Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542297
that's not what the whole point is. I want to establish a place where people get paid very well to do what they love to do, and that is separate from the world of being in the office or being on set where I could actually protect the conditions, and what we always say, protect the vibe. I wanted to work with my friends, and I wasn't going to ask my friends to take a penny less, and I wasn't going to ask my friends to not get benefits. And I think to be able to work with a team, everybody has to have the same protections and the same access to everything. And so that's why I didn't want to do this any other way, because I was seeing around the commercial space a lot of people who were very predatory on garment workers and people who had been operating outside of a union contract for a long time; and I thought that I had an opportunity to help garment workers turn into industry workers, really trying to not allow people to get taken advantage of. I basically felt like the ghost of both my grandparents were saying, 'You goa go out there and protect these people.' She adds, "I do think that because I'm an immigrant here, the way that immigrants get treated in this country is disgusting. And because I have the privilege of not sounding like an immigrant, I can let other people know the things that I have learned from being in rooms that other people don't get let into because it's all a game. Especially in this industry, you just have to know what to say, the words to use, how to seem confident. And I love teaching people those skills, because those are real skills that you can learn." California Paerns is not beholden to the workroom in North Hollywood, Gaini and her team also lend their services to work on set or in the studio for productions as well. Gaini embraces the ebb and flow nature of her business and encourages opportunities to be taken by her crew. "We want you to feel like you're always growing." She adds, "We just try to be really flexible with our people. But it's a give and take, because they're really flexible with us in return. We have a lot of respect for our employees and I think because we're always wanting them to grow. I worked at Apple for seven years, and I think it's something that some of our best managers would do there; that they would take you aside and ask you what you wanted to do with your life, and how could the company help you get there. It wasn't about developing within the company or anything. How can the skills that you can learn here help you toward that goal, and that's something that we always are talking about, 'Do you want to be on a TV show? Do you want to work on a movie? Do you want to be on set?' We encourage people to try out a lot of different things, and we prepare and train them to show up in workplaces the way that we like showing up to workplaces. I think it's been very beneficial to me to have other people come back to me and tell me, 'Wow, I had this person that you recommended on set, and they were amazing.' I've goen so many people telling me that they'll take any recommendation I give them because any of the people that I send them are going to be great, and that there's no higher compliment than that to me. My team means everything to me." California Paerns has worked on "You've been on the scene, and you have gathered that on- set experience, and you know that to work on the best and biggest projects, you have to be union. The best people will not accept custom-made jobs if it's not union." —NATALIA GATTINI MOTIONPICTUREC O S T U M E R S .O R G 49