Hollywood Local 728 makes a commitment to safer sets with a new educational program for lighting technicians.
The last three decades have seen many changes in the motion picture industry. This is certainly not the same business that it was in the Fifties or Sixties: films have become more complicated and more expensive, and new advancements in technology are allowing moviemakers to expand the boundaries of imagination. With advancements in emulsion sensitometry, exposure is now possible from a single candle. Fixtures have been engineered to simultaneously reduce power consumption and increase output value, cameras have gotten smaller and more versatile, lenses have become sharper and faster, and every six months a manufacturer comes out with a new lighting tool which is brighter or softer than all the rest. The past 30 years has seen the decline and fall of the old studio system and the unification of a single national camera union. There has been a considerable expansion in the volume of films produced by Hollywood, and a growth in the number of people creating them.
This eruption of the industry is not without its pitfalls, however. Several tragedies have transpired in the last half-decade: a stuntwoman's fatal fall during shooting at a major studio; the collapse of a camera crane at a crowded trade show; the failure of another crane on a set, resulting in the hospitalization of the cinematographer and operator; a fatal accident involving a camera assistant who fell asleep at the wheel of his car after many long workdays; and most recently, the electrocution of three technicians, one fatally, as a crane arm struck high-tension power lines during production. Suddenly, the necessity for safer practices on sets has reached a critical stage.
Stepping up to this new call of duty is Hollywood Set Lighting Local 728. The guild has seen its own tremendous evolution in the past five years, ballooning from 825 members to 1,782 as of March 1998. One problem in this increase in membership extends from the abolition of the "grouping system," which ranked members by seniority on the Local's roster. Now, all of 728's members are considered to be of equal designation whether they have 30 years of experience, or 30 days.
Experience aside, however, the fact remains that with the mass manufacturing of new tools every year, and without any organized system in place by which to share information on the operation of these tools, every member of the Local is bound for new on-the-job encounters. Not understanding the parameters of a specific tool can have dire consequences. At the very least, the equipment could be damaged, resulting in costly repair bills for the production or rental house. Far worse is the fact that injuries or even fatalities can result from the failure to properly operate some the extremely technical equipment being used on sets today.
To avert such calamities, an industry precedent is being set at Hollywood Rental Company's new Burbank facility, where Local 728 has been organizing official training sessions for its members. Dubbed "Safety First," the training program spans six Saturdays. Each session last six hours and presents intensive information on many topics, including general safety, liability and codes, basic electricity, rigging with power distribution systems, location rigging, proper stage rigging and striking of aerial lifts, equipment repair and troubleshooting. "This kind of program was actually proposed back in 1968," says Safety First supervising instructor Earl Williman, a 728 executive board member who played an instrumental part in launching the program. "We did have a training program at one time that involved a local college, but it was based far too heavily on theory. We put this program together in a way that every- body can understand and relate to."
Although the history of the program can be traced back as far as three decades ago, the real changes which brought about its inception began at the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles. "That was the first time the L.A. city inspectors ever took a really good look at our equipment," explains Ron Dahlquist, one of the key instructors in 728's program. Dahlquist's 35 years in the industry include a stint as chief of the lot at Paramount Studios' electrical department in 1976, as well as part ownership of Keylite Rentals, which was incorporated into Hollywood Rental Company, Inc. several years ago. "It became obvious to the inspectors that the equipment was not up to code," he continues. "In the past, all of our gear had been used in studio environments, not out in public venues. When we went out into the public realm, though, the inspectors started to take a closer look at the type of cables and connectors we were using, and our wiring methods all of those things became issues. We are also now using practical sets more often instead of simply building them on stages; if we want a restaurant, we go out and rent a restaurant, and that never happened before. When you mix [potentially dangerous] equipment with non-industry people, it creates a whole new set of problems. How do you deal with public venues? How do you wire sets to comply with the code? Even simpler, how do you lay cable so that people don't trip over it?
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