Randy Strobl: Welcome to Alumni Live: the Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University Film & Video

graduates about the industry, the Film/Video major and alumni profiles.

Katie Dehn: Hello and welcome to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

My name is Katie Dehn and I'm your host today.

I am a 2006 GVSU film graduate, and I am joined today by a

2007 graduate Jil Szewski.

Jil's worked on several projects in film and television, including

"Bel-Air", "How to Get Away with Murder" and "Whose Line is it Anyway".

She'll also host the Blue Revised Podcast where she talks to

professionals in the film and television industry about how they

got their start and how they got work.

Blue Revised provides resume, cover letter, and interview consulting

specifically for the motion picture and television industry.

You can check out blue revised blue revise.com, and you can

also find Jil Szewski at IMDb.

We will have links to those both in our show notes.

Now, today is a very sensitive topic yet necessary to cover for those

that desire to work and thrive in the film and television industry,

that topic is sexual harassment.

Thank you for joining us, Jil.

Jil Szewski: Thanks for having me.

Katie Dehn: Absolutely.

So Jil I mean, we'll just dive right in why don't you share with us some

experiences you've had on sets.

Jil Szewski: Okay.

so full disclosure here, I'm not an attorney, nor do I

work in human resources.

I am a film and television professional with experience working for different

studios, different networks.

I'm also a member of IATSE which is the International Alliance of Theatrical

Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists, and Allied Craft.

And IATSE members are required to take harassment prevention training

separate from the individual studio and network training.

Like you said, Katie, I do feel since the Me Too movement there has been,

more acknowledgement to harassment and discrimination on set, and I do

notice that studios and networks are taking strides to help prevent that.

I've noticed more and more harassment prevention training,

when I'm working on shows.

It usually happens at the beginning of every project or every movie.

So when you start a project, no matter what the network is or the

studio, every studio network has a harassment prevention system in place.

Mostly now it's all on Zoom and these are mandatory trainings.

You have a legal rep who works for the studio or the network available

and they go through different types of harassment, what to look for, and

they go through the producer policy and procedures on how to report the behavior.

Even if you're just a witness to it, there's ways to report it.

It doesn't have to necessarily happen to you.

But if you witness something that is harassment or discrimination,

there are steps to take to report it.

Katie Dehn: And what are some of those sexual harassment things that you've

witnessed or that people on set should keep an eye out for, especially if

they would like to help and report.

Jil Szewski: Any sort of unwelcome, physical, touching, unwelcome comments

regarding appearance, physical appearance, in a sexual nature.

You can also look out for any sort of discrimination on race,

gender identity, religious background, any of those situations.

The legal team for the studios and networks kinda walk you

through what to look out for.

And then, if you're in a supervisor role, meaning if you oversee other

crew members, there's additional training for department heads

Katie Dehn: That's great that they're taking it more seriously and

making sure there's extra training.

And, , since you have been in those supervisor roles, have you had to

report or experienced a situation where you had report for someone

else or get a report from somebody?

Jil Szewski: Sure.

So there's no official way to report harassment.

You don't go to your supervisor and be like, I would like to make a

claim, or I would like to report this.

I want this to go on record.

Anytime someone's feeling uncomfortable with a situation that's happened

to them or that they've witnessed, if they come to a department head,

it's up to the department head or their supervisor to then follow the

steps to report it properly so human resources is aware of the situation.

Even if, they ask you not to say anything, if you're in a position of a supervisor

or department head, you are obligated by the company to then report it.

Katie Dehn: Well, that's good to know.

If you know, if you are new onset and you're talking it through that they

can't necessarily keep secrets for you if you're talking to a supervisor.

Jil Szewski: Right, because if you're a supervisor and you don't report something

that was told to you, that prevents the furtherance of that situation.

It could keep going.

It could snowball into something worse It could happen to other people.

You wanna protect people that are involved.

So it feels weird.

It feels like you're kind of tattling on someone, but it's the right thing

to do, even if you personally feel it's not anything offensive to you.

It's offensive to somebody else.

You still report it.

You're not supposed to be the filter for that type of behavior.

As a supervisor, you're supposed to report.

Katie Dehn: But beyond reporting, there's also the idea of documentation, of keeping

record of these situations happening in case you do need to bring it forward.

What kinda documentations should people keep in mind when they

are in those types of situations?

Jil Szewski: So by documenting the situation, I don't mean like record it

with your phone jot notes to yourself.

If you overhear something or something is said to you and you're like, Huh,

I feel like that was harassment or discrimination, jot it to yourself.

Notes in your phone.

Make sure to indicate the date where you were.

Who said it to you?

What was said, who was in the area of when this communication

or physical touching happened?

And just keep a list for yourself.

You can send an email to a friend who's not on the show.

That way there's documentation out there.

And even if there's harassment or discrimination happening via email

or text message, if you're receiving unwanted messages, screen grab those

on your phone, screen grab them on your computer, save them somewhere.

Make sure when you do screen grab it, it's very clear who the

communication is coming from.

And, include the dates if you can timestamp it or include the time

in the message and then send it to a friend, save it somewhere safe.

Sometimes we're given computers to use that belong to the studio.

If you're not comfortable with saving it to your network computer,

just save it to an email address that's not attached to the project.

That way it's somewhere else.

So if you need to access it, it's saved somewhere.

Katie Dehn: Gotcha.

Let's walk through how you report harassment.

So it looks like one of your first steps is to tell your direct supervisor

Jil Szewski: mm-hmm.

Katie Dehn: And then, speaking to a unit production manager or a

production supervisor, or you could go directly to HR if that's available.

Jil Szewski: Yeah.

So there's three different options and the networks and studios

all have very similar steps.

If you're not a department head, and you're not comfortable going to a

unit production manager or production supervisor, or if the issue is with

one of those individuals, you can go directly to your supervisor.

And then your supervisor has to follow the steps to report.

I, in my opinion, I suggest going directly to human resources.

If you're not okay with going to your direct supervisor or unit production

manager or production supervisor, this gives you a direct communication.

So you establish a direct line of communication.

What's gonna happen?

So say you call Human resources and you report harassment and discrimination,

what they're gonna do is they're gonna launch an investigation, and

the investigation is they're gonna gather as much information from you.

And if you have evidence where you took notes of instances, screen grabbed

inappropriate text messages or email, you can send those directly to HR

and then they will investigate the situation and you remain anonymous.

So if it's an issue with someone within your department, they

interview other people in the depart.

And then they go to that person and they don't say, Oh, well we got a

complaint from HR from so and so in your department, they don't do that at all.

So they investigate it, depending on the situation.

It takes a little bit of time and you're expected to just keep working while they

investigate, and then they, call you back.

Information like, Hey, we conducted our investigation.

The behavior should be better at this point.

If not, please give us a call or if you feel like you're being retaliated against.

So when they open an investigation, they talk to people who are in the room.

If you include that in your notes.

They talk to other higher ups , production supervisors and production managers.

You're still anonymous just to get more information regarding the situation.

And then they will make a determination with the company policies whether

this person, can continue to work if they agree to change their behavior,

or if the offense was so severe that they need to leave the project.

Katie Dehn: So staying anonymous seems to help with the idea that there's a

lot of fear surrounding reporting, but I think that fear still is out there.

There's, you know, always the threat of losing your job if you complain.

Is this something studios are addressing by keeping you anonymous

or is there other things that you're doing to protect people who report?

Jil Szewski: So say you're reporting on behalf of somebody else, you do

have to tell human resources who did come to you and their position.

And you have to remember, human resources, they're not with us in

the production offices or on set.

They are based somewhere else.

So they're kind of doing a little bit of forensics, figuring out what your

position is and who you report to, and the dynamic within the departments, how

many people and what do these people do.

But, if someone's coming to me, somebody who works for me, I do

have to disclose that to human resources, who that person is.

Katie Dehn: Now, do you feel comfortable sharing any of your personal experiences?

Obviously leaving names off of it, but anything you'd like to

share that you learned from?

Jil Szewski: Sure.

It's difficult because you're just trying to, you know, works hard

enough and then when you get in there with people who are even hostile or

inappropriate in a sexual way, or they're discriminating against different

people, it's, Hey, we just wanna, you know, we just wanna make a show.

We just wanna make a movie.

And it's that kind of dread where you're like, oh my gosh, you feel like

you have to tattle on another adult and, it's not a good feeling, but it's

your job because if you don't report it, this behavior's gonna continue.

Right.

And, I've been, you know, I've worked with so many different people and people

have so many different viewpoints.

They come from different times.

And it's, like if you know them well enough, sometimes you can be like, Hey,

maybe we shouldn't say that anymore.

You know?

Come on, it's 2022.

Let's not say that.

But yes, there have, there have unfortunately instances where I see

something or something is said to me.

And, I have to, report it whether if it's, inappropriate touching,

like seeing somebody, touch an female art PA on the backside or

something like that in an open office.

And it's a work relationship.

It's not anything more than that.

You feel this dread when you have to report something, but

you're doing the right thing.

Katie Dehn: And you've been in the industry for a little while now.

Have you seen improvement through the years then has your experience changed?

Jil Szewski: Definitely.

So when I first started, we didn't have mandatory HR meetings.

And as the year's gone on, and with the help of the Me Too movement, there's

mandatory meetings on every show.

And, then, as a member of IATSE, you have separate mandatory training, which

works as almost like an insurance policy.

So if you're hiring an IATSE member, this member has been through

harassment prevention training.

And I, think there's more awareness.

There's more acknowledgement on the behalf of studios of this behavior.

However, it still does happen and you just have to know how to report it.

I wanted to mention as well, on your crew list, which is your paperwork for

everybody that's working on the show, it will have information regard for the

network and the studio, and there will be a human resource rep listed on that.

So you're not quite sure who to call.

Get your crew list.

I think they even, put it on the call sheets now, which is your daily

schedule for what you're filming.

HR departments are listed on there as well as safety hotlines.

So if you see anything unsafe, you can call the safety hotline

listed on the call sheet.

I just wanted to bring up that, remember, These human resource

departments, they work for the studios.

They work for the networks.

So, they are there to protect the company.

Yes, they can help with preventing behaviors, but It doesn't stop there.

If you like the situation wasn't handled properly.

You are allowed to seek outside counsel.

The network just has their HR department in place so they don't get sued for

having an inappropriate crew member or providing a hostile work environment.

They put all these systems in place to help prevent that.

But unfortunately, sometimes it still happens.

But yet you can always keep that documentation to share with a labor

attorney, a lawyer, if you feel like this situation wasn't resolved properly.

Katie Dehn: That's a really great point.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that.

Now, we do talk about allies at times too because there are men on set, who

have their own role in all of this.

And do you have any suggestions for young men coming up how they

can create an environment that is safer for all people to work in?

I guess my point is, it's not just a female issue.

and it's not just females that are gonna correct this issue.

Jil Szewski: Right.

Katie Dehn: It needs to be everyone coming into the industry as a team to

make this a better industry to work in.

Jil Szewski: That's a, Yeah, that's a really good point.

I would say, I think for men, especially if they're a department head overseeing

crew members and there's, some crafts out there that are male dominated departments.

For example, grip and electric departments.

I see a lot of men in those departments.

And, I would say for those department heads, the key grip and the gaffer

or the chief lighting technician, if you hear your crew saying something

about, a production assistant walking by or hair makeup team pull

them aside and, make sure it stops right there and it doesn't continue.

Katie Dehn: So, when you're on set and you have a sexual harassment issue, you

don't necessarily wanna gossip about it.

So who should you talk to?

Who should you not talk to?

You wanna keep it professional, right?

Jil Szewski: Right.

Yeah, you don't wanna create gossip rumors, that's only

gonna make the situation worse.

So depending on your position on set, say you're a production assistant, I would go

directly to my second assistant director or if you're not comfortable with that,

you can go directly to the unit production manager or the production supervisor.

Cause sometimes we do have an individual might have an issue

with their direct supervisor.

In this situation, if you're a set PA, your direct supervisor

is the second assistant director.

If you have an issue, you can go to somebody else in a higher position, or

if you're feeling comfortable, you can call human resources or email them.

sometimes it's easier and less stressful.

Type the situation out and send it via email and get somebody on the phone.

Katie Dehn: Is there a similar system set up for independent sets who don't

necessarily have a studio vacuum directly?

Jil Szewski: With independent films or non-union sets, there is a production

company, an entity for the production.

So you can check with the production company regarding their policies and

procedures regarding reporting harassment.

That company that's overseeing the production, they might have a third

party human resources department, and that information should be

available to all the crew members.

Katie Dehn: That's really interesting.

So another topic that comes up a lot is the emotional barriers to reporting.

you're scared or you're afraid of you're gonna lose your job.

Do you have any insight on that?

Jil Szewski: Sure.

When you witnessed something, whether it's sexual harassment,

harassment, discrimination.

You have to process it, and then you have to take action

and it's so difficult to do.

It's this dread that comes with what you just experienced.

Was it really that bad?

Should I say something?

Am I gonna ruin this person's life?

Am I gonna ruin this person's career?

Are they gonna know it's me who reported it?

you go through all these different emotions about it and then say you put

it off and then it happens again, and you're like, shoot, I should've said

something when initially happened.

So, yeah, it's, it's hard to get to that place to reporting it.

I have a friend who was working on set and one of her supervisors

said something to her, and because she is in work mode, right?

Things kind of just go over her head.

She called me and she's Hey, is this, is this harassment ? You know?

Cause sometimes you're like, whoa, that comment really irked me, but I

don't know why cause I'm in work mode.

We talked about it.

Yes.

It was an in inappropriate comment made against her disability.

So I had to kind of like help her like, this is what you're gonna do.

You're gonna call the HR department or you're going to email them

and like what studio is it?

What network is it?

I'll help you find the email addresses and the contact

information cause she's on set.

It's this huge process and I would recommend not talking to anyone

directly in your department about it.

I would phone a friend, and it took her a couple days to, actually

make the move to call or to email.

Because it's still processing, and you're like, am I rude?

Was it really that bad?

Or like, maybe I can't take a joke or am I going to hurt this

person's career by reporting it?

Katie Dehn: Which is another good reason to take notes because I don't

remember what I wore two days ago.

You know what the exact phrasing that was used.

Yeah.

So even if you're not sure you're gonna report it, it is good to

take those notes for own memory.

Jil Szewski: And we are protected under federal law against retaliation.

Even if you do report inappropriate behavior, it's illegal for that

person to retaliate in any way.

Katie Dehn: That is really good to know.

Now Jill, this is not just a female issue, this is an all people, all

gender issue, non-binary, men, women.

Is there any experience you've had where other genders have dealt

with sexual harassment as well?

Jil Szewski: Yes.

I actually, I've worked with two.

Individuals.

One was inappropriately touched by a female cast member.

And then, on a separate show, I had a coworker approach me about inappropriate

comments made towards his physical appearance by a female department head.

And, our non-binary friends too experience this as well.

The studios are taking a lot of steps, but unfortunately it's still happening.

Katie Dehn: What last piece of advice do you have for these new students

that will be graduating soon and hopefully will be on a set and, starting

to live out their dream careers?

Jil Szewski: Sorry to be a bummer about the podcast and it's not

everybody's favorite subject about Hollywood, but it is important.

I really wish that I knew about these steps prior to me starting in the

industry, because I feel like that would've solved a lot of problems for me.

Cause a lot of things I saw and things that happened to me, I just kind of

like put my hands up and I'm like, Oh, okay, well this is how it is.

It's not how it is.

Everybody is entitled to a safe and healthy work environment.

So, I would say on the projects you're starting now, get in the mindset

of creating what a healthy work environment looks to you and making

everyone feel comfortable on set.

And if somebody says something or do something, especially on a

student project, pull them aside and say, hey, let's not do that.

Cause sometimes people don't know what they're doing, or they didn't intend

to make this person uncomfortable.

Yeah, I would say get in the mindset of creating healthy work environments

on your student projects now.

So when you get to your dream set or your dream production office, you know what

a healthy work environment looks like.

Katie Dehn: You can take some of what Jill has said too, as far as reporting goes.

If you have an issue on campus as a student, reporting to your faculty

member, and they can kind of take it up the ladder that way as well.

So you do have support on Grand Valley's campus as well.

Thank you so much, Jil, for sharing with us all your experience and the

things you wish you would've known before you started your career.

I think this will be so helpful for those that are about to enter the

industry or just started, to be better prepared and feel comfortable with

the procedures that are out there and that, I love that idea of starting the

healthy set mindset now as a student.

So with that, Jil, I just wanna, again, thank you so much for joining

us from Memphis, and I look forward to the next project you're working on.

Jil Szewski: Thank you so much for having me.

This is great.

Randy Strobl: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Alumni Live: the Podcast.

Subscribe to our podcast to hear more from our alumni across the industry.

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Thank you for listening.