Reporter Caleigh Wells:  

We have an industry term for the characters that drive a story forward. They’re called “real people.” Meaning, not experts or pundits or officials, but regular people living in a place where a thing is happening, whose lives are affected by whatever the story is covering.

Real people are especially important for abstract or boring topics. Like, if I told you that condo complexes are seeing insurance costs go up because of increased risk across insurance company portfolios, I wouldn’t blame you for quitting before you finished reading the sentence. 

If I told you that a retired single woman on a fixed income who’s lived in the same place for 34 years stopped paying for the daily paper and opted for the cheaper cable TV package to pay the increased fees that cover her insurance — and that she doesn’t know what else to cut — the story gets much more real. She says she can’t afford to move anywhere else. This is a real person affected by a real problem that all the experts, officials, and pundits haven’t figured out how to fix. As climate change makes insurance more expensive, the stakes are high. For Diann, they’ve never been higher.

Condo owners are ‘counting pennies’ as home insurance soars

Just north of Baldwin Hills, Village Green is a park-like condo complex with hundreds of 1940s townhomes and bungalows. Diann Dumas lives in a one-bedroom here, and her HOA fee has increased 20% this year ($523 per month to $628 per month). However, insurance on the whole condo complex went up 400%.

There are a few factors at play. One is insurance companies’ reaction to the collapse three years ago of the Surfside condo complex in Florida that killed 98 people. The building had a lot of steel that corroded, and it turned into a massive insurance claim, so companies became more wary. Plus, insurance companies have gotten more worried about the risks that come with a bunch of people living really close to each other. And with more natural disaster threats from climate change, insurance companies are paying for a lot of damaged and destroyed houses — and everyone with homeowners insurance is bearing the brunt of it.

Compete against a digital replica of yourself? Video game actors go on strike

SAG-AFTRA actors who are the voices, and in some cases the bodies, for video game characters went on strike recently when contract talks broke down over the use of artificial intelligence. 

“We feel very strongly that there needs to be protections in place — contractual protections and also legal protections — that say that people have the right to control the use of their own face, voice likeness, performance, whether that's in digital replication, or even in other types of AI,” says Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director and chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA. 

Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers, contends in a statement, “We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, including historic wage increases and additional safety provisions. The contract offer “extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working” and “are among the strongest in the entertainment industry.”

‘Making it’ is not hating your job: An aspiring filmmaker’s story

Carlos Navarrette, 33, lives in East Los Angeles and is trying to make headway in the film industry. He wrote, produced, and directed a feature film called Ride Sharing, and got accepted into the Culver City Film Festival back in December. 

He tells KCRW, “So I feel like I'm ‘making it’ in LA? I would say yes because I'm fortunate enough to have a home to live in. I live at home with my mom and my grandma. I'm balling — whatever. 

I'll just say, I'm very single right now. So that's not great. But at least I have the money-slash-the-food to get up every day and be like, ‘Oh, maybe today I'll meet somebody.’

In regards to ‘making it’ with the line of work I’m trying to be in, I would say ‘no’ at the moment because I don't have my movie out in the world — yet.”

‘Making it’ is creating meaning: An entrepreneur’s story

Eagle Rock resident Jessica Wang, 39, teaches fermentation classes and has a small grocery and deli bakery pop-up in Chinatown called Gu Grocery. 

In 2023, she was struggling financially and turned to CalFresh benefits. She tells KCRW, “At this time, I was a farmers market vendor, and so I would buy stuff from my neighbors at the market using my CalFresh bills. … I think my self-consciousness about being an EBT recipient was wondering if people were judging my business.

I really love the idea of ‘making it’ as literally making it. Like, I am in the process of making it. And what “it” is — is really just creating something meaningful that feels connected in community.”

Hollywood Sign Digital Time Capsule: What stories will you share?

Real estate developers built the Hollywood Sign in 1923, and in the decades that followed, it started luring the creative and entertainment class to Southern California. Now the people who oversee those giant block letters on Mount Lee have launched an official Digital Time Capsule, which is meant to contain art, photography, essays, and audio clips about the sign’s history and cultural significance. 

For actor Tobias Jelinek, the sign is “purely iconic.” He saw it for the first time when going to an audition for Hocus Pocus. He recalls, “Seeing the sign for the first time on the 101 freeway, it surprises you, and you only get a glimpse before it's gone. … The best part of this memory is we made it to the audition, my first anything, and I booked the job. I got to be a bully in a Bette Midler film. And the Hollywood Sign has always embodied the chaos, the dream, and the magic possibility of our city.”