Inside.com - March 21, 2001
BLACKOUTS HIT HOLLYWOOD OFFICES, BUT THE CAMERAS KEEP ROLLING
As if the U.S. economy's nosedive and the looming industry-wide work stoppage weren't bad enough, Hollywood is facing another crisis -- a lack of juice. Included in the nearly one million customers affected by Monday's "controlled," rotating outages that swept through Northern and Southern California, were a number of major film studios and at least one major agency. Spokespersons from Sony, Universal and MGM all confirmed that their offices had been affected by the outages that lasted between 10 minutes and an hour. Surprisingly, each studio maintained that film and television production remained unaffected. United Talent Agency, which does battle from the heart of Beverly Hills, was affected for about two hours, forcing many agents to work from home. The William Morris Agency also went dark for awhile. Monday's outages were the second to affect California this year, with more expected as we move into summer and the already taxed power grids are faced with the added stress of air conditioners -- all of which poses a serious problem to the studios and networks which will continue their pre-strike production frenzy up to July 1, when the Screen Actors Guild contract expires. Universal and Sony are the only two studios that fall within the service area of Southern California Edison, making them the most vulnerable to blackouts (the other majors fall under Los Angeles Department of Water and Power jurisdiction). A Universal spokesperson was unaware what, if any, precautionary measures were being taken by the studio, while a spokesperson from Sony said the studio had "done an enormous amount to conserve" but declined to specify what that meant.