With the Writer’s Strike in full force and with no apparent end in sight, it can be easy to have a bleak outlook on my future employment situation. With no more scripts “Bionic Woman” just wrapped up, “Battlestar Galactica” is finishing its last episode before it too wraps up due to script shortage and “Intelligence” apparently got bought by the Fox Network and they are moving the show to San Francisco. Those were the shows that were keeping me regularly employed.
Until the strike ends, most in my industry will have to rely on feature films and movie-of-the-weeks to get by financially.
I was on the set of a new show called “Ice Blues” for the last couple of days and there was a lot of talk about the state of the industry. Luckily, it looks like there will be a few big feature films that will , hopefully, keep us busy. The “Watchmen” movie continues to film here in Vancouver, “The Day the Earth Stood Still (remake)” has started camera tests and the next “X-Files” feature is slated to go to camera in early December. Of course there was the usual negativity amongst a few who like to piss on everyone’s parade but on the whole I believe we’ll do alright.
Situations like this teach us to not get too over-confident with your life and only hurts us hard if we over-extend ourselves, both financially and mentally.
On the way home from set today, I realized that I still worked 5 days this week. Yesterday, all I had to do was sit in a warmed up SUV as someone else drove it up a driveway. Today, I sat around set all day playing games, reading, chatting and eating . . . they never even got to my scene. In retrospect, my job is , for the most part, pretty easy and I have very little to complain about. I have a condo that I own (no small feat if you know the Vancouver real estate market) and my Stang is all paid off, courtesy of all my hard work. I’m still far from achieving the level of financial security I’d like and I haven’t taken a vacation since 2002, but things could be far worse.
Yes, life is peachy 
Posted on November 17th, 2007 by Leo
Filed under: Lucid Thoughts, On The Set
Nice work putting things into perspective Leo …. right now I`m off to Sushi for dinner …. all round, life`s peachy for me too.
After living abroad for a year, you never appreciate the way of life we have here until you’ve been somewhere else. We have the cleanest air, freshest food, some of the cleanest water and nicest people. I’d say life is pretty peachy for me too (minus Richmond drivers LOL)!
I wonder if you could get on Degrassi…or Corner Gas as that Asian Guy who moved into town =)
Don’t forget you’ve got this cool blog thing going.
Any chance you’ll be the the X-Files?
I’m sure I’ll be working on X-Files in some capacity. I’m guessing there’ll always be room for cops, soldiers and special agents
These kind of misfortunes make you realize that you shouldn’t take anything for granted.
I hope the strike will be over soon so you can start earning more money again and I can continue to watch my favorite shows
I’d almost forgotten about the new X-Files movie until a few days ago. I was going to google for a status update, but you’ve already given me that. =D
Hope to see you in that.