Why is California Losing Hollywood? | David Graves

there's a magic to Hollywood [Applause] I came here with nothing I came here with a broken down car homeless couch surfing to having a career finding my wife having kids buying a house having two cars that's what I got from this industry that's the California Dream now the movie industry is leaving this state my union for example we have 200 people out of work right now and there's work out there we know there's work out there's work in Georgia there's work in Louisiana our lawmakers are pushing the work away they're not bringing the work back my guest today is David Graves political director with iatc local 728 which is a union from Hollywood today he'll talk about what's happening to the film industry and why they're gradually leaving California we're not leading the way we're starting the way and we're letting other states lead the way why is this happening Sacramento does not care about Film Production they will always say well we support the film industry they don't if they did they would change those incentive structure it's been years it's been years it's really hard for California Film workers right now to live why would you not want to leave the state Welcome to California Insider foreign we want to talk to you about the film industry leaving California but before we get into that can you tell us what was the value of the film industry for California the value of the film industry for California so the numbers are are pretty hard to kind of nail down but it's about a hundred billion dollar a year industry and we produce about about 30 billion dollars of payroll so that's 30 billion dollars of wages per year in California those are jobs people are getting paid and what about the cultural value because because when we think about California and Hollywood and L.A and that's a that's a real hard question to answer I think everyone has their idea of what Hollywood is I think everyone in the United States has their idea of what what is Hollywood what's Tinseltown it's a really personal story and I think for everyone who works in the film industry it's personal but in general I think that it culture is always leads the way for politics politics is always behind culture and so the interesting thing about the film industry is that it leads the way it leads who we are where we're going where we've been it tells our story and so California is kind of is really the the key to the American story and that's I think one of the things that attracted me to the film industry in general is what California does is it really tells our story it tells us who we are how how hard it was where we're going that's what the value of the culture is and what was it for you for me it was an escape so I can remember the day that I realized I wanted to be in the film industry and I was bugging my stepdad and he gave me a movie he said don't do anything in this movie but leave me alone and it was Pulp Fiction wow with corn Tarantino watched it was blown away totally inappropriate I should not have watched it at that age but um I started kind of going I want to be a director I want to be like him I want to tell stories I realized I don't want to be a director when I got into film history no way I did not want that job but I realized that I love the industry I loved what it was I got involved very early on at a PBS station in northern Minnesota so I got in I was a juvenile delinquent and got in some trouble and so the judge gave me an option and it was I could go do community service over here and clean streets or he gave me 24 hours to find a place to volunteer so I was racking my brain trying to find a place and uh I had a paper route and so it was really cold one morning and I was walking through the local Community College and there was a PBS station a public broadcasting station and there was a guy named Mattel Mackey and he was this you know this kind of little guy and he was just doing a bunch of work and I walked in there and I was like I want to do this and he's like sure come in tonight and I was like what and he uh he started my career he started my career and uh so when I came to California I'd already been working in news for years so I started my career at 15 years old I had a PBS station as a volunteer cleaning offices cleaning the studio one day one of the camera operators got sick and so Matt looked at me and said you're up I was like what I've never done this before and I operated C camera which was really a joke it was it was a shot of uh of the news anchor or sorry it was a shot of the weather and then I flipped over and I I zoomed in I set my focus I zoomed out and I had I had like the hero shot that was a big thing for me and a few months later I was running all the cameras and I became a floor director and I kind of went up that that path and at the same time as a firefighter and so I was kind of firefighter by day working at the studio by night I got injured and so my fallback career became my main career which was I want to be a news camera operator so I came out to California again changed my career path I went into set lighting I joined the union that I'm a member of now which is iatse local 728 and they took me under their wing and trained me and and now I work on all kinds of movies everywhere all over the country I've pretty much worked in almost every state I've worked all over Europe and uh somehow California just keeps calling me back Old Country soaps are handcrafted long-lasting soap bars made on a farm in South Dakota with soothing natural ingredients without harsh chemicals that can dry out your skin they can produce a creamy ladder unlike anything you've tried before just a great American-made product that will leave your skin feeling soft and smooth all day long the soap is multi-purpose you can also use it for your hair it's great for shaving and safe for pets every order comes with an exfoliating soap bag it can hold smaller pieces of soap and can prevent soap bars from slipping out of the hand after each use just leave the soap bar inside and hang dry it will last a long time this company does not sell on Amazon so go to oldcountrysoap.com and reward yourself and your loved ones use promo code Insider and get an exclusive 20 off your order let's support a company that brings back traditional American values and American Manufacturing now let's go back to the interview now the movie industry is leaving this data we have we have some numbers that over the the numbers are down in terms of TV production or commercials can you tell us what's happening sure so if you look at if you look at the film industry in general between 2021 and 2022 we we saw a contraction in the market in California of 2.5 percent so if you look at the specific sectors of the economy so commercial production music video production television production feature film production the the largest loss was in commercials we saw about a 22 reduction in commercials which is a big deal because per production commercial work is a huge cash maker for quick money comes a lot of money it's spent very quickly and so that typically for for crew members those are really lucrative deals and some people that work in the industry for people who work in the cameramans and the team members so Cameron anyone below the line basically and when we say below the line those those are not directors It's Not actors it's it's the crew members it's the people behind them yeah and they're that was a huge hit for them a lot of them are feeling it so I know people personally who haven't worked for a month or two because they work exclusively on commercials and and we're losing commercials to South America we're losing them to Mexico we're losing the Prague we're losing them to Australia we're losing them to New Zealand we're losing them to all over the place including the incentive States so we'll be listening to Georgia we'll be losing them to Louisiana we're losing the Toronto we're losing them to Vancouver they're moving everywhere outside of the film industry I like to say that the film industry is not leaving California it's expanding beyond our borders and so we're not doing a really good job of of keeping it here in California if you look at States like Georgia they've seen a 10 increase in overall production uh Louisiana has seen an astounding increase between 2021 and 2022. they've seen about 130 percent increase in production they went from up from about 45 Productions uh 50 Productions in 2021 to like 140 in 2022. wow so a massive massive increase for Louisiana I consider Louisiana and Georgia to be our main competitors when it comes to Film Production why is this happening well I wish there was a Smoking Gun I wish I could say it's taxes it's policy it's something like that it's cost of living but it's it's really a very complex issue it we can filter it down to labor migration which is a big issue so we're losing our our skilled labor to other markets two people are moving out of California people are moving we've covered this in our documents right a variety of reasons yeah yeah and well and that's the thing they're leaving for those reasons high taxes cost of living they don't like the drugs whatever and so they're leaving for those reasons and they're going to protect production heavy States so they'll go to Georgia they'll go to Louisiana and then you have George in Louisiana and now they're benefiting from California trained professionals who are now over there and what what that does is it makes if I'm a producer the biggest thing keeping me in California is infrastructure and labor and so if there's infrastructure and labor in that incentive state I'm going to go there and work I'm gonna go produce a movie there we you know about 10 years ago we used to have this saying called Runaway production I don't know if you've ever heard that but it basically meant that one or two shows or maybe a few different shows would leave the state they'd go chase a tax incentive maybe they're going to chase lower labor costs or or whatever it was and so the the sub market in La and we call it a sub Market which means it's it's the support infrastructural Market of brick and mortar companies so the service providers the service providers yeah and what they basically do is they are responsible for providing equipment Payroll Services Insurance Services Production Services production equipment I mean Trucking you name it they provide it for the film industry they're brick and mortar so they fall under the same regulatory issues that normal businesses do the same tax burdens and so that's always been in California and so if you would go to Georgia or you'd go to some other incentive State 10 years ago where the infrastructure really wasn't there yet Atlanta Georgia had a little bit uh it was hard for you to operate right it was hard to operate they would just kind of all right well it's a show in Georgia all right let's ship a bunch of stuff out and we'll figure it out it was it was it was a pain but then more and more work started going out there because the incentive structures really started attracting work and so these brick and mortars had to move out there they had to set up satellite uh satellite companies or satellite offices and once they got there like wait a minute less taxes less regulation less EPA issues let's stay here and so we saw a shift so they actually started making the LA office the satellite office wow less labor in La more labor in the incentives and so when that happened you that's the second real kind of nail in the coffin if you will for that expansion is that infrastructural system that we had in California started moving with the film industry and that was really a big move when that happened it really changed the game for us the incentive States understand what producers need and so they're going out of their way to make it easy what about California how do they treat what kind of challenges do you guys face with the California government regulation because there's some regulations that are impacting you guys there's a lot of regulations when the air resources board made it really difficult for us to have generators and trucks they changed the regulatory uh requirements a few years ago it really hit us hard it hit a lot of what we call owner operators so these are people who work on set but also own equipment and rent that equipment to production and so all of a sudden your truck you couldn't get your truck licensed or you couldn't get your generator licensed in California and so we had to sell those and when you sell them you're selling them at a discounted price because people are in Texas right well not even that people in Texas know you have to sell it oh I see they know it's not legal in California anymore so what kind of generators became illegal uh they're diesel generators they were just an old style generator they weren't able to be upgraded to the new the new standards they weren't able to comply with the new these new regulations and those regulations just kind of came out of nowhere no one talked to us no one told us it was happening it just kind of happened that's just one example there are other examples too where we basically have um and those generators you guys need to use a lot of generators yeah because the film and and you guys a lot of power and and there's an emission numbers on you guys right they look at we have to yeah so we have to abide by the same admission standards that everyone else does we don't benefit from the cap and trade we're trying to change that right now we're trying to to figure out a model so that we can uh start to benefit from the cap and trade Marketplace that exists in California but we have never been able to benefit from that we're not incentivized for going green you know we've led the way in LED lighting I mean LED lighting we've changed the way movies are produced and have made movies more sustainable more green and it's we're not benefiting from that yet but when they put these regulations on you guys the generators and the trucks you guys got impacted we definitely did uh from from a very personal perspective we got we got hit hard uh there are Teamsters who own equipment they had to sell their trucks and so that's a huge Capital expense you know you have to buy a new truck now you know and you're selling your other truck for less money I know people who bought new generators a few years prior and they hadn't even paid them off yet and they were selling them at a loss and these are personal friends I know and so yeah it does hit home pretty hard and uh the the state of California has traditionally taken us for granted you know we're 100 billion dollar a year industry but they don't really consider us a big player because it's about how much money comes into the state as far as tax revenue they don't look at the economic driver that Film Production is I always say that there are two entities that can inject Capital into a community there's the government and by sending a stimulus check and there's the film industry by shooting we put so much money into these communities it's insane and when we're in a community we're paying people for the inconvenience of shooting in their neighborhood we're paying people for their driveways so we can put bathrooms in their driveways we're paying people for their backyard so we can feed our crews and have craft service there I mean we are literally coming into this neighborhood and we're paying everyone to be there and that's why these incentive States want us you know when Film Production goes into a community in Louisiana that doesn't see a lot of Film Production we're saving businesses who might be on the brink of bankruptcy that's what we do we go in we spend a tremendous amount of money as fast as we possibly can and we'd leave and when one production comes another production comes and another production comes lawmakers in Louisiana lawmakers in in Georgia know that lawmakers in California take it for granted we have lawmakers who are telling us they're not seeing any benefits from Film Production yet the Matrix is shooting in their backyard 190 million dollar movie is shooting in San Francisco but representatives from San Francisco are telling us we're not seeing any benefits from Film Production and so everything's kind of skewed in Sacramento and they really don't understand what we do they don't understand how much money we're bringing to the economy when we go into a neighborhood it is not uncommon for us to pay 2500 to 10 000 a day for to use someone's backyard wow to use someone's front yard I remember one show we did for Showtime a few years ago uh the locations Department was telling me how much money we were spending per day to be at this location and we were paying the the neighbors directly affected for the inconvenience ten thousand dollars a day wow we were paying a gentleman two blocks away twenty five hundred dollars a day because he was getting shined by our lights at night and so for the inconvenience of of just having his house hit with light he's getting 2 500 a day when we shot and so yeah there's a lot of money that goes into these neighborhoods and so when you come into any normal California neighborhood there is a tremendous injection of cash into that neighborhood that people are using for mortgage payments or whatever they're using it for but yeah there's a lot of money that goes into these neighborhoods which would not be there which will not be there when uh and and that's a real that's a real issue because when we come into a production or when a production comes into a neighborhood you're talking about maybe a week maybe a few days or potentially a month or two and so if you're if you're struggling to pay your mortgage and a production comes in your your neighborhood and offers you cash that changes it that changes something for you there's neighborhoods all over California that we like to shoot in and it's becoming more and more difficult to shoot in those neighborhoods because of regulations in La alone we legitimately produce per location day which is per day of the year their production shooting we're producing 2.5 million dollars of economic activity per day and we're employing 19 000 people a day that's just in Los Angeles the film industry is is what we've tracked it's a 27 billion dollar year industry in La which is drastically under understating the fact so we really are a huge player and we put a lot of money into the economy and they don't recognize that because what they do is they recognize how much money is coming into the treasury and so that's what they're dictating this ridiculously underfunded tax credit that California has it's underfunded it's capped in a very weird way it's incentivizing the wrong things it's just not set up to be competitive and it's not the fault of the film commission they're dealing with what they're given from the state legislature and we're being told left right and Center that we're not performing well enough in whatever metric these metrics well there's there's some a lot of lawmakers lately have been talking about diversity and inclusion and they're saying that we're we're not diversifying enough and it's in terms of the people you hire in terms of the people we hire the people that are in the industry they they want the film industry to represent the the makeup the cultural makeup the racial makeup of California and that's a that's a goal absolutely and we're trying to move that way and we're trying to develop labor pipelines to do that but if they're not doing their job and competing with these incentive States then we don't have the work we have guys out of work right now who we call on the books it's where they're looking for work and we can't give them jobs so my union for example the local member of can't we have 200 people out of work right now and so you can't offer labor pipelines if we don't have work and there's work out there we know there's work out there's work in Georgia there's work in Louisiana our lawmakers are pushing the work away they're not bringing the work back so they're not being competitive so it's a chicken or the egg thing how are we supposed to grow and diversify our industry if we don't have the jobs to do it so they want you to diversify and then meanwhile the jobs are gone to other states and you have people that you can't give jobs yeah we have there are people in California who have been in California for years who've been here for their whole career who can't work there's no jobs for them and so we have an oversaturated labor market with not enough jobs available not enough work and we're we like I said last year we saw a 2.5 contraction we don't know what this year's gonna what is the expectation from you guys do you want you guys to go into these communities how are you supposed to diversify are you supposed to find people of different races uh that it's a question I'm really not I'm not qualified to answer that and and the reason why is I'm that's not my wheelhouse we have people who specialize in that so we do have people the vice president of my Organization for example is very very uh active in that we we're trying to go to schools we're trying to go to communities and say hey we have jobs available uh we have this type of career but this is not an easy career either a lot of people underestimate how many hours we work the average hour load for someone in my union for example is 60 hours a week at a minimum wow most guys are working 12-hour days um I on average work between 12 and 16 hour hours a day that's just I've been doing that for 10 years it's I don't know anything else that's what we do I also volunteer as a political director for my organization so I also do all the free labor in the weekend so you know I looking at 110 hour a week is is nothing for me and that's that's this industry it's a really difficult industry to work in so it's not exactly a fun industry a lot of people think it's fun and they get involved for a few years but we do have a relatively High turnover rate because it's a hard industry to stay to live in it's feaster famine for a lot of workers in California right now and this contract work is mainly well it's contract work yeah it's it's you're you're an employee but it's as if you're you know you work job to job you're a daily hire and so you have to what buy a house have a family make ends meet save money for a rainy day and you're sometimes dealing with labor actions sometimes you're dealing with a contracted economy and it's really hard for California Film workers right now to live and they're why would you not want to leave the state if you can't afford to live here gas is five dollars a gallon here in in Georgia it's three dollars and forty cents have you talked to the state leaders I have talked to a few and what what's the feedback do they on do they not understand do you still not understand what you guys are doing for the state I have tried to exp so the motion picture industry uh the most Motion Picture Association which is our lobbying organization they came out with a study and and so the film incentive although it is a bad film incentive it has still produced about 22 billion dollars give or take of of work in California they've shown that for every dollar spent you get 24 in Return of economic activity the state leadership doesn't care what they care about is what comes in the coffers what they care about is what comes in a treasury they care about the tax income it's as if they're running a business and not running a state so they're running a business they're trying to make profit but they're they don't understand that it's about the economic activity that the business produces it's about the the velocity of money it's about how much does one dollar how much economic activity is one dollar produce and they don't seem to care and I've talked to lawmakers and well that's the way it is or I I often hear there's just no money and I'm sorry but that's not an excuse what do you think is going to happen to this industry in the next decade here if I had a magic eight ball I would say that we're gonna have the film industry here it will always be here it's not going anywhere I don't think it's going to be what it is today I think it's going to be a lot smaller I think that in general the incentive states are here to stay and they're going to become much more competitive and they want production they want that injection of capital into their economy and they understand how valuable it is if I had to guess I would say that we could be looking at maybe a 20 reduction in production in the film industry in California in the next 10 years I think I think that's realistic I think that's realistic I think that I think we could see a 20 reduction and I I would venture to say maybe a 30 reduction in crew and that's those are workers who are dedicated to the film industry in in both capacities in production and in infrastructure do you think that the people come here for the dream of being in Hollywood and do you think that that will go away over time or do you think that will still exist I hope it doesn't go away I really do I there's a magic to Hollywood there's a magic to this industry you know the I I'm a kid from the sticks I grew up in a trailer park I grew up with a single mom and a super abusive household I moved out when I was a kid I moved out when I was 16 years old I couldn't handle it anymore I came here with nothing I came here with a broken down car homeless couch surfing to having a career providing a home for my kids and you know Finding finding my wife having kids buying a house having two cars that's what I got from this industry that's the California Dream the California Dream is coming from nothing where my mom didn't graduate from college my dad didn't graduate from high school my mother and mate never made more than twenty thousand dollars in her entire life per year having a father who wasn't really in the picture having a really abusive stepfather living in a trailer park on welfare on food stamps on medical assistance having absolutely nothing to having a life in one generation my kids hopefully God willing will never experience what I experience as a child that's the California Dream so I hope to God it doesn't change and I hope that we we can fix this because what this industry is able to do for kids like me is unreal there's no industry on this planet that can say I'm gonna take you from feast or famine in a lifetime there's no interest that can help build that type of generational wealth because in this industry if you're willing to work and you're willing to work hard you can get anything done and you can you can make anything happen so absolutely hope it doesn't change I hope that that awe doesn't stop taking kids like me and bringing them to California California wants to lead the way and there's you mentioned this California Dream leading the way do you think you can do that without the film industry I don't think so I might be a little biased right but uh no the film industry it is California I mean that's the thing like we when we when you say film industry it doesn't matter what part of the country you're in people think California they think la I don't think California is going to lead the way if the entertainment capital is not here you know California has led the way in so many different markets from Film Production to the tech industry to the gaming industry I mean we're losing the gaming industry to Canada we're not incentivizing the gaming industry to stay in California um we're not leading the way we're we're starting the way and we're letting other states lead the way and that's what's happening you know we we start it here we help build the businesses here we have tremendous amounts of Angel Investors we have a lot of capital in California we always have and so there's a lot of investment here a lot of creation here but then we don't keep it here we allow it to leave we allow it to leave our borders and that needs to change so no we're not going to lead the way um without the film industry now how do we fix this David for some of the leaders State leaders that might be watching this first thing is or California well I think The Ballot Box is a big thing start thinking about Film Production when you vote start asking State leaders what their views on Film Production are many don't even have views you know I was shocked when I first went to Sacramento that many state many uh many legislators don't even know what velocity of money is they don't even understand what the economic impacts of something is they don't get that one dollar it can produce five dollars of economic activity and that creates more taxes right in in the long run right California film industry about 200 000 people are directly employed by Film Production about 560 000 are indirectly deployed and indirectly employed so if you think about that for a second for one dollar spent on production there's 560 000 people who are impacted I mean that's a huge huge swath of people and those people are paying mortgages they're paying their bills they're buying goods and services they're paying their taxes so it is a huge industry and it influences a lot of people and if we were to just be competitive just competitive because we're not competitive if our film incentive was just competitive even if it was just a carbon copy of Georgia we would take so much production back I don't even know what the numbers would be but I can tell you overnight you would see an increase in production in La overnight you would see film sets everywhere overnight people would we wouldn't have enough people to work we would be going into communities and trying to get people into the industry overnight and and that's how fast we work I always like to say the California film industry is the fastest moving industry on the planet what we do in days will take a normal brick and mortar weeks or months to achieve what we do in months takes them years what we do in years we'll take a normal brick and mortar decades to achieve you have to be really fast right we have to be fast when the money comes in yeah so let's say you your all your money comes in and one of my friends did during the whole pandemic he was he was actually producing a movie during the pandemic and when the money hit the bank within five days maybe six days he had a production office he had the insurance he had the payroll set up he was already hiring people he had a transportation team on site uh he was scouting the location he was negotiating deals with the vendors within five days wow and that's a full-on now we have a place to go we're paying our rent we're doing all these things five days wow and so if the pandemic hadn't shut them down they would have been done in 60 days and they would have been an editorial that's how fast it could move that's from start to finish a whole movie was shot could have been shot in 60 days if the pandemic hadn't shut them down and so they had to take a Hiatus and then they came back but that's how fast we move it's unreal I mean the amount of of work that could be produced overnight if they just opened up the tax incentive so so if I had to if I had to really tell what if you were in charge if I was in charge the first thing I would do is make all of our tax credits transferable that would be the first thing the second thing is I would I would uncap our tax credit and I would I would have it to maybe 800 million dollars if not a billion dollars to really incentivize Productions to come back because it's the package deals that we want we want Disney to have a three movie deal with the two TV shows attached to it that's what we want coming to LA that's going you know those are the types of shows that are going to Canada right now because they're offering that type of incentive so I would offer that type of incentive I would re-do the entire incentive system and and make it much more user-friendly make it easier to apply make it easier to get customized incentives set up for different companies that are coming in with different needs that's what I would do I would also actually incentivize the film industry and come back let's talk about infrastructure let's talk about power grid let's talk about electricity this is something that that Atlanta is always actively trying to figure out how do we improve our infrastructure to support Film Production how do we improve our traffic to support Film Production how do we improve all of this stuff we don't do that in California and the other part of it too is lawmakers talk about the benefits I would I would tell lawmakers to talk about the benefits of Film Production how good it is for the community how much money it brings into the community and those are just a few things but uh tax incentive structure needs to change otherwise we will lose we'll we'll lose that 20 or 30 percent of the film industry to other states for sure do you have any other thoughts for our audience you should realize how important the film industry is to our economy to our culture to who we are as Californians remember just you're watching the screen but there's an entire crew there are hundreds of people behind the lens who are working really hard and doing incredibly long hours to bring that show to life those are people who have families those are people who get up every morning before the sun rises so they get up they don't see their kids they probably don't see their spouse they get on the road they sit in traffic for an hour and a half they get to the location they shoot for 12 hours at a minimum then they drive back sometimes in traffic but usually the sun's set they come home their kids are sleeping maybe their spouse is sleeping think about that that was my life it's been my life I'm a weekend father even though I lived with my kids I was a weekend father um we have a high divorce rate in this industry you know families are destroyed by the hours they're destroyed because of the you know you run to your kids it's a hard life and so people like to think that Hollywood is this really you know this glamorous industry and it is glamorous you know there's there's that element to it but there's also the human element of really hard-working middle class Californians who are suffering and struggling just to stay afloat it's a hard life and uh I would love it if people thought about that a little bit and really kind of recognize what the film industry is and and the benefits that it brings to the state and support it because it seems like we are not really supporting it our lawmakers do not support the film industry they say they do they will always say well we support the film industry they don't if they did they would change this incentive structure it's been years it's been years they haven't changed it if they did they would be actively competing with Georgia actively competing with Louisiana Wyoming I think just signed a film incentive I mean every State's jumping on this because they understand the value of bringing production to their communities we don't we we don't recognize the value we don't care and so they really Sacramento does not care about Film Production because if they did they would fix it and so you know it's I don't know how to get it through to them we've done studies we tell them they they know the economic markers are there but it's to them we don't bring enough money into the treasury so we're not important so you mentioned this industry like help you go to the move to the middle class how did you do that how did I do that yeah um this industry gave you a chance yeah the what this industry does for you is it gives you an opportunity it doesn't give you anything you know this industry is a hard industry um very competitive but it gives you an opportunity if you're if you are willing to work hard and if you're willing to do whatever it takes this industry is gonna reward you in ways that you just you can't possibly imagine to you get in you don't have to have a college degree you do not need so you don't need a college degree you can have a you can have a really bad past you know you're coming and your kid come in and no one cares I don't care I don't care if you have felonies when I'm hiring my crew I do not care who you are where you come from I don't care if you had a hard life or you you didn't have a hard life it's irrelevant can you do the job that's this industry there's no questions asked it's can you do the job if you can do the job you're hired and then you you do a good job and then you can grow into it you can stay with a recruit if you do a good job in this business you will work forever and you'll you will be prosperous and you will succeed it really is the California Dream I mean this industry is the California Dream incarnate it's you come you work and you succeed and the great thing about this industry too is if you need some time off you take some time off uh you know you work job and a job and so we have our Seasons you know we have our hiatuses and so you can take some time and you can go on vacation it's an industry that gives you an opportunity to really be successful and it changes your stripes it takes a kid who had absolutely nothing it didn't have any money to his name living paycheck to paycheck and cow Couchsurfing to someone who has a home and is providing for his family like that you I I can't understate that I think people don't really recognize the importance of moving up the economic it's not easy it's not easy it's not psychologically you're bound by barriers from different you know you can't use you think you can't do a lot of things right is that yeah I mean in this industry if you've had a bad past it doesn't matter if you if you had a criminal past it doesn't matter we do not care no one is is looking at your criminal past so if you want to start from scratch and you want to start fresh and you want to change your life this industry allows you to do that there's not a lot of industries that I can say can do that this is one of them and it's just it is the only industry that I know of that can take someone from absolute poverty and give them a middle class life and it didn't give them anything it gave him a simple opportunity this is the ultimate opportunity industry if if you are willing to work hard and you're willing to to just grit it out and go for it this industry will you will be successful David Graves political director of ayatsi local 728 it was great to have you in California inside thank you very much for having me on [Music] if you like this show and our content you should go to insiderca.com and 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Channel: California Insider

Views: 110,313

Keywords: California Insider, California Insider new, California Issues, california, hollywood, film, film industry, hollywood movies, movie industry, movies, leaving california, making movies, georgia, louisiana, film making, government, government policies, sacramento, policies, business, businesses, california businesses, california business

Id: W4I6f2RBKz0

Length: 40min 45sec (2445 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2023