Putting Yourself In
Other People's Hands
An Interview with Richard Masur,
President of the Screen Actors Guild
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Richard Masur has performed in thirty-five features, including 'Forget Paris' and 'My Girl', in TV series like 'Picket Fences and 'One Day at a Time', and in dozens ofTV movies (he receivedan Emmy nomination for 'The Burning Bed' ). He was elected president of S.A.G. last November. He talked to the Newsletter in his office, where an ironic sign on his desk proclaims "Mr President", reminding visitors of one of his famous predecessors. The following are Richard's views on editing and union organizing. |
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"I know that many times directors and editors feel very strongly that editing saves the performances, creates performances that never existed before. I think it certainly affects performances in a very positive way sometimes, and sometimes in negative ways - that's the risk that all of us as actors take when we go into a medium where it's going to be recorded and then manipulated afterward.
It's a big decision when you decide to put yourself in so many other people's hands and expose yourself, and then let them make the final choices.
I've always had a good relationship with editors, even though sometimes you just never see each other because we're working in two different places at the same time. But often editors like me because I'm a great matcher, I'm consistent with performance levels. I was aware of those needs before I ever did anything other than act; the whole idea of trying to create connective tissue between different shots in the same sequence has always made sense to me.
I always have a good relationship with the crew, with the director, the script supervisor, the other actors as well, and with the editor even though the editor isn't there. I feel there is an absolute responsibility to respect their jobs, as well. As far as I'm concerned this is all a part of my job, my job is to deliver the performance in the emotionally right place, and the physically right place, and with a kind of consistency that will allow different choices to be made when the film's put together.
The Most Important Thing I Ever Learned About An Editor
I may be a bit more editor-aware than other actors because I also direct. The first thing I ever directed was a short film that I also wrote and Paul Seydor (who had not cut anything as sole editor yet) agreed to work on it. It was a credit for him and it was a good thing for everybody.
It was a 23 minute film and we shot it over three weekends; six days ['Love Struck', nominated for an Oscar]. When I turned it over to Paul I had to go away and do a job as an actor and I was nervous as a cat because I wanted to be there when he was starting. I was talking to my friend Roger Spottiswoode and telling him my concerns. He said to me, 'No.' I said, 'What do you mean? I haven't had a chance to tell him what I want, how I want to put it together.' He said, 'No, Richard. You walk away now, let him take the film, let him find what's in the film. He may find something you never even expected. Something better. Or he may make some grotesque mistakes that you come back and say, What's this about? But, in finding your way through that, you may discover something really rich.' I said, 'That's crazy. I know what I shot and why I shot it, and how I want it to be put together.'
I learned the value of Roger's advice - because Paul discovered some stuff that I never planned, never intended. I think that happens on every film. If you have trust going on between an editor and a director, the director will always be surprised and pleased by something that the editor has discovered, that he or she never intended. Or that's better than what he or she intended. That was a very exciting discovery for me. After 'Love Struck' I really tried to keep an open mind. When I planned something very specifically to work a certain way, I'd see how it would go, and if the editor would find something new.
The last thing I directed was a 'Picket Fences,' with a wonderful editor, Lori Coleman. We had the greatest time because it was one of those things where we just linked up. She kept finding things, and then I would say, 'Great!' or 'No, what about this?' And she'd go, 'Okay, let's look.' Also, of course, we were working on an Avid. When I was working with Paul we were working on a Moviola. When you have no time, the Avid is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's so great for working with versions, seeing options. The problem is you don't ever have to stop and think when you change something. I think there is a very definite tendency to fool around with it more than you should because ... you can.
Getting Involved With The Guild
I ran for the Board for the first time almost seven years ago because frankly a good friend of mine who was on the Board called me and asked if I would think about running. I said yes. He was astonished, just as I am every time I get a 'yes' from somebody now. You see, the number of people who think, 'Oh God, I can't do that, I don't like those kind of organizational things' or whatever, is far greater than the number of people who even give it a shot.
I'd never been in the SAG building. The first time I ever came to the Guild offices was the day I showed up for my interview with the nominating committee. Sure, I'd walked a picket line on strike, but that's all I'd ever done. I paid my dues and that was it. I thought, 'Well hell, I've really benefited from my association with this organization and I've really put nothing into it.' I figured it was right that I put something back in."
This is an 88,000 member union, we've a 30 million dollar a year budget, and the presidency is totally pro bono. All the Board seats are, and all the officers. Most of the industry assumes that when you're the president of the Screen Actors Guild you're in this really swell paying job, and you're not. We want people to be working performers, we don't want them to be professional labor union people. We hire professional people to be our staff.
I'd already learned how to do a lot of this job - I'd been chairing meetings for a while, and chairing meetings here is a challenge, it's all actors in the room. I mean it's true, I would hate to be in a room that was all directors, that would probably be even harder to deal with. But this is challenging.
Our strength is in our numbers but also in the people our employers feel they can't live without. So in the camera local, the Editors Guild and in various areas of the industry, the DGA, the Writer's Guild, you have to have the higher profile people connected to the organization in order to maintain the position you have with the employer. It's vitally important. Sometimes there are people in every one of these organizations who don't quite understand that, and think there's some kind of pandering to this group of higher profile folk, but the fact is the loss of clout is tremendous if you don't have that connection.
At our first Screen Actors Guild awards show, when Tom Hanks won for Best Actor he said, 'When you think you want to be an actor you go out and take some classes, do some little theater, then you want to pursue it. You try and get more experience, and then you think you really want to do this, you want to become a professional,' and he reaches into his pocket and he goes, 'You go out and get one of these,' and he holds up the Screen Actors Guild card. Well we couldn't have written it any better than that. He said, 'Because this is what means you're a professional.'
"I've been out here in Los Angeles for almost 22 years now, and when I came out here this was an almost totally union town. I would roughly put it between 15 and 20 years ago, I watched a pool of talent develop in this town, on the craft side, that was not union. It was able to develop because all the locals of the IA had closed their doors to new entrants. Finally one local [the Editors Guild] got it in their head 'Hey, there's a lot of good people out there we'd better soak up,' and they opened their doors and in they rushed. And then this happened with most of the others over a period of time. But in the process there had been a pattern of work develop, both with the employers and employees, where people were used to working non-union. And some of the new joins would go, 'I'm glad I'm in this and I want to get the healthcare and all of that, but here's a guy I've worked with five times - I want to go and do this movie. I'll get paid pretty much the same thing, what's the problem?' It seemed to me what the locals recognized at that point was that either they were going to have to discipline an awful lot of people or they had to kind of look away and say, 'O.K., just go and do it.' And then it started being perceived of as a potential organizing tool, i.e. 'Let's let people go and work non-union and then maybe they can organize the shows they're working on.' That's happened and that's been a positive thing in some ways, but I think there was a tragic mistake made many years ago when the locals refused to open up their rolls. Now SAG's never done that, we've never said, 'This is enough' or 'You have to choose from this list,' because we can't. Had we done that, had we tried to keep this a small club, there wouldn't be a Screen Actors Guild.
We've had to either shut pictures down or stop them from beginning shooting because agreements weren't signed in a timely way or something else has happened. And since I've been here, which is since November, we've done this a few times and had an extraordinarily uniform positive response, where important people just say, 'I'm sorry I've been told I can't go to work, I'm not going to work.' Now in this day and age, in a world of Landum-Griffith and the Beck decision, and all these hideously anti-union things; in the post-PATCO Ronald Reagan world - no offense to my predecessor here - you can't count on that kind of response, you have to nurture it.
A couple of years ago the IA struck a television series. They were having a rally and I went and spoke. We have a very strongly worded contract which says that if we have a valid contract and it's in force we have to go to work. Unfortunately a lot of these no-strike clauses are consistently in there, so it's been a problem for us to help, except through moral support. What happened on that show was one of the actors became disturbed enough about the situation to get in touch with us (we had gotten in touch with him earlier but just to say, 'If you need anything let us know.') He said, 'I don't think this is a good situation, I don't think it's really safe and I'm concerned.' We sent people over and basically said to the production people, 'We think you should take steps to sit down and talk this through because otherwise it's not safe and we may have to pull our people out.' We can't have them working in an unsafe environment. In another famous case the lead actress on a film went to the producers and said, 'I'm not going to go to work unless you sit down and talk to these people.' But the Guild can't instruct anybody to do that because that would be illegal.
I think the way to go is to convince people that their interests really lie in trying to get their employers to recognize the jurisdiction of the union and come in and talk about the contract. Even on the lower budget things because in fact we're not the problem most of the time. It's not the SAG performers, it's not our minimum basic agreement that's the problem, and it's not any of the craft guilds' agreements. Basically the difference between the people they're hiring through the IA and the people they're hiring outside the IA is the fringes, and that money, when taken in the context of the modern project, is nothing. So that can't be the reason they're doing it, they're doing it because they can, and because they're used to it. You know what I mean? They're used to doing it that way. So, individually, we have to try and help them to see another way of doing it. In terms of collective action, I think the best thing for us to do is to dialogue more with each other and try and figure out where there are situations in which we can work together.
We Have to Change the Image of Labor
Also we have to try to get the word out into the world that unions are a good thing, unions are a positive force, and this bygone era that the people who hate unions are always referring to, of the 50's and the 60's, was created by unions. The plenty, the middle class, were created by the labor movement in this country. Labor is what allowed us to create the life that many people say we should go back to. But the only way to get back there is to allow people to live to a certain extent free of fear from their health problems and free of fear from questions of shelter and food and education for their children. And also allow them to make a living that's honest and sufficient to be able to live in this country in the way the country is encouraging you to want to live.
I think there are projects we can do together to raise the level of visibility and the positive image of organized labor in this country, and in this industry. I think we can do them. I think we must do them."
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter
Vol. 17, No. 2 - March/April 1996
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