. Talking about safety, label, everything. Yeah, just a pocket knife.
Tanya: Well, what does the like, red, blue and black, what are those mean?
Saul: So black is just kind of like your basic whatever. Like let’s say you’re rigging a lamp at a desk, right? Yeah. So you’ll just get, you know, whatever you run your stinger, you know, to the lamp and you’ll just kind of like label that stinger to the to the lunch box or wherever you’re getting power from, you know, a desk lamp or a, you know, desk fixture or whatever with black or white is just kind of like a basic name. Your red is for hot power. So like let’s say you’re dropping a hundred amp. You know, they you want to make sure that you label it hot power that way. If someone sees that they don’t like, you know, think that it’s not active or live or they know, like, hey, look, any power, you know, if the gaffer sees that and he needs a lunchbox or something there, he’ll know. All right, cool. This is hot. I can plug it in. Blue is for DMX. Well, if you ever see something labeled blue, it’s it’s it’s for DMX.
Tanya: I want to know what gear or gadget is your old reliable.
Saul: You know, a pocket knife. A pocket knife and gloves. Good lord. Yeah. That’s another thing: wear gloves. Oh, man. Especially given your location, because sometimes you’re on location, you got to throw cable or something down an alley. And downtown alleys are not the cleanest, you know, talking about Covid. But even before Covid, you know, people you have a lot of people grabbing the equipment and people dropping on the ground. You just gloves, gloves and a pocket knife.
Tanya: All right. So now for your favorite new gadget, something that revolutionizes how you work.
Saul: Whether I’m rigging or striking, there’s really no new tools. But when I do work as a DP, you know, I have like a little folder with all my apps.
Tanya: Yeah. Favorite apps, like what are you what are your some of your favorite apps?
Saul: Have you heard of Shot Designer?
Tanya: No.
Saul: So it’s I worked with this DP and he always used it when he kind of like did diagrams about like, you know what, we’re going to shoot where he will put kind of like it’s. Yeah. And it’s an app where you can create diagrams, you know, like you can put props, you can put lighting. And it’s just an easier it’s a very helpful tool. So I use that a lot.
Tanya: Does it have any quirks that you can think of, like, hey, yeah, yeah, this works great, except for if you do this.
Saul: I feel like a glitch is a lot a shot designer. So you do have to have patience with it.
Tanya: I got you. But OK, so I’m I’m actually kind of curious, like what current project you’re excited about.
Saul: On the side, I DP and I’m doing preproduction for this short film with the director who is really amazing. The the short is called Lotus. Oh, yeah. And a really great script. I love working with this director.
Tanya: And this is the question that I ask everybody. What questions should I have asked you? What did I miss?
Saul: No, like the like these are these are good questions that you’re coming up with. And I feel like it’s important for people to know, you know, especially out there in L.A., like it’s it’s tough. It’s a grind. But it’s it’s sometimes when I feel kind of like a little discouraged, I kind of just tell myself it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Yeah. Right. You got to get you got to hang in there. Out of all my friends that I that I made in film school, I think only about honestly, like three are still doing film
Tanya: Out of how many?
Saul: Oh, man. I would have maybe like, let’s say, 15 friends that are really kind of, you know, made films and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s nothing bad. You know, you go to college when you’re, you know, 18, 20, you you know, you think, you know, it’s going to be this luxurious life like, yeah, I’m going to graduate as soon as I graduate, I’m going to make my, you know, my my my million dollar film. And this that cut to five years later. And you’re working at Starbucks, you know, and and you know what? That’s OK.
Tanya: Exactly. It’s not bad. It’s not bad.
Saul: But if you want to if you want to be do film, understand what it is, be realistic. And once again, if you’re passionate about it, it’s not going to bug you. I’m low key, kind of nervous, like, oh, shit, you know, there’s going to be there might be a strike. And then some people are saying this might be like a like, you know, half a year to like maybe a year. Like what the hell am I going to do?
Tanya: Woah, what, are you serious?
Saul: That’s what I’m hearing. I don’t know, thinking about that. You know, there’s times where I think of like, oh, shit, like, should I bail? Should I just do something else? Or like like but then I start thinking like I don’t want to do anything else. This is what I want to do. Yeah. You know, if I have to get a job at Starbucks or something, fuck it. But this is what I’m going to do. Yeah, I’m going to stick to it. I’m going to support, you know, all my fellow union members and brothers and sisters and just make it happen.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like there is nothing wrong with finding that job that will like sustain you through that kind of thing. There’s nothing wrong with it. You’re taking care of yourself. So, yeah, as long as you’re hustlin.
You know, another one of my friends that, you know, ended up being getting into the writers union. He was a teacher, a really good writer, he was a teacher. And what he will do is he’ll just, you know, work as soon as he gets off, he’ll write. And I think he was doing that for about three years. And finally he got that, you know, that break, met the right person and boom, you know, got a representative, got an agent, got into the union. Yeah. So it’s just that you got to hang in there. I used to teach film, you know, at a nonprofit. I taught middle school kids film, OK? And even though I went to film school, every time, they will come up to me and say, oh, like I want to go to USC, I want to go to UCLA. And why you had to, you know, major in film. I would I would tell them like, don’t do it. Not in a discouraging way. Just like, look, if you’re going to go to college, especially these amazing schools, don’t waste money on film because you can only read so many books. You can only watch so many YouTube videos on film. Right. Like like if you’re going to go to school and you want to be a director, producer, DP, if you want to be like one of the hold, the title study business, study marketing. Right. Because at the end of day you’re going to be your you are your own business.
You have to put yourself out there as far as, you know, the things that you can learn on film. Man, just go to Craigslist. Go to mandy.com. Facebook now has like L.A. production pages and stuff like the way you study film is through doing it through experience. Go out there. That’s yeah. That’s the best knowledge you can get. Don’t spend 50000 dollars learning what a C-stand is. Right. You don’t need. Then just go out there.
Tanya: 50000 thousand dollars a year.
Saul: Yeah. Like go out there and you’ll learn quick when the gaffer yells at you for bringing him a baby stand instead of a C-stand. Right. Like then you’ll remember shit. OK, this is a c-stand. Like that’s how you learn. I think of my experience in film. Yeah. And it was fun. I met a lot of people. I had fun. It was a great college experience. But 80 percent of my knowledge that I used today, I gained doing these shoots. Right, going on Craigslist, going to mandy.com, volunteering, working for free, PAing. That’s that’s one where I learned.
Tanya: Thank you so much for bringing a whole completely different world. Like it’s extremely valuable for our listeners. Thank you.
Saul: Yeah. No, thank you so much for bringing me. And I hope yeah, I hope I was able to give you guys something.
Tanya: You were able to give a lot, because honestly, again, we have not had an electrician or like a like a rigging anything on the show yet.
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If you have comments or questions, feel free to email me at tanya@thepracticalfilmmaker.com or DM me on Insta. Be well and God bless. We’ll see you next time on The Practical Filmmaker.