We are living in a Virtual World, And I am a Virtual Girl (Part 2) by Jess Burgess
As any business owner will tell you, the key to success in a service-based industry is scale and simplicity. Heading out on the road for one week after lockdown felt like escaping strangulation; after six weeks on the road, you begin to question philosophical meaning of home. The process is the same – the same number of photos and videos, the same editing techniques, the same speeches from deans and prize students, the same gyms, same dorms, same classrooms. While burn out is real, tedium will kill you just as quickly.
So, with dozens of virtual tours and months of travel under my belt, I received an interesting offer. An old colleague referred me to manage the production of a fashion photo shoot for a proudly female-owned and female-operated company. And not just any brand, but a brand you can put on your résumé. It had been nearly two years between me and my last commercial shoot – those long, arduous days were firmly in the rearview. I could still grind. I still have the spark. What’s so wrong with burning the midnight oil for a few weeks?
In hindsight, the most disheartening aspect of this job was how little change I saw in this supposedly sensitive, empowered, female-owned business. The EP publicly quit the company on a group Slack after being harassed by the owner of the company. The producer who took the former EP’s place – a sweet woman who did the best she could with what she was given – looked moments from a nervous breakdown during the shoot. She spent her 12 hours on set like a zombie, phone in front of her face with the owner on Zoom, yelling an endless string of commands into her ear. The photographer was no better. We were told not to be near her while she was shooting, but I decided to stay away from her entirely once I learned she had thrown a plate of food at an assistant’s head on the last job. Our multi-billion-dollar client, fresh on the heels of a society-mandated rebranding, quibbled over pennies of the budget. On three separate occasions, I was forced to fight for overtime for myself and the crew.
(I must stop to say: White women, can we do better, please? I understand we all want to be a #GirlBoss, but it has not escaped me that the absolute worst experiences of my career have been at the service of other white women.)
Once again, now, in 2021, I’m beginning to lose hope for filmmaking as an industry, because nothing has changed. On one hand, you have well-paying jobs that require the creativity of a houseplant; on the other, you can indulge in a little creative freedom in the name of morally-bankrupt companies and high-profile sociopaths. That is, if you want to get paid.
As a small business owner, it feels hypocritical to be so utterly disabused with late-stage capitalism, but here we are. Most of my qualms are privileged issues; however, my small window looks out over a broad view of the industry. Films and videos, as a rule, require money, time, and a team of professionals. As you begin to squeeze one of those three resources, the other two are required to pull extra weight. Where do we, as artists and professionals, go to make a living that doesn’t degrade ourselves or our peers?
I also think about how easy it would be for me to become that woman screaming on Zoom. A corrupt system can corrupt you, even if you’re vigilant. From the outside, complex business decisions can look like simple decisions to hurt the little guy; we often don’t have as much power as we like to believe. I have had plenty of crises in my short time running a business, and I haven’t always made the right choice. Being in charge, it sounds so good to lay back for a bit, loosen up your morals and just go with the flow of capitalism. But there’s no good end to that road that I’ve seen so far. If we can’t have standards to hold others against, how can we hold ourselves to the same standards?
Of the few ways forward I see as a producer, being honest about the realities of our work is a good start. The IATSE negotiations started with union members sharing their horror stories from sets on social media. There is strength in community. There is power in speaking out. We just need to stay awake.
Read the first half of Jess’s blog that was released on Tues, Nov. 30, 2021.
JESS BURGESS
Writer, Producer, Director
A recovering agency producer, turned writer/director/caterer. Grew up as a southern-gothic belle dreaming of making big, bizarre, imaginative films.