Hollywood North is, of course, A Cruel Ilusion

The local press loves to wax rhapsodic about all the great successes of the local movie industry.

But no one that I know has gotten below the shimmering surface of this nonsense.

It is difficult to get excited by Brightlight's announcement that they made $100 Million on one of their recent, desperately bad projects.

Yes, millions of dollars flow into the local economy and that's a good thing.

Thousands of truck drivers, caterers, cab drivers, costumers find work.

But let me tell you the truth about Vancouver actors.

The best of the best are starving.

Most Vancouver film and television actors, even those with long and exemplary resumes in the Biz, get little work. And the work they do find is tragically underpaid.

Brightlight and other local companies have been paying actors 25% below scale and getting away with it for years. "Small budget," is what they'll cry in their notes to agents and actors.

And, if longshoremen and city garbage collectors had a union like the one that pretends to take care of local actors, they'd all do a Jimmy Hoffa right soon.

I know of at least half a dozen actors who have said, "Thanks, folks, that's all." Most have moved on to completely different careers where they are, oddly enough, well paid and treated like human beings and not necessary evils.

The next time you read about Hollywood North, just remember that reading either a press release or a Valentine from a newspaper writer who is just blindly sick with love for Show Biz.

The poor sap.