When Sandra French returned to her beloved 1930s apartment, she found the building reduced to rubble and ash. “It was so weird,” she recalls. “Out of the rubble, there was a little bright object. It was a pencil holder I bought in Italy, I believe, in 2008 and was sticking up in the air. That was the only thing that survived the fire.”
French lost her home, including irreplaceable family photos, her baby book and her late mother’s jewellery, when wildfires fuelled by dry conditions and powerful winds swept through Los Angeles on 7 January, killing at least 29 people and destroying thousands of structures.
For French and many like her, it was a cumulative blow to an already precarious existence. The fires struck at the heart of an entertainment industry already reeling from pandemic shutdowns, labour turmoil, technological upheaval and a changing production landscape. Some workers are now reconsidering their future as they find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
Although Hollywood stars such as Jeff Bridges, Billy Crystal and Mel Gibson losing their homes made headlines, some of the most vulnerable victims are “below-the-line” crew members such as grips, electricians, carpenters, set decorators, sound engineers, costume designers, makeup artists and editors.
French, 65, who started working in the industry in Chicago in the late 1980s, is an assistant editor and media archivist. She moved to Los Angeles in 1993 and to an apartment in the Altadena neighbourhood six years ago. The building was constructed by her landlord’s grandfather in the late 1930s.
“It wasn’t just a square box, it was an apartment that had a lot of character,” French recalls by phone from a hotel near the Hollywood Hills. “My windows faced north and I had a view of the mountains every morning. I loved my apartment; I loved the community of Altadena. It was probably the best community I have lived in since I’ve been in LA. Everybody talks to everybody and helps everybody.”
French was at home on the day the fires came, watching the winds pick up and following reports of fires in Pacific Palisades. At about 1.30pm the electricity went off so she could no longer watch the TV news. At around 6.30pm, in the dark, she happened to look out of her window and see the fire. She reckoned it was about 3 miles away at that point.
French put some clothes and toiletries in a bag, but, assuming she would be back in a few days, did not take her computer. In high winds she drove her Honda Civic car to Pasadena and stayed at a friend’s house. When, days later, she returned to the site of her apartment, she was confronted with a scene of devastation.
She reflects: “It’s quite an experience, waking up and one day you have everything, your home and all your possessions, and the next day you wake up and everything is gone. The building is basically just ash and rubble. The outside walls are standing but most of the windows are blown out and everything’s mangled. It was a two-floor building with a staircase: all of that collapsed so it’s just ash and rubble.
“Driving through Altadena, it felt like a graveyard to me. Many neighbourhoods are wiped out. Entire blocks are gone. Then you’ll see the other neighbourhoods where most of the houses are standing: like three will be standing and one’s gone. But there’s a big majority of neighbourhoods in Altadena that did not survive the fire.”
French, whose possessions were not insured, expresses gratitude to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (Iatse), the union for below-the-line workers, and the Motion Picture Editors Guild for being supportive and generous to members who lost everything. Some were already struggling due to the economic shocks of recent years.
“It does feel different right now in Hollywood. So many people I know haven’t worked in a year, two years. For people in the film industry that have suffered this tremendous loss of their their home and possessions it’s a gut punch because we’ve already lost our livelihoods.
“It’s overwhelming for me right now as a single person so it would be harder for families at this time. Now our homes and our possessions are destroyed, so I guess it’s a recovery and rebuilding time.”
French is now pondering her future. She was ready to retire after being laid off by Paramount studios in 2022 and finding work scarce because of the actors’ and writers’ strikes the following year.
She adds: “I’m 65, so from now on out I’m going to probably live very minimally. At this point I’m trying to not rush into anything. I’m thinking about taking a trip and getting out of California for a little bit and regrouping and getting my thoughts together and seeing if I want to come back here or if I want to start anew somewhere.”
The fires, one of the costliest natural disasters in American history, hit film and TV industry workers hard. Iatse reported that at one point, 8,100 of its members were in evacuation zones and more than 300 had lost their homes.
This comes on top of turbulent years in which Hollywood has endured Covid shutdowns, a pullback from the heady days of the streaming boom and increased competition from other states – such as Georgia, New York, New Jersey and New Mexico – and countries offering tax incentives. Work has not rebounded as hoped following the 2023 strikes, leaving many crew members unemployed and in financial hardship.
Peyton Skelton, 51, a former gaffer on the TV medical drama Grey’s Anatomy and a director of photography, who lost his home of 25 years in Altadena, says: “The work situation in Los Angeles for film workers has been very slim. I’ve been working probably 60 to 70% less than I had been basically since the consolidation and the realisation by the studios and bigger companies that streaming as it was set up wasn’t profitable.
“They started to do their condensing and realigning and cutting of business and taking the film business out of Los Angeles, out of the state and out of the country. That ended up being timed with when the strikes happened, though it’s not related to that. The strikes gave them a window to step back and look at a way to ‘fix’ their problem from a business standpoint.”
Film and television production in Los Angeles had already fallen to a near-record low before the fires hit. The number of scripted series released last year dropped by 24%. Location shoots in the Los Angeles region fell to its second-lowest total on record last year. Indeed, studio lots are so quiet that the actor Natalie Morales has called for studios to turn empty soundstages into temporary classrooms, erected by out-of-work craftspeople, for children whose schools burned down.
Among those facing an uncertain future is John Dale, 40, a TV writer, and his wife Cameron Dale, 41, a costume designer, who have daughters aged eight, six and four. They had been renting a three-bedroom house in Pacific Palisades that was destroyed in the fire. Cameron lost a collection of costumes that represented a life’s work and is irreplaceable.
Speaking from a family friend’s house, John Dale says: “We’re coming up on every two years something major impacts the industry, and even within less productions happening, you have the strike. You have this metaphorical win, but at the same time they say: ‘Yeah, we’ll give you all that but we’re just going to not produce anything for the next year.’ So you’re like, what did I really win? This contract is great for whoever can get it but those people are so few.
“My wife’s show will come back in March, so hopefully at that point we’ll have a little bit more of a grasp on what our life will look like. But for me I’m just looking and trying to hope that there’s goodwill in that department. A lot of wheels are spinning.”
There are growing fears that the losses and difficulty of finding work in the city could lead to workers leaving Los Angeles. Dale adds: “I have friends that are pivoting. A lot of people talk about moving either ‘back home’ or doing something else. I’m considering getting a building contractor’s licence because I like to feel that sort of physical fulfilment as opposed to a writer’s room. If I can feel that sort of fulfilment within being somewhat responsible for bringing it back, I absolutely will.”
Amid the devastation, there are signs of community rebuilding and industry resilience. Millions of dollars have been raised to help fire victims. Efforts are under way to increase California’s tax credit programme to make it more competitive with other states and countries so that productions will be filmed locally. The Los Angeles city council approved a $1bn project to enhance sound stages and production facilities at Television City.
Mike Miller, Iatse international vice-president and motion picture & television production department director, says: “Covid was the first speed bump in what had been a significant period of growth. As we worked through the challenges that came with Covid we had a significant contraction in the industry. The streaming wars ended. The studios began producing less content.
“Then there are many countries outside of North America that have continued to aggressively court this inherently North American industry by providing tax and other incentives to pull these jobs out of North America. I would love to see our federal government act to protect the entertainment industry the way it has to protect so many others.”
And Miller remains optimistic that workers will overcome the fires, just as they have previous setbacks. “It’s been an incredibly difficult time for folks in our industry, many of whom have been struggling since Covid. It seemed like maybe we were heading back towards a little place of normalcy and then this happened. But I have to say I have not had a single person come in and say we’re giving up or we’re done with this business or we’re done with this town.”
