Are you working right now?

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:19 pm

How's that going?

I am, and I.... hate it. It's fucking stupid and I don't want to do it all online, though I'm very grateful to still get part of a paycheck.

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:47 pm

No

I mean, I try as hard as I can do do some little bit each day. I miss working pretty bad.
Now the job is to change what gets called "work" to the actual household necessities like cooking, cleaning, merely existing, helping the clock tick.

alexshred420 · Post by **alexshred420** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:10 pm

I am still working making websites from 9-5:30 with a half-hour-ish break for lunch. It's actually not bad–I sort of prefer it to being in the office which is loud and full of people who love "brands", but I do miss some of the social aspects of being in the office.

I definitely feel lucky and privileged to be able to continue to work and get paid my full salary for now.

I try to bike several miles once a day which helps with the need for getting outside/exercise.

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:44 pm

I am working. Writing for a couple of series whose shoot dates have been pushed so far no one knows if they're even happening anymore. Wrapping up soon though. Feels weird and kinda pointless but I'm extremely thankful for the income. Who knows how long this'll last.

richjensen · Post by **richjensen** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:51 pm

I think I am. But I think I am paying myself. Which is weird because I don't think I have any money. Maybe I'm on strike? But in this case I think it means I have to quit what I'm doing and go get some money. Confusing.

willowowow · Post by **willowowow** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:14 pm

I am lucky to have a good union job so I'm still working full time from home. I'm basically an assistant principal at a public elementary school and we've transitioned to distance learning- everyone is going bananas. Teachers who have been at it for 35 years are like, "what is Google Drive? What is my password? Help I got booted out of ____." Etc. So we're trying to build teacher capacity for all these online platforms at light speed to have this fully launched to students on April 13th. Then we'll do the same thing for kids and families. Think about kindergarteners logging into Google Classrooms and "turning in" assignments. We'll be relying so much on families to help support this, which means making sure they have devices, and internet access, and tech support in whatever their native language is, and paper packets of materials for those who can't or don't want to access the internet, and ways of monitoring those students, and support for students who are in special education, and on and on and on.

I read that 90% of students worldwide are out of school right now so we're all in this together. Trying to keep things as simple as possible for now and build slowly.It's wild.

Chris works with alexshred420 and because he's an introvert he's pretty happy to be working from home. I'm not an introvert but I like being in my house and not having to commute to the suburbs every day.

sashaburchuk · Post by **sashaburchuk** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:16 pm

I have actually been wondering what's going on with the entertainment industry down there. I was potentially going to be cast on Ellen Degeneres "Design Challenge" show (It's ok, you can laugh, I'm laughing) and callbacks were in late March. I'm not making any assumptions about why I didn't get called, but was wondering, if I had been selected, would I be on set right now? Or like, is all of Studio City just closed, with tumbleweeds rolling through it?

morgan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:44 pm I am working. Writing for a couple of series whose shoot dates have been pushed so far no one knows if they're even happening anymore. Wrapping up soon though. Feels weird and kinda pointless but I'm extremely thankful for the income. Who knows how long this'll last.

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 4:10 pm

willow, that sounds so crazy! teaching college online has been... challenging and dumb.
I can't imagine how much weirder it would be with little kids.

My students seem lethargic and freaked out and I told them they can turn small assignments in pretty much whenever and critiques will just be gentle considerations of their intent. I made them a list of movies to watch as a fun way to keep thinking about stuff we've learned, with descriptions and screenshots and links to previews, and no one has even looked at it yet :'(

My college staff job is pretty much gone til the fall but I'm still getting paid for a few more weeks.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:02 pm

No. Most of my income this year was going to come from speaking gigs—I’ve been grinding trying to establish myself in that world, and this was going to be the year I leveled up and made real money. It’s all been cancelled, obviously, along with music stuff, so I’m just sitting on my hands for now and trying to recalibrate. I have some opportunities to start writing longform freelance stuff again, but I’m finding it super hard to get motivated (and to do any real research, without leaving the house).

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:14 pm

God bless you all!

Abe · Post by **Abe** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 7:32 pm

I am working for sure. back in UrHo days I was a digital project manager. I've been running a one-person synthesizer shop for the past couple years. (Just a little over a year as my sole income.) There is always work to do.
Things haven't slowed down much yet, but I expect they eventually will as recession sets in. A huge part of my business is teaching how to build synths, so for some people it is a budget option. A lot of my customers are enjoying the building as part of self-isolation, so I'm glad to be able to provide that.
It's a bit strange because since Feb of 19 I've only worked from home, in my basement, doing this, so almost nothing about my day-to-day work day has changed at all (dread notwithstanding).
In January all I was worrying about was my Asia supply lines (and their health). Three months ago I was in mexico! Crazy.

Flossy Logs · Post by **Flossy Logs** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:13 pm

I am working. So. Hard.

I work for a startup called Outschool - we're a marketplace for zoom-based online classes for kids. (Like Airbnb or Etsy - you wanna teach something to kids? List a class and families can find it and sign up).

Last month we went from 6k average weekly enrollments to over 60k in a single week, and it hasn't slowed down. We suddenly don't have enough teachers on the platform to keep up with supply, so we're recruitIng thousands of teachers through big time press mentions (like the NYTimes!) but then wait...it turns out we have a very scrappy and not easily scalable process in place for screening and approving those teachers (and literally a single staff member to do it). And what about all the new classes these new teachers are listing? We need to review and approve those, too. And what about all the ways our product is broken (many, many ways) or our support team hampered by manual processes that should have been automated long ago but we were still small so never got around to prioritizing it?

Anyway. That's what I'm working on.

I find it incredibly fun and interesting and I'm working non-stop and probably on the verge of burning myself out, but I'm very very grateful for it. This is the happiest I've ever been job-wise. (What a weird time for that to be the case.)

Willow, one thing I'm doing rn is producing daily webinars to help K-12 teachers transition to teaching online (we've had over 10k public school teachers attend so far)! I wonder if your teachers would find it helpful (if they're using Zoom)??

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Sat Apr 04, 2020 2:53 am

Flossy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:13 pm I am working. So. Hard.

I work for a startup called Outschool - we're a marketplace for zoom-based online classes for kids. (Like Airbnb or Etsy - you wanna teach something to kids? List a class and families can find it and sign up).

Oh man! This must be exploding! What a business to be in right now. Wild.

I teach high school English in Brussels. Yep, we are online too. I feel like I found a cool groove. A lot of my colleagues are freaking out, assigning way to much work and then having to grade essays that are like shitty phone pics taken in darkened teenage bedrooms of terrible scrawl emailed to them.
I have mine on this online platform called penpalschools. They are all following lessons about fake news and how to spot it and how to not share it or how to be responsible 'digital citizens'. Then they have to respond to other kids around the world following the same lessons. All in very adorable earnest and ambitious ESL. I just give them star ratings in different categories like 'grammar' and 'cooperation' and leave a little comment telling them they are rockstars. It is very sweet. Teens are cute.

I also give sewing lessons, which I don't do now. Instead I am sewing so many masks and it is devastatingly boring. Thank god for DS9.

Flossy Logs · Post by **Flossy Logs** » Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:12 am

Penpalschools sounds so cool! Gonna have to check that out.

uncleboatshoes · Post by **uncleboatshoes** » Sat Apr 04, 2020 7:25 am

I am working. I miss my friends from the office. Would not choose work from home given the choice.
I work for a company that puts music into advertising and film and tv which feels like it can be helpful now with some of musicians other streams being impacted.
Since the quarantine has started its been busy as heck and I'm working hard as heck.

Post by **joni** » Sat Apr 04, 2020 8:52 am

We had shows cancelled, and then our booking agent was fired along with 200 other employees at the agency, which was one of the largest in the US.

We’re “leaving the agency” to stick with our agent, who has been with us for 13 years now. Who knows what live music will look like after this?

As of this moment performing to a web cam sounds pretty dreadful from an anxiety standpoint.

I’m trying to record and release a song every week to make a little money and to fundraise. This week is a Crass cover that raises money for One Fair Wage.

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:31 am

There's kind of a sweet art school thing happening where we are all inviting artists to do zoom class visits and lectures and people get paid stipends from the school to do that... we're just passing around the same little chunk of institutional money to each other.

I'm doing one soon for another school and feel weirdly excited to talk to students who aren't bored of me yet!

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Sat Apr 04, 2020 11:32 am

It's really fascinating to hear how everyone's work/industry is changing...what the hell is this all going to look like in the future... may we, as a treat, find some positive changes???

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Sat Apr 04, 2020 4:16 pm

sashaburchuk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:16 pm I have actually been wondering what's going on with the entertainment industry down there. I was potentially going to be cast on Ellen Degeneres "Design Challenge" show (It's ok, you can laugh, I'm laughing) and callbacks were in late March. I'm not making any assumptions about why I didn't get called, but was wondering, if I had been selected, would I be on set right now? Or like, is all of Studio City just closed, with tumbleweeds rolling through it?

morgan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:44 pm I am working. Writing for a couple of series whose shoot dates have been pushed so far no one knows if they're even happening anymore. Wrapping up soon though. Feels weird and kinda pointless but I'm extremely thankful for the income. Who knows how long this'll last.

You would definitely not be on set right now. Two weeks ago or so pretty much every shoot got pushed indefinitely. You're legally not allowed in California to be in a group larger than like... what, five people or something? So basically all shoots are cancelled for the time being. People are writing from home and editing from home, etc. But no one is on set.

01001010 01010101 01000100 01000001 01001000 · Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:44 pm

morgan wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 4:16 pm
sashaburchuk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:16 pm I have actually been wondering what's going on with the entertainment industry down there. I was potentially going to be cast on Ellen Degeneres "Design Challenge" show (It's ok, you can laugh, I'm laughing) and callbacks were in late March. I'm not making any assumptions about why I didn't get called, but was wondering, if I had been selected, would I be on set right now? Or like, is all of Studio City just closed, with tumbleweeds rolling through it?

morgan wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:44 pm I am working. Writing for a couple of series whose shoot dates have been pushed so far no one knows if they're even happening anymore. Wrapping up soon though. Feels weird and kinda pointless but I'm extremely thankful for the income. Who knows how long this'll last.

You would definitely not be on set right now. Two weeks ago or so pretty much every shoot got pushed indefinitely. You're legally not allowed in California to be in a group larger than like... what, five people or something? So basically all shoots are cancelled for the time being. People are writing from home and editing from home, etc. But no one is on set.

Yep, definitely no shooting right now. Especially in California, where unions are more prevalent. I had a producer reach out to get my thoughts on feasibility of set-work right now and it just seems way too risky to me. Some smaller projects are still being shot in Portland, but even a skeleton crew is going to be at least 5 people.

I'm I guess lucky in that I've had steady post-work, editorial mostly. We just licensed some songs from Marmoset actually, with Portland-based musicians so that felt nice. We got one big production project in LA that shot rightttt before shit really went down, but even then it was feeling weird being on a set with 50 people in confined areas. I did a bid on a project last week and it just seems so likely this shit will just keep pushing out. I've been trying to buy / support many of my friends who are making things, who are operating take-out scenes in restaurants, or simply by funding mutual aid projects, and I think things in general are just going to have to be micro/local economy-based for a bit. Which is nice in many ways, and real shitty for many others.

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:13 pm

01001010 01010101 01000100 01000001 01001000 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 12:44 pm
morgan wrote: ↑Sat Apr 04, 2020 4:16 pm
sashaburchuk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:16 pm I have actually been wondering what's going on with the entertainment industry down there. I was potentially going to be cast on Ellen Degeneres "Design Challenge" show (It's ok, you can laugh, I'm laughing) and callbacks were in late March. I'm not making any assumptions about why I didn't get called, but was wondering, if I had been selected, would I be on set right now? Or like, is all of Studio City just closed, with tumbleweeds rolling through it?

You would definitely not be on set right now. Two weeks ago or so pretty much every shoot got pushed indefinitely. You're legally not allowed in California to be in a group larger than like... what, five people or something? So basically all shoots are cancelled for the time being. People are writing from home and editing from home, etc. But no one is on set.
Yep, definitely no shooting right now. Especially in California, where unions are more prevalent. I had a producer reach out to get my thoughts on feasibility of set-work right now and it just seems way too risky to me. Some smaller projects are still being shot in Portland, but even a skeleton crew is going to be at least 5 people.

I'm I guess lucky in that I've had steady post-work, editorial mostly. We just licensed some songs from Marmoset actually, with Portland-based musicians so that felt nice. We got one big production project in LA that shot rightttt before shit really went down, but even then it was feeling weird being on a set with 50 people in confined areas. I did a bid on a project last week and it just seems so likely this shit will just keep pushing out. I've been trying to buy / support many of my friends who are making things, who are operating take-out scenes in restaurants, or simply by funding mutual aid projects, and I think things in general are just going to have to be micro/local economy-based for a bit. Which is nice in many ways, and real shitty for many others.

have we met IRL?

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Mon Apr 06, 2020 2:01 pm

ABE, do you work in the synth store on Mississippi in the condos? I loved snooping in there after work or on a leisurely weekend. The staff was always very accommodating and kind.

01001010 01010101 01000100 01000001 01001000 · Mon Apr 06, 2020 3:02 pm

@morgan I'm not sure we've met! PM'd ya

Abe · Post by **Abe** » Mon Apr 06, 2020 3:08 pm

RCH wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 2:01 pm ABE, do you work in the synth store on Mississippi in the condos? I loved snooping in there after work or on a leisurely weekend. The staff was always very accommodating and kind.

No. I run aisynthesis.com (AI are my initials). I've been working from home exclusively since I quit my day job in February last year. I also like Control Voltage though.

GARY-19 · Post by **GARY-19** » Sat Apr 11, 2020 2:16 pm

No I'm texting

Post by **joni** » Sat Apr 11, 2020 5:29 pm

Made this:

https://youtu.be/KALGCE1AphU

Shout out to @richjensen for putting the original version of this song in 1996 on his wonderful Up Records.

Some UHX’ers might remember this song from our 2001 (pre-UHX) mixtape club S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

It was a fun club because we would meet in off-limits places at weird hours to exchange tapes that we made together for each other, one song at a time.

Phil · Post by **Phil** » Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:21 pm

Land Of The Loops! That was a big record for me. Up was a fine fine label. My first 7” was on Up.

Post by **joni** » Sat Apr 11, 2020 8:11 pm

Phil wrote: ↑Sat Apr 11, 2020 6:21 pm Land Of The Loops! That was a big record for me. Up was a fine fine label. My first 7” was on Up.

Oh yeah! Another connection: my brother dated Dale from Juned (and then Candy 500) for a while. She was great and showed us the movie Bottle Rocket in 1996.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:13 am

God S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was so, so silly and amazing. I haven't thought of it in years!!! Does anyone still have their tape? I'm sure I would never have thrown my out but now that I am thinking of it I can't remember the last time I saw it.

I love the 90s music video you made

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Sun Apr 12, 2020 6:54 am

Loving the end of days happy scooter vibe! What does S.P.E.C.T.R.E. stand for?

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Sun Apr 12, 2020 10:24 am

I forget what it stood for. Jona do you remember?? We obviously started with the acronym and worked backwards, so it probably doesn't stand for anything coherent. But it was this mixtape sharing group where we each put a song on a blank tape and then passed that tape to another person who put their song on it, etc. etc., until you got your original tape back with all these songs on it from all these other people. BUT crucially instead of simply passing the tape around we developed these increasingly elaborate meet-ups to exchange the tapes. We'd make riddles and maps and stuff you had to solve before you could find the meetup place. The only one I remember was we had to meet in a certain section of "fiction" at Powells at a very specific time, and we all showed up exactly on time, exchanged tapes, and left immediately, without anyone saying a single word. It was very silly. I remember thinking my tape was really good when I got it back but I can't remember anything that was on it.

Post by **joni** » Sun Apr 12, 2020 6:08 pm

I don't remember! Mike doesn't either... let's try to guess:

Society for People's Electromagnetic Concert Tapes and Really Everything

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Sun Apr 12, 2020 9:03 pm

This is funny because I had a mixtape trading club in high school called LAME MC, which stood for "Listeners Against Musical Exploitation Mixtape Club"

kenbaumann · Post by **kenbaumann** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 7:46 am

This has been a strangely soothing thread to read. Thanks for sharing all these situations.

Hi y'all.

My wife and I have our jobs. I dayjob as an academic advisor and writing coach (essentially) for a cool college called St. John's; my wife works as a project manager for a local construction company. We're both working from home. My job gives us health benefits, which I desperately need all the time since I have a chronic illness and take a pricey medication to deal with it.

I don't mind working from home that much at all, and neither does Aviva. We're social creatures and miss seeing people, but it's been good to be around good food all day, have access to a sunny yard, and not feel weird, watched, or bad for goofing off/stealing time now and then.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:38 am

Welcome Ken!

matthew · Post by **matthew** » Mon May 04, 2020 10:08 pm

My work (e*sy dot com) extended office closure until (at least) Sept 1 and I miss all my pals but super chill to have work!

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Tue May 05, 2020 4:36 am

My semester ended on Wednesday, more of a whimper than a bang, it just kind of petered out. This has been a real shit show to be honest. My "grades" are due in a week. After that I'm on summer vacation. So now I'm in that weird time of year where "are you working right now" is a weird question even under normal circumstances and now it's even weirder. What should I be working on? Figuring out online pedagogy for the ambiguous future? "Writing a book?" For who? Why?

The first thing I have done is order a bunch of books about medieval European monastic life. Will report back

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Tue May 05, 2020 5:36 am

GUess what? I am literally teaching AT THIS MOMENT. It's fine. They're writing to their little penpals.
Re grades: UGH. The worst. I had to turn some in in March and it was like, do we really have to pretend that life is just continuing? As USUAL?? My semester doesn't end until THE FIRST WEEK OF JULY. Pray for me.

ritchey · Post by **ritchey** » Tue May 05, 2020 6:07 am

I am praying!

I don't want to get in trouble but lets just say my grading philosophy is going to be......somewhat different this semester than it usually is

m o l l y · Post by **m o l l y** » Tue May 05, 2020 6:14 am

Tell me about it...

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Tue May 05, 2020 8:56 am

Has anyone successfully filed for unemployment? Jona and I both did it this week. Even though it’s now open to freelancers and self-employed folks the system is really not set up for us, and there were so many places where the boxes to tick and the drop-down menus to select just simply did not apply to us in any way! I felt like a fraud

Evan.V.N.S.J. · Post by **Evan.V.N.S.J.** » Tue May 05, 2020 9:20 am

I'm also in the "teaching online" zone right now. We had to do our last few weeks of the regular semester online, and they mercifully decided to grade everyone on a credit/no credit basis so there were not too many difficult decisions to make about that.

But we just started the Spring term, which up here is this 6 week long condensed schedule thing and more like what a Summer term is in most places. We are supposed to grade it normally now, but the whole thing is still going to be online, plus because of uh politics and budget stuff I have twice as many students this term as I did last year for the same class. It kind of sucks! But I'm grateful to be employed and to, I guess, have a job that still exists in some capacity. I probably won't for very long! But this has more to do with the aforementioned budget stuff than it does the virus.

I'm mostly just bummed because the Spring term is usually the time where I can relax a bit and actually get to know my students--the term is shorter but (in the past) the class size is smaller--and like walk around on the pretty campus full of green trees and plants and stuff. It's the only time of the year that actually has that "college" vibe you learn about in the movies or whatever. Instead I'm just alternating between sitting at my desk in sweatpants writing emails, and sitting at my desk in 'work clothes' awkwardly talking to a sea of squares on Zoom. Not a fan.

meadows · Post by **meadows** » Tue May 05, 2020 9:27 am

I'm wrapping up teaching and am honestly pulverized by this semester. Transferring a studio-based class to remote learning was a major struggle and didn't actually work at all, ha ha ha!
My students were stressed and disengaged. I'm suuuuuper behind on grading and the thought of doing it makes me wanna scream.
The "work" of summer sounds great right now- I'd much rather struggle with my own work or stress or quar-induced listlessness without having to worry about 15 other people at the same time. I've got some research to work on, I've got some materials for making stuff, and I have a show I'm working towards, and maybe that stuff will get done or maybe I'll just watch my plants grow!

GARY-19 · Post by **GARY-19** » Tue May 05, 2020 12:09 pm

yourfriendclaire wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2020 8:56 am Has anyone successfully filed for unemployment? Jona and I both did it this week. Even though it’s now open to freelancers and self-employed folks the system is really not set up for us, and there were so many places where the boxes to tick and the drop-down menus to select just simply did not apply to us in any way! I felt like a fraud

I succeeded! First deposit came in last week. I know I should feel like a fraud but I frankly love tapping into the Big State money drip. AND, what's more, I'm one of the many making more $$$ on unemployment than I do at my job.

I find it very funny that our elected representatives are so blind to the actual material conditions of life in the U.S.A. that they gave us a little too much money. I guess we owe them big time now.

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Tue May 05, 2020 2:07 pm

My mom has still not been able to apply for unemployment in Michigan—the website and technical support systems are broken. I am dependent on her and we are living on the one stimulant money.

Update 5/6 she got it!!!

RCH · Post by **RCH** » Tue May 05, 2020 2:14 pm

Fwiw, I don't think anyone should feel like a fraud receiving government benefits! They need to pile on way more money for everyone instead of being stingy selfish Protestants about every little damn thing.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Wed May 06, 2020 2:23 pm

I think I succeeded? Because I am extremely lightly employed by a local art college as a thesis advisor (maybe a 12-hour commitment per semester, paid as an adjunct) the government seems to think I have a job and has decreed I shall receive $48 a week in benefits. Cool

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Sun May 24, 2020 1:03 pm

Hi all sorry I have been gone. I started working on a new tv show, producing celebrities remotely from zoom. It is... a horrific way to make television.

yourfriendclaire · Post by **yourfriendclaire** » Sun May 24, 2020 1:08 pm

I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING (names redacted). I’ve been so curious to know how these larger production-value remote Zooms (like SNL and the nightly news) get done. Are there interns in masks setting up ring lights in cast members’ homes? They just buying wigs on Amazon?

morgan · Post by **morgan** » Sun May 24, 2020 1:16 pm

yourfriendclaire wrote: ↑Sun May 24, 2020 1:08 pm I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING (names redacted). I’ve been so curious to know how these larger production-value remote Zooms (like SNL and the nightly news) get done. Are there interns in masks setting up ring lights in cast members’ homes? They just buying wigs on Amazon?

I have a few friends working on similar shows and long story short they are all complete nightmares. Generally speaking, if you give me some huge celeb and say— here's their schedule, they'll be on set from x to x, it's still a complicated and ridiculous process dealing with these people. Now we're paying famous children to basically shoot, direct, and produce themselves from the comfort of their own homes. They're pushing call times by literal HOURS, ignoring emails, not responding to things, etc. If we ask them to do something they don't want they can just ignore the zoom or turn us off and producers are expected, by network, to still wrangle and produce the celeb. It's so hard. It's not my set so it's very frustrating to be asked to treat it like it is. The network side of things is in a lot of ways more ridiculous. On top of that there are constant new creative mandates like "People are sick of looking at Zoom screens!". For my show we've sent groups of celebs three iPhone 11's with tons of gadgets and tripods and lights, etc. It's such a headache. I've been told things like SNL are easier, because the cast actually sort of wants to be there, and there's an assumption that sketch/improv comedians are used to filming themselves and run-and-gunning it. For everyone else— it's borderline impossible. I am probably going to quit, tbh. It'll be my first time bailing on a show. Feels bad! Also— between us, I just sold a movie pitch to WB so I'm kind of like GOOOOOOODBYEEEEEE