Over my 30 years of chronicling the local industry ? beginning Jan. 29, 1979 – our reporting in the Original Screen and continuing in ReelChicago, I have covered the good, the bad, the bizarre and the ugly sides of Chicago production business.
For the most part, the news we reported reflected the rich, invigorating times of generally prosperous business. That also left an opening for those who saw opportunities and often aggressively pursued them.
Here are some of the more memorable stories of the time.
Instead of paying his suppliers, a young, aggressively self-promoting white-suited director used that money to support his lifestyle, which included a white Porsche and an apartment at Lake Point Tower.
A production company owner, upon seeing a sneaky debtor on the street, jumped out of his car and decked him.
Accounting department embezzlement was not uncommon. Crooked bookkeepers created such financial havoc that they caused the involuntary closing of a thriving music house, a woman-run production company and an early post house where one of the partners used company funds to pay gambling debts.
Chicago’s longest-running talent agency was nearly destroyed by its bookkeeper who had been a trusted family friend. Her crime was brought to light by the actors she routinely stole from.
When a company broke up or partners split, a letter was the means of communication. Such was the case when Partner A in one of the most successful music companies in the business sent his partner of many years a “Dear John” letter.
A letter also informed an unsuspecting talent agency owner that several key staffers who left on a Friday were opening their own agency on a Monday.
Planning to open your own company with some of your present employers’ clients and employees took clever maneuvering. A trusted veteran staff told their boss they was going to take time off for personal reasons and two months later opened a full-blown rival operation.
A trio of big agency creatives had a more precise exit strategy. At precisely 3 p.m. on a Friday, they rose from whatever they were doing ? editing, recording, working at their desk – and left their jobs. They also informed their boss by letter. And no surprise, a few weeks later a major piece of business followed.
The newly-formed agency hired a hot shot financial guy to take them public, and a few years later, the now-wealthy owners closed shop.
For its Illinois Tourism client, a big agency hired the L.A. son of an A-list director for a $1 million package. When the story appeared, the agency protested up that it had legitimately used a local production company and it had hired the director and his crew as freelancers.
Nobody bought that, as the “local production company,” basically a payroll service, was well-known for fronting out-of-town production companies and agencies that shot commercials in Chicago and wanted to avoid this deception.
Recently, the Lottery went for a similar dipsy-doodle where the vendor was an Illinois-based company owned by a sales rep, which hired the rep’s director and other key creatives for the $500,000 job.
The last big story of 2008 was closing of one of the last big post houses. The now-bankrupt owner denied the company was out of business, despite the fact the facility was locked and deserted. As proof of the closing, I said the phones had been on busy for two days.
That was the phone company’s fault, he said, because the “new investors” hadn’t gotten around to transferring the phone service to the “new company.”
