Getting Fired For Making Art
Employees do any number of things during downtime at work. Some might stare into space, some might dick around on their phone. My friend Kailer Scopacasa decided to do something constructive and make art—he wrote an entire book of poetry, and secretly filmed an entire movie starring himself (called ‘The Employee’) over the course of nine months at his job. For doing this, he was not given a warning, or a slap on the wrist, or anything he like that—he was simply fired.
They made no claim that he was spending too much time on art and not work—he was in good standing there and he completed his tasks in a timely fashion. The poetry writing or filming never affected his work—in fact, they had no idea he was even doing any of this until after the film was released. It’s a 38-minute film, which, when factoring in that it was shot over the course of nine months, equates to an average of 14 seconds of usable footage per day. The footage infringes on no one’s privacy—the camera is pointed at him or inanimate objects for the vast majority of the movie. He makes no mention of the place of business in the film, or in any descriptions of it, and he does not disparage the company in any way or depict them in an unflattering light. Everything he did was legal and above board—but, he was still fired.
He is currently unemployed and struggling to make rent each month. All he wants to do is keep living and working in NYC and furthering his burgeoning acting and filmmaking career, but this setback has been devastating. Because of the firing, he has been forced to sell some of his filmmaking equipment in order to make ends meet, and may even have to sell all of it. The most valuable things he still has in his possession though are of course the priceless works of art he created while working at that job: his poetry book ‘Clocked In’ (which you can buy on Amazon) and his film ‘The Employee’.
He is having a one-night-only theatrical screening of ‘The Employee’ this month at Film Noir Cinema in Brooklyn, NY. It’s on April 27th 2024 from 7PM to 9PM, and he will be showing the film as part of a double feature with another film of his, ‘I Can Feel It Coming’, which was made in just three hours as part of the first annual ‘Make a Movie Instead of Watching the Oscars’ contest, started by Joel Haver. Kailer Scopacasa won an award from Joel for this film in that competition.
Tickets to the screening are $20, and if you would like to purchase one, DM me on Twitter (@codyclarke) or DM Kailer on Instagram (@kai_scopacasa).
Even if you can’t be in NYC for the screening, you can sponsor a ticket for someone else by purchasing one and having it be added to a pool of free tickets which will be made available to people who would like to go but can’t afford to do so.
I believe in Kailer, and I love his art. I don’t want to see artistic dreams cut short by one company’s stupid and unfair decision. Do what you can to help him out in his time of need.