Our Best Advice

Colin Firth with Helena Bonham Carter starring in The Kings Speech

We love movies. I consider the Entertainment Industry of Music, Film, Arts and Sciences, a hugely important key to current peace efforts worldwide. Without a doubt films of cultural diversity contribute to freedom as recent events in the middle east vividly show, and the world watches and roots for the outcome to be liberation.

ISA staffing has been involved with The Academy Awards since our beginnings. From the 1960’s we’ve watched as other domestic help agencies come and go or are sold into ‘new management’. We’ve watched changes that people still argue as the world watches Oscars with intrigue and awe. One billion people are projected to see the awards, while we proudly serve clients in The Entertainment Industry who made those films possible. My mother’s and my memory goes back to times of Oscars past, before current award trends (like whether to wear your hair as if you just rolled out of bed, or coiffed in a retro inspired style). Millions excitedly tune into this event hedging bets on who will win, tracking it by the hour (tweet).

Toy Story 3 teaser poster came out two years before the movie was released

Hailee Steinfeld photo: Jeff Lipskey, courtesy Parade Magazine

Jennifer Lopez at Oscars 2010

We watch as our clients are nominated and we gladly see them become awarded winners for best producers, actors, directors, writers, etc., while we work tirelessly providing support staff for Oscars night and related events, before and after this iconic show, with Chefs, Party Staff, Chauffeurs, Event Planners, Organizers, and more.

During tuff times, movies do better because many who are out of work escape to films (as they’ve done in decades past including during WWII). We become reassured and feel new hope that things will eventually turn out just right for us all. Dreams are made in Hollywood, and Hollywood borrows peoples dreams in real life to make its stories. People in the film industry are uniquely prepared for a life “on stage”, at all times conscious of their audience. They’re gifted artists who are assisted by some of our other clients helping them win these awards that everyone wants, which translates to huge profits and more. The perks are famous and the headiness strong as audiences participate in starry eyed anticipation.

Halle Berry at the Oscars 2002

Behind the scenes lobbying are heads of studios & production companies, agents, business managers, lawyers, publicists, and more as the PR campaigns continue annually to bring in new winners. I remember some of the impact on fashion and politics that Oscars brought in the past.

Who could forget Marlon Brando’s famous none appearance in 1973, when a young native Indian woman (Sasheen Littlefeather), took the podium on his behalf (for Best Actor in Godfather), only to refuse his Oscar as a protest of how native people were portrayed in films. Many in the audience were angry and booed, while others saw it as a powerful watershed event.

Did it change things? Yes, too slowly. There are still way too few women on the production end of things and the cultural bias continues to rage on. So much room for improvement, that some go to extremes in reaction to work still left to be done. But there is also the positive to acknowledge and those who brought them about.