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SAG-AFTRA officially calls strike as National Board approves guild’s first walkout against film & TV industry since 1980
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- Authors
- David Robb,Dominic Patten
- Published
- Jul 13 2023
- Word count
- 1120 words
In light of Disney's news today stating they are spending $3 billion less on Marvel and Star Wars I have formulated a theory that the studios are using this strike to purposely halt productions such that they can pass the blame for nothing new onto the striking actors and writers while they hope to break even on the huge losses all of their streaming platforms have eaten. I do not think these negotiations have been in good faith simply because of the lack of success any streaming platform has had.
The whole industry would have done itself a favor by continuing to lease its content to Netflix. Sony is the lone studio that kept production costs under control and did not try to create their own platform, and they are doing great leasing their content out. The studios did this to themselves, and now they are playing a game with their workers' lives to try to cut their losses.
Netflix never would have been able to pay for the entire output of every studio.
Sony has done well because they are making shows for everybody, not just Netflix.
The economics of putting the entire entertainment industry's output behind a single $15/mo service do not add up unless there us a truly massive reduction in the total amount of content being made.
The studios already blamed the WGA strike for a number of their problems the last time it happened. If they don't do it this time, I'd be very pleasantly surprised.
A lot of people still think the explosion of reality TV happened because of the writer's strike, but nope; they just discovered a formula that let them produce very cheap TV shows that drew in a large audience.
And the strike was a forcing function that led to that discovery.
To come to that conclusion you would have to ignore the growth of reality television programs before the strike happened.
In 2003 Fox had a "Bachelorette" style reality show called Mr. Personality that was hosted by Monica Lewinsky.
Edit: I realized it would probably be more helpful if I listed more than one, so I found this silly Cosmo slideshow that lists quite a few of them.
Sure. And there was reality shows even before those. And it can still be true that the strike was a forcing function to explore (but not discover, that was the wrong word to use) shows that are more strike resistant (or revenue resilient in the face of a strike)
Sure, I'll give you that the strike might have been one of the factors that encouraged networks to greenlight more reality TV programs. It just wasn't an inciting incident. It happened as part of a trend that started before the strike.
Is it possible for them to jointly negotiate with WGA? That would mean a lot of leverage.
It should increase the leverage a bit. Nothing new was being written but projects that were already written could move ahead and still film, now they can't even film anything. Only projects that are in post production and won't require reshoots will continue to move forward.
Projects that had already been written, but were currently in production, have also been shut down. So, additional production has shut down as a result of this strike.
In addition to filming, all other commitments like premiers and award shows also can no longer take place since the actors are no longer allowed to participate in those. So the SAG striking is going to have a much larger deal than just WGA striking alone. This, altogether, implies that LA and its surrounding areas are expected to have a severe economic downturn, the effects of which are to be seen.
All of this should imply that the studios should be willing to enter a good faith negotiation with the striking parties, however, from the article I read, studios don't appear to want to reach a solution before the end of October.
I hadn't even thought about the possibility of award shows not happening. Imagine the golden globes being cancelled.
I know little to nothing about what the industry and how it works, so this may have already been discussed, or this may be a terrible idea, but why haven't writers and actors asked public's help by a way of cancelling our subscriptions and cable?
Couldn't we all get together on this and cancel Hulu, Netflix, Prime Video, and others? The studios would quickly agree on a lot of writers/actors demand when they start losing real money from customers?
Or is Netflix/Hulu/Prime Video so far from writers/actors that it wouldn't really hurt the studios if I cancelled all my subscriptions?
Pleas like this tend to backfire. In any labor dispute it is the consumer who bears the brunt of the loss because it's the stuff we need to buy/use/consume being withheld. Management eats a financial cost, but that's just a cost of doing business for them. The more consumers at the end of the funnel are made aware of the ways in which they are being inconvenienced the faster support for the strike will erode.
It all sounds kind of frivolous for entertainment, I'll admit. But fandoms are some of the most entitled people on the planet. People accept things like railroad strikes with more alacrity than hardcore MCU fans receive news of a delay. It'll work better to set up a solidarity fund to bridge the union members. That way only people on board who care are involved.
I’ve had the exact same question recently, and would love to know what the unions have to say about general boycotts too. Should I cancel Netflix? Should I not go see Oppenheimer/Barbie? If anyone can share anything I’d be happy to hear it.
Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything, among other things) has been one of the more public faces of the WGA strike, since he's a relative celebrity compared to most other writers.
in this video from twitter he mentions a strike fund, the Entertainment Community Fund, that is accepting donations. that seems to be the main way they're asking for help right now, rather than trying to push for boycotts of any particular streaming service or entertainment property.
Thanks for sharing this. I will definitely be willing to cancel my streaming services and instead donate to this fund if it comes to that.
They wouldn't have to ask very hard, I was already considering canceling a few services already just based on lack of good content and wanting to shave off some dollars from the monthly budget. The utter disappointment that is Secret Invasion on Disney+ has convinced me to just cancel the service and go without seeing Marvel/Star Wars stuff for awhile. I'll maybe wait a year or two before jumping back on to see what I've missed.
Welp, there goes my media consumption habits for the considerable long term.
I was already unhappy and cancelled my Regal unlimited because they were trickling movies out. I already was watching streaming less and less (except Pluto.tv and their new Godzilla channel but that wasn't sustainable after I had watched most of those movies at least once). Now that there won't be anything new for awhile and/or current series will get all messed up like the last strike? No thanks.
They're competing for my time and I have games, books, woodworking and gardening already on my list of things I want to do. I can survive on YouTube videos for my media content
I don't have a dog in this hunt and I think both sides have good and bad points in their arguments but ultimately it's hard for me to care or root for one side over the other. On one hand "Hollywood Math"and perpetual copywright is BS and on the other I'm glad other professions don't get residuals like the entertainment industry (musicians and songwriters included).
Could you imagine having to pay your doctor every year you're alive after a surgery that he got paid for? Or the person who cooked your lunch 10 years ago? Does the engineer who designed your car get a check every year it is on the road?
Re: residuals, I think the distinction here is between where we (society) perceive the value is.
For the doctor, the surgery is done once and paid once. Same with lunch. For the engineer their work allows the car to be built and run. I think we could make a good faith argument that the engineer should make a residual on every car built/sold with their work.
Same with the actor/writer. The goal of their work is to create a performance that can be enjoyed by an audience. If it is not performed, an audience cannot experience it nor pay for it. So it makes sense for them to be paid each time an audience experiences their performance.
The logistics grow ever more complicated with recording technology, syndication, streaming, etc, but the base premise still holds IMO.
Side note: what if doctors did get residuals? Could be interesting to see how that might alter the incentive structure of the healthcare system, instead of insurance companies making money hand over fist.
I've also thought about this in the context of education. What if teachers got residuals based on their student's income? And extremely small percentage, but accumulated across many students and many years? Would eventually add up to paying teachers a respectable wage instead of the bottom barrel salaries they have now.
I don't think I'm alone in thinking that being alive is worth more than Alan Alda getting a check today from an Episode of MAS*H filmed in 1975 or whenever. I get significantly more function out of my house yet there has never been a push to pay residuals to the builder/construction guys who made it.. (to be transparent, I am NOT agruing that other fields should get perpetual payments for a job already done).
Chris Evans made a cool $15 million for Age of Ultron. I guess I'm just not understanding why he should make even more money off of it for the rest of his life. Especially when these perpetual payments create issues that lead to certain shows/movies being unavailable anymore.
If I watch AoU 5x on a DVD or 5x from Disney+ is it really any different? Yet apparently one will generate more fees/income.
It is the same thing with music. "Happy Birthday" was under copyright until ~2016 (aftering being written around 1890) and Warner/Chapell Hill was known to aggressively enforce it. They would call up any and all restaurants (without proof) and threaten a tens-hundreds of thousands of dollars lawsuit oooooor you could pay ASCAP and BMI their licensing fees of a few thousand a year for every year you're open. That is the reason you hear a variation at a restaurant. They even went after the Girl Scouts for singing around campfires. You see the poor performers and songwriters need to be paid for every performance--even 100 years later.
I'm not a fan of perpetual income off something made 10-100+ years ago. I'm just not sure how any of this enriches society. It honestly reeks of parasitic behavior--especially since it strongly appears that the collecting agency usually keeps the lion's share of fees collected (more Hollywood math). It definately has led to titles and performances being locked away and intentionally kept out of society which is a net loss, IMO.
If the rest of the world and every other profession can get by on being paid per job why are the entertainers the exception?
Aside: thanks for engaging in this with me, I'm kind of thinking through this in real time as we're discussing
Well another major distinction I can think of is that the company that holds copyright can continue to license and distribute a particular recording over and over, making them significant money. So the residuals are a way to distribute that profit more evenly to the people that helped create it.
This to me might be the most significant argument. Our other examples of doctors and other professions don't really have the same economic model. Most other non-performance professions don't have a product that can be copied ad infinitum for essentially 100% profit. So it doesn't seem as unfair that someone takes physical art that I made and sells it at a markup. They can only do that once. However if I make digital art and get paid once, and someone sells a million copies of it, that feels unfair. The same with movies/TV. Studios will make enormous profits off of a performance, it feels unfair not to share that.
Your point about copyright lasting for too long is well taken. I agree it lasts way too long, and we can all thank Disney for that stupidity. However I think that's a separate (but related) issue from the question of if performers should get residuals.
You're welcome and thanks for following my parial rants/partial vents while I, too, think in real time about some of this.
Even though I know for a fact it would never happen, to me the fairest or "best" possible solution would be to revamp copyright completely. Give a studio 10 years (maybe 20 tops) of protection and allow them to apply for extensions of 4-5 years. However, make each extention exponentially more expensive. If Disney wants to pay $100m for another 5 years of Steamboat Willy protection it would be a win/win. They get what they want and things get funded. On the other hand, Disney might be willing to let X-Wing vs TIE Fighter fall into the public domain instead of spending $10m on a game that only produces <$20k/year.
I'm also partial to the Denmark method:
The unions could then tie residuals into each renewal.
Hah! I hadn't heard of that Denmark method. I'm having fun imagining a version of that applied to US copyright.
Disney: "we would like to renew copyright on [semi obscure character] for$100"
Govt: "ok. Also: yoink!"
... later...
News: "the US copyright office announced their latest record breaking box office numbers for [obscure character movie #7]"
It's important to note that of the 160k SAG members, less than 2k of them are in the edge case scenario you are arguing from. The top 1% of actors certainly do see an outsized compensation. The rest need their $15 a year they get from residuals just to help pay their membership fees. The SAG union should always be negotiating for all of their members, and not just the most visible ones.
I read back when the WGA strike started that if SAG-AFTRA striked too that would bring the studios to come to the negotiation table much more quickly. Is that still true?
Only time will tell I think. There was the rumours running around that the Studios were just going to wait until Oct/Nov when most of the Writers would be "out of money and losing their homes" so they could negotiate worse terms for the writers... But if all the big stars are on strike, seems like maybe they can drum up more support than most writers.
Does anyone have any details on what each side is asking for? Studios say they've offered...
...but no details on what that actually is nor what SAG-AFTRA are asking for. I know amounts are often rarely discussed because then people outside the industry like to weigh in on how much they think someone else should be paid, but still curious what the offers and counteroffers are.
That's some insane spin in that article. These companies do not appear to be negotiating in good faith, in my opinion. “This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation.
So, they own you.
I have seen how insane the general public can be about characters that they don't like. Actors have been bullied and harassed of social media because the character they played made people mad.
I can't fathom what would happen when a corporation used someone's likeness to portray a divisive or inflammatory character. The human being that was used would face so much abuse for a role they had no choice in portraying.
I was reading something on Threads that it might have something to do with the AI stipulations, that the studios will still own the digital likenesses in some way shape or form. I'm not an expert but here's an NPR link, that details it a bit. Streaming residuals and AI likeness:
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/13/1187310535/hollywood-actors-strike-sag-aftra
On a personal commentary note, I'm wary to believe any statement put out by the studios. Keep in mind these are the people willing to "starve out" the writers and essentially threaten them with losing homes. Not exactly a likeable bunch.
Never trust big business to be telling you the truth.
I heard through the grapevine that the Teamsters are considering if they will take action - if either or both of them or IATSE move as well, things would get even more interesting
I thought the Teamsters were already taking some form of action? I thought they weren't crossing picket lines for the WAG strike, though I'm not sure what that means in the overarching thing if productions were shut down for the WAG strike anyways.
That could be the case - this was a little bit ago and I just heard an offhand comment.