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FIRST LETTER FROM THE NEW PRESIDENT
Dear MCAers:
Although the sanity of moving from Ex-President and joking around at the back of the meetings to Returning President has been questioned, for good or ill, I, Sandra Olmsted, will be your MCA St. Louis President in 2012 . And what a wonderful, informative, and exciting year it is going to be!
In fact, our first meeting is about S-E-X! No worries though, we are going to provide information on how sex can and does impact our work as communicators and filmmakers, so I am calling this first President's letter, "Sex and the Independent Filmmaker."
As the board began planning this meeting, which by the way started as a joke to get me to the board meeting, we soon discovered we all had horror stories of problems on the set caused by or related to sex. After a little, okay a lot, of joking around, we settled in, and the meeting planned itself because we all had some experiences with the problems of "Sex on the Set."
Whether as an agent, you sent models to a auto parts photo shoot where they were asked to pose in lewd ways and left, or as producer/director, you cast a creepy-looking 30ish actor, who then wouldn't stop hitting on the 15-year-old actress left in your care, or as an actor, you agreed to pose for medical education films requiring nudity, or as an actress, you go to audition and discover the part requires sex or nudity, we all have stories of how sex and nudity impact the life of the filmmaker working in every part of the industry. We want to give you, the filmmaker, the knowledge and power to handle these situations.
What if your script needs that sex or nude scene? While "needs" could be broadly defined, for this meeting, the term means that the scene is necessary to the integrity of the story and film. How does a producer/director go about advertising the role, casting the part(s), and shooting the scene without getting a reputation, in this very small film community, of being a sleazeball? This meeting will shed some light on the best way to proceed with casting and shooting that scene.
Let's say you are producing a film, and suddenly the director and a grip develop a romance, and the grip suddenly gets a "promotion" and lots more credit. Does the rest of the cast have a case for grievance under SGA or maybe even a lawsuit under other rules governing employment? There might be more at stake than just your reputation!
What are the SAG rules for nudity and sex scenes? Where do your buy body stockings and soap bubbles with a half life? If an actor or actress agrees to do a sex scene or nude scene, what are reasonable requests he or she can and should make? How do laws about sexual harassment affect the set?
The MCA Board of Directors is hoping for a good turn out for this meeting because, despite all the joking, "Sex on the Set" is a serious subject Although our advertising of the meeting may utilize the salaciousness of the topic to get you in the door, we think knowledge is power, and our meetings are intended to empower communicators and filmmakers of all kinds from corporate to independent. Furthermore, while money is tight, especially for filmmakers, the admission charged is low, and we always spend the money raised on other meetings and the year-end party, so really you are getting extra value for your money.
Of course, there's no admission charge to our paid-up members, and membership prices were significantly reduced last year! Furthermore, an MCA-I membership comes will lots of perks and special deals. Check it out on the MCA-I website http://www.mca-i.org/ under Benefits.
Plus, our host, Ben Simms, at the Broadway Bean Coffee House, has spaces and properties he wants to make available to filmmakers and will be showing local filmmakers' work on Indie Film Night at the Bean every Thursday. So, you will also get to network with Ben and see some fascinating potential production locations! Now, that's a really great deal.
One President's letter down, eleven to go! Next year, I will be joking around twice as much because I will have earned it!
Sincerely,
Sandra Olmsted
MCA-i President, St. Louis Chapter
PS Please give me credit for not using all the euphemisms that crop up in normal conversation but would have been creepy in this letter. Hopefully, I have avoided them.
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