Thread by @draiochta14

1)I walked away from the film industry 3 years ago.
I did not leave because I no longer liked designing costumes, or running a costume dept.

I still liked my ACTUAL job.

I liked the new challenges, all the new worlds that I can explore with each project…

#IATSESolidarity

2)I love the new group of people who comes together, collaborating, imagining, creating something out of nothing.

Seeing my costume sketch get up and walk around the room is a magical feeling. Never stops being thrilling. The same feeling after 30 years of designing…

3)But those magical moments were being killed. They represented about 20% of my day.

Yes, the design process, my JOB, was reduced to what I did on the weekends.
I designed costumes on the weekends, time spent and rarely compensated for…

4)The VAST MAJORITY of my job was spent fighting.
Fighting for the things that myself and my crew needed to deliver the costumes needed to dress the actors.

Seems like an odd thing to have to fight for, considering that it was what I was hired to do…

5)Fighting for enough prep time to make costumes without killing my crew.

Fighting for enough crew so that we wouldn’t kill people.

Fighting for enough budget so we could deliver the costumes without killing my crew…

6)Fighting for the proper equipment so my crew could do their job

Fighting for my crew to be paid anytime they were working

Fighting for safe conditions

Fighting for enough sleep

Fighting for gas money for crew members who spent the day driving costumes around…

7)Fighting for my crew to have time off.
Fighting for fair wages for my team

Fighting, fighting fighting…every single day.

The rest of the time was spent patching my team back together, drying tears, listening to meltdowns, dealing with their exhaustion, their frustration…

8)Trying to talk people out of quitting.
Begging people to come work for us.

More fighting to be heard, to be taken seriously.
Fighting for an equal voice with the male led depts.
Fighting for information so we could do our job.
Fighting for inclusion

14-15 hours a day…

9)Fighting for dignity, respect and just basic care.

Fighting for the ability to do ones job, well.

It is absurd the number of shows I had to fight for lights. Lights to SEE THE ACTORS IN COSTUMES, while doing fittings in a dark tent. Explaining why we need to SEE…

10)Fighting for a van to take my exhausted, crew, who’d been standing in mud, rain, blistering heat, or snow, back to the trailers with all their gear, and bags and bags of crap they haul to do their job, for 2hrs of wrapping costumes, and then drive home for another hour…

11)And going home myself, so exhausted and stressed every night, it is a miracle I am alive.

Barely sleeping because the stress and adrenaline cocktail that keeps you going, also prevents sleep.

4 hrs of sleep before it begins again…

12) Spending all day, every weekend, every holiday break, sketching and sketching and sketching, or doing the endless hours of research that every show needs.
My actual job…

13) While I am sketching, I am
on the phone with my 2nd, trying to figure out how we were going to prevent the next forest fire that is about to consume our department…

14.Finally realizing after 30 years, that it was never going to get better. It was just getting worse.

I could not protect my crew.
And that was unacceptable. I have always known that it was up to me to fight for their working conditions.

So, I got out…

15)I was lucky. I COULD get out. My husband is a successful (and ethical) showrunner. I didn’t have to worry about losing my home.

But I lost my work. I lost my career, at the top of my game

I see projects I would love to do, but I stop myself, knowing that it is impossible…

16)Because, last but not least, the toll this was taking on my health. All those years of stress and exhaustion were going to kill me.
Cancer, heart attack, Chronic bronchial issues, because of all the toxins, something was going to come for me

It makes me so impossibly sad…

16)Our industry does not care if it loses me or others like me who are passionately dedicated to doing the best job possible.

It doesn’t know what I do. The studio head that just came over from Amazon thinks I am a “stylist”
And his wife buys clothes, what’s the big deal?…

17)it all just breaks my heart.
The only thing left for me, is to fight ONE MORE TIME for those who are still there and those who will come behind me.

ONE MORE FIGHT.
I vote to strike.

#IATSE

One last thing…
I worked in film and television for 30 years.
I did more than one show during that time. This story applies to every single one of them.

Don’t make it about “yours”.