by Anthony Foster

The Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund has reached a remarkable milestone this year. We are celebrating 15 years of the Fund’s presence in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles office of the Fund was created at the request of musicians primarily concerned with not receiving proper credit for film work, particularly work for sessions done in the L.A. area. It made sense that there be a Fund office in the city where a great deal of film scoring was being done.

On July 5, 1988, the Fund hired its first L.A. employee, Barbara DeLucia, to manage the operations. It was a humble beginning. The first office was confined to a small “Executive Suite” no bigger than 100 square feet. Barbara was the sole employee, fielding all calls, doing research, filing and handling the musicians’ inquiries. As Barbara recalls, “It was a sparse operation, to say the least.”

That office suite was shared with the Fund’s independent auditors, Salibello & Broder, CPA’s who were also establishing an L.A. presence at the time. Both companies shared resources such as a receptionist, a copier and other office equipment. They each had their own phone line.

The main responsibility of the L.A. Fund office at that time was to research film inquiries — requests made by a musician to find out why he/she had not been credited for a film. Due to the growing number of inquiries the Fund had to adapt quickly.

In November of 1988, the office relocated to a larger site on Wilshire Boulevard to support added employees, computers and an office infrastructure. Prior to the addition of computers, the stacks of musician inquiries were hand-written on log sheets.

These inquiries were first entered in spreadsheets, and next came a basic database - our first custom program.

Guy Hubbard remembers: “We were all so serious and conscientious about our mission, and that attitude still exists today. We were diligent, persistent and creative in our research and we got a sense of accomplishment when we found verification of a musician’s claim. The high standards of quality we set for ourselves benefited us and the musicians.”

In the early years of the L.A. office, many responsibilities of the Fund were still located in the Fund’s principal office based in New York. In fact, the Film and Phonograph Funds were all administered under the same umbrella of the American Federation of Musicians’ & Employers Pension Fund (AFM-EPF) at the time. The Fund Administrator as well as the Accounting, Allocations and Human Resources department personnel were located in New York as well. As a result, the L.A. staff had to frequently wear many hats.

All distribution mailings, musician beneficiary, levy/lien information and check reissue requests were coordinated via the New York office. All payroll and data entry functions were based in the New York office as well.

Fund Accountant Jennifer Payawal says, “Having two office locations at the time was a bit of a challenge, which made the job quite interesting on a day-to-day basis, but more so during the annual distribution, when a handful of New York personnel worked until late at night for days in a row, folding, stuffing, sealing, and stamping envelopes containing checks for the thousands of participants. Once all the Fund operations moved to Los Angeles, we developed more efficient methods using electronic files and engaged a vendor who provides all the manual work for the annual regular and supplemental (omission) distributions. Gone are the pains of countless paper cuts and midnight oil burning, not to mention the unnecessary liability involved in the personal handling of all those checks.”

The Allocations department allocated the contributions for each film that paid during a fiscal year. The Allocations staff was responsible for processing the names of the musicians for each film and maintained the musician information. In late 1993, the responsibility of researching film contracts and the adding of new musician information slowly moved from the New York office to the L.A. office.

“The transition made sense,” says New Films & Research Manager Suzanne Cupal. “We were closer to the source documents and had more access to the musicians who did the majority of the film scoring work.”

Another major operational change for the Fund took place in 1993, when Salibello & Broder created a collections unit that would investigate films for which there was an obligation to the Fund, but, for which the Fund had not received a contribution. This unit became part of the Fund in 1995, and has evolved into the Fund’s Compliance department. The Compliance department tracks released films and deals with companies that have an obligation to make Fund contributions.

James Cope, Manager of Compliance Audits and Contracts, remembers: "Creating a department and all of its operations from scratch was quite an undertaking and overwhelming at times. After a couple of months, I realized the enormity of the job ahead of us, given the resources at our disposal and the number of unpaid films as well as the numerous films whose contributions had lapsed. I must say that the department at its inception was like a steam-driven automobile and has evolved into a well-crafted, well-oiled race car."

They are also responsible for scheduling and supervising audit reviews of film companies for the Fund.

During the next five years all the other functions of the Fund slowly relocated to Los Angeles. The Accounting department moved in 1999, with Allocations, Human Resources, an L.A.-based Administrator and all other administrative functions following in 2000.

Today the Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund has 29 employees, and independent consultants as needed, helping participants get the monies they are due. The Fund continues to streamline all facets of Fund operations with an eye toward the future. We are lucky to have a great staff and an Administrator with a progressive vision creating such a dynamic synergy. The future is looking very good for the Fund and its participants.

We are celebrating 15 years of the Fund in L.A. and we are also celebrating the 15 year Anniversary of the L.A. office’s first employee, Barbara DeLucia. Happy Anniversary, Barbara!

We look forward to many more years of serving our participants.

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