Lately, it’s all about things in inverse proportion. As in, the amount of fear-mongering being done by powerful U.S. studios vis-a-vis the risk of a strike by ACTRA may be in inverse proportion to the actual risk of an actors strike in Canada. (See ‘Strike fears’ story p. 1)

Of course, there are no inverses when it comes to the cost of a shoot, interrupted by a talent walkout. Of course, the higher the budget of the project – say, like Daredevil, priced at $92 million – the less tolerant the producers are of putting the production on the line, especially a picket line.

But is there some way to even out the measures in this scenario, this hyped milieu wherein studios and other incomers have in their minds drawn a strike full-blown? We need a low-fat, low-rhetoric box. A space where employer producer and employee actor are at even height, neither on his knees.

So what to do? Eliminate the major machismo in this equation, that panic driven by uncertainty. It’s the same counterproductive mindset that nullified months and months of lead time ahead of the SAG and WGA contract expiry dates and front-end loaded zillions of dollars worth of production into a frantic season of spring shooting.

I don’t know how to characterize the U.S. studios’ business tactics in the case of the above-mentioned Daredevil shoot, which Fox has just relocated to Vancouver from Montreal. It’s clear they’re in no mood for uncertainty, so actors and producers should sit down to end the unease, and fast. Because the way this storyline is playing out now, powerful studios have set up Montreal’s devastating ACTRA loss as Vancouver’s happy UBCP gain, playing one Canadian production centre off against another in a truly Daredevil manner.

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On a personal note, it’s a bit daredevil to be leaving my established life behind, this week, as I head off down the 401 to Ottawa, where the rest of my family has been living for many weeks. I hate saying goodbye to Playback (again) and all the A-list people I work with, to say nothing of the lovely people I have met, and re-met, in this industry. Thanks for your many kindnesses and some scintillating conversation, too.

So it’s sad to be going, but I take my kindred spirits with me and I know that there’s no other business where you can meet so many unique characters as this one, and in so many unlikely spots. Like my doctor’s waiting room, an ice storm, an article in Saturday Night magazine and, the best and most banal, an airport departure lounge.

Thanks to Mary and Shelley for asking me to come back to Playback two years ago. And a special hug to our Copy Chief Michelle, who has kept me sane, smiling and even laughing giddily into the wee sma’s, because, you know, MH, where would we be without all that silliness, late at night?

Cheers!