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• Behind the Picket Lines

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On a typical morning, Phyllis Williams prepares for work like many Americans — with coffee and a shower, followed by a drive to work. However, unlike many Americans, she happens to work on the set of Scrubs.

“I help to visualize the scripts through makeup,” Williams, the makeup department head, said. “Basically I’m responsible for breaking the script down and finding those parts that require some effect (i.e., tears, sweat, fantasies involving flashbacks or flash-forwards, any site gags, like turning Dr. Elliot into Turk.) I also hire the staff, design the makeup looks for the cast, order products ... basically manage the department.”

That is, until the writers strike.

While the news was filled with images of picketing writers in New York City and Los Angeles, little information about the impact on the entertainment industry was released, mostly due to the Writers Guild of America’s media black-out and the sensitivity of the issue from both sides — the writers and the studios.

And while proposals and rumors were going back and forth about DVD residuals and “new media,” another group was left out — everyone else.

During the strike, which lasted officially from November 5, 2007, to February 12, 2008, the other employees in the industry were out of work, and while viewers may have seen famous actors pledging support for the writers, everyone else behind the scenes was in trouble.

“I wish I could say that I handled the strike gracefully but, I can’t,” said Williams. “That first month as it became clear that [the writers] were projecting a prolonged strike, I was depressed and scared, like most people in the biz.”

Manley Henry, known as “Snoop Dogg Attending” on Scrubs, is a background actor that began as an extra. His experience was similar to Williams’.

“The strike was very difficult ... Since I am a third-tier character on the show, I do get residuals, thank God,” Henry said.

Henry was also forced to collect unemployment during the time, and like many workers, just try to make a living like in most other fields of employment.

Timing was another issue with the strike.

“The strike was nothing but financially threatening; it came during the holidays when most people are spending instead of saving,” Williams said. “Had we known in advance of the strike date, we could’ve been better prepared financially to ride it out, for me it wasn’t nearly as devastating as it was for some people with mortgages and kids.”

The concern for the other workers and their families — gaffers, set designers, editors, etc. — was what prompted the talk-show hosts like Jay Leno, David Lettermen, and Jon Stewart to return to the air, crossing picket lines.

For others, the strike was not as financially crippling.

Celeste LaChance, the on-set costumer for Scrubs, said, “I had just sold my home in L.A. ... It was the holidays and I was moving so I was very busy and not too affected by the strike.”

It could have been much worse.

“It would have been very, very threatening to me and I would have been in an awful situation ... If I had still had my exorbitant mortgage, I may have lost my home,” LaChance explained.

The far-reaching consequences of the strike have yet to be felt. While the biggest impact seen so far may be the South Park parody episode, the increase of reality shows and the loss of a few episodes of Lost’s fourth season; the lives of those who spend their lives working on our entertainment saw the most change.

“For me, it called into to question the transient nature of the work I’ve chosen,” Williams explained. “It’s not like working a corporate gig where you know you have a job baring some financial collapse of the company — with the industry, you never definitively know from season to season, or movie to movie, or project to project.”