Chip In To Fly This Over Hollywood
PAY THE WRITERS, YOU AI-HOLES!
If you’re only here because of the Strike Support Plane, welcome! I also write a semi-regular (1-2x month max) newsletter about art, design, pop culture, politics and more called Jacob All Trades. If you’re interested, you can subscribe below!
UPDATE 5/13/23 — The 2.5 hr flight has been booked for $1862.50 and today we rapidly closed an additional $373 to keep the pilot for an additional 30 mins. This means we’ll get to do a few more loops around each studio during the three-hour total flight.
As soon as we hit that goal, I removed my Venmo info from posts but people kept donating, so $232.97 has been donated to The Entertainment Community Fund.
I was also able to send this lovely e-Card to the AMPTP to let them know of our heartfelt gift:
In addition to WGA members, donations came from members of IATSE Locals 44, 600, 700, 705, 728, 800, 871, 892, SAG/AFTRA, The Animation Guild, DGA, AFL-CIO, United Domestic Workers, California Teachers Association, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, AIGA, Association for Independence in Radio, ACLU, NAACP, as well as talent agents, managers, and movie and tv fans all over the country.
This action has not been formally endorsed by any of these organizations — I’ve just been asking people who donated what affiliations they personally have.
Media outlets are making plans to cover the action on Monday. I’ll post links when I have any. If you take photos, please tag them #AIholes so I can find them on social.
I’m going to be at Paramount during the fly-by if you’d like to join me.
UPDATE 5/11/23 — We’re now at $1709.47. The total cost is going to be $1862.50 but I feel confident we’ll close that gap. If you’re reading this and haven’t thrown in a dollar, please consider doing so!
In addition to WGA members, donations came from members of IATSE Locals 44, 600, 700, 705, 728, 871, 892, SAG/AFTRA, The Animation Guild, DGA, United Domestic Workers, California Teachers Association, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, as well as talent agents, managers, and movie and tv fans all over the country.
Target Date: Monday, May 22nd, 2023
Target start time: 12PM PST - TBD
Target sites: 5 mins at each location and extra time, up to 8-10 mins, at these 3 locations with **
The Culver Studios / 9336 Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232 / Amazon Studios, 9300 Culver Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232
Sony Pictures Studios / 10202 W Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA 90232
Fox Studio Lot / 10201 Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064
CBS Radford / 4024 Radford Ave, Studio City, CA 91604
Universal Studios** / 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, CA 91608
Warner Bros** / 4000 Warner Blvd, Burbank, CA 91522
Netflix** / 5808 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Paramount / 5555 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90038
CBS Television City / 7800 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036
Very excited. Should there be a hashtag? In lieu of anything better, maybe tag your photos #AIHOLES. But if someone’s got a better idea, leave it in the comments.
UPDATE 5/10/23 — We’re at $1689.47 between 94 people donated - making the average donation $17.97. Most donations were $5-20.
Someone donated $7.47 which is a type of plane and also the reason for the very unround number.
I’ve also been told by the flight company that the area above Disney Studios is protected airspace and they can’t fly within 3 miles of it. I assume this is to protect Walt’s cryogenically frozen head.
UPDATE 5/9/23 – That escalated quickly! Nearly 48 hrs after posting this we hit $1500 right as I got an updated quote from the sky banner company that was a bit lower than I expected. They may need to update based on time in the air, wind, number of locations, etc. but this is happening.
Here’s an update from the moment I realized it was going to happen:
Donations have come in from all over the country, from WGA, DGA, SAG, TAG, IATSE, and even non-entertainment unions (shout out to teachers!) who are standing in solidarity. The smallest donation was $1 and the highest donation was $100. The average donation is in the $5-20 range.
I’m putting together an itinerary for the pilot now and working to figure out what day and time this is going to happen. I’ve put a notice on my Instagram that we’ve hit the goal but donations keep coming in. SO, I’ll see how much I can extend the flight time over each studio, and any extra money that comes in will be donated to the Entertainment Community Fund.
Currently, the itinerary is:
Amazon
Sony Pictures
Fox
CBS Radford
Universal
Warner Bros
Waystar
Netflix
Paramount
CBS Television City
Date and time TBD.
ORIGINAL POST 5/8/23: I am raising small donations to fly this message over the major movie and tv studios in Los Angeles:
It’s $850 minimum, which covers take-off, landing, and about one studio. But, for $2k we can fly over all the major studios in Los Angeles. This started as a silly idea on Saturday evening in my Instagram stories and has quickly blossomed into actually getting quotes from pilots and collecting donations.
If you’d like to chip in, [edited! 3:47pm PT 5/13 This was my Venmo link but we have hit the goal so I removed it . I’m on a long car trip right now on mobile but will update this more cleanly soon] with the subject “sky banner” or anything that makes it pretty clear the money is for this.
My regular newsletter will resume this weekend.
Jacob, you madman, this is fucking hilarious.
Hey where's the photo! I trust you I just want to see it!🙏🏽
IATSE 700💪🏽 ... but I'd really rather be WGA !