Working as an actor/extra in Hawaii while collecting unemployment may cause you to loose your unemployment benefits.

      Working in the film industry in Hawaii while collecting unemployment benefits may be more hassle than it's worth. Naturally all film industry jobs are most always temporary. A production company will give a production a budget, they hire the staff needed to produce the movie or show and then proceed with shooting. When the budget is done everyone that was working for that production is now unemployed. Some people just go to another job and some won't have that option. The ones that don't have the privilege of getting hired immediately on another production will just have to wait until another production starts hiring. In Hawaii that could be months and sometimes years. This is true not only for actors but for most film industry positions. With no income sometimes the only option is to collect unemployment and hopefully you have worked long enough on the previous production to have contributed enough funds into the unemployment system to be able to survive.

Now here is where the problem starts. Once you fill out the mounds of paperwork at the unemployment office and jump through their many hoops in order to collect your money that you contributed, you are now able to survive till the next production comes. Now, when the next production comes, they may only be here for one week or two. Here is a scenario of what may happen to you if you choose to work on that production. If you are collecting $350 a week in unemployment benefits, you will receive a check lumped into two week increments. Every two weeks you will receive an unemployment check of about $700. Now, the new production want's to hire you to do extra work. Generally extras will make about $85-$100 a day and typically may only work two days the entire time they are here. Now after taxes you will bring home in the ball park of $130-$150 just for that week. The production finish filming and now they take off to another location in the mainland or maybe they are done with the production completely. Usually every two weeks preferably on Sunday you will call in for your unemployment benefits for that two week period. When you call in, the system will ask you if you worked a job during that period. You will then say yes and the system will prompt you to enter an amount that you earned. Keep in mind that after working on that production you still have not received payment because the payroll for most productions is done through a payroll company on the mainland and takes about two weeks for you to get paid. At this point you will have to guess how much you made during the two days you worked. Now that's when the whole unemployment system crash. Once the unemployment office learn that you have actually worked, normal procedure for them is to send forms to the payroll company for them to fill out in order to validate your employment with them. Now keep in mind that payroll processing for extras on most film productions are done in California or New York and the paperwork is sent snail mail. The forms they will fill out will ask such questions like; How long was this employee with your company? Was this employee fired? Why was this employee let go? Would you rehire this employee?  Etc..

Here is the entire process in a nutshell;

Unemployment office send the forms to payroll company, payroll company fills out paperwork and send back to unemployment office here in Hawaii, unemployment office process paperwork to your file and determine if you are eligible for continued benefits and how much they should deduct from your unemployment check. This process typically takes about three weeks or more. In the mean time you will not receive unemployment benefits until the entire process is done. So let me be clear, by working as an extra for two days earning about $120-$150 for the week will hold up your unemployment benefits of about $1050 and cause you to have NO income for about 3 weeks or more. All this for working a temporary job that was meant to be temporary from the beginning. Is it really worth it to work as an extra on a film production while collecting unemployment. My answer would be NO, what do you think?

If you're an principle actor on a TV show or movie, you will have to go through the same process and will possibly loose your benefits entirely because of the amount you earned. However on a TV show you will typically get an residual check every time the show airs on television (depending on contract). Now, if you are collecting unemployment when you receive your residual check you also must report that to the unemployment office but that process is handled differently. Once you report your residual payment to the unemployment office they NEVER check with the company that sent the residual check, they just take your word and deduct from your unemployment accordingly and your unemployment check will come at the usual time without delay.

I have contacted the unemployment office and talked to the head guy there and unfortunately I was told, "well, that's our procedure". That didn't get us anywhere. Hopefully this blog will reach someone that's able to look into it and actually fix the obviously broken system. We will not be able to grow the film industry and fix our growing unemployment rate if this practice continues. This broken system at the unemployment office is counterproductive to the continued effort of reviving our economy with a thriving film industry. This is a cry for help people! We must look to our state legislators to look into this system and fix the flaws. We should fix this system BEFORE we start filming Hawaii 5-0 in July of this year so the show will have a better effect on our economy by having access to hiring more people. Hawaii 5-0 will need to hire thousands of people for temporary work but nobody will want to work on the show at the risk of jeopardizing their unemployment benefits. Write your governor and state legislators or anyone that may help to get this problem fixed. We need to get people working and the film industry will provide that opportunity.

Mahalo

Teddy Wells

Hawaii Actors Network

President/CEO