As the IATSE union renegotiates with studios after the deaths of Rico Priem and J.C. Osorio, crew members speak about long hours and lax inspections
of a long week in February 2015, after working an overnight shift as a gaffer and lightning technician on an independent feature film, Chris Walters fell asleep as he was driving home and totaled his truck. Walters, a lifelong Los Angeles resident who joined the entertainment industry right out of high school, was exhausted from consecutive days on set that wrapped late at night or early in the morning.
While the crash is still under investigation, Priem’s passing struck a nerve with the production community as they continue to learn of crew members dying or suffering serious injury on the job. In February, J.C. “Spike” Osorio, a rigger working on Marvel’sseries, died when he fell through a wooden catwalk, an incident that is also under investigation, in this case by the California Division of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Deaths on set are not necessarily common.
“We want to know all the details, because they lost our trust in 2021, and until they prove they can get popular contracts again, I don’t think they deserve that trust,” Greg Loebell, a lighting technician who helped write the CREW petition, says of IATSE leadership. “I’ve heard that they are fighting to make our working conditions safer, but I need to see results.”spoke to a dozen crew members who work across productions in Los Angeles and New York about their concerns regarding safety on set.
Peter Escobar has been a grip for the last two decades and most recently worked on the last few seasons of. He says that Fraturdays are a “necessary evil” for certain types of projects. “I work on a show about firemen and when are these rescues supposed to happen, day or night?” he says. “A script is written primarily at night, so you have to shoot it at night. When I got into … Fraturdays were already accepted. This is what you did and this is where you can make your money, in overtime.
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