Actors' strike

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw Broadway actors may strike soon.

This is more devastating to me than the actor's strike. I have tickets to several shows this summer and travel plans made.

Writers, actors, Broadway, and UPS all on strike at once... the world will fall apart!

Just to clarify (though the end result will be the same--show closure for now): Any strike against The Broadway League and Disney Theatricals, the companies involved, would be a strike by IATSE (the union representing stagehands, wardrobe, makeup and other technical employees), not Equity (the union representing actors). The result, though, would still be that shows would halt. I'm really sorry, PP; it sucks to have plans made and tickets bought! But the issues for IATSE are important, like the ones for SAG-AFTRA and WGA. Health care and pay are at stake.

According to this article, some shows which do not use IATSE members might be unaffected if there is an IATSE strike on Broadway, so if any of the shows you would see fall into that category they might still take place, maybe?
https://www.etonline.com/wicked-and-many-broadway-shows-may-soon-halt-as-iatse-calls-strike-authorization-vote-208352

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw Broadway actors may strike soon.

This is more devastating to me than the actor's strike. I have tickets to several shows this summer and travel plans made.

Writers, actors, Broadway, and UPS all on strike at once... the world will fall apart!

let’s hope teachers don’t get any ideas!

[Anonymous]

What about reality shows???

Bethenny Frankel posted on her Insta a rather compelling case for reality stars who get paid peanuts and don’t get residuals—noting reality shows became important during the last strike (in terms of generating new content).

She’s not wrong.

[Anonymous]

NP. I think everyone involved in film and theater production, as well as the rest of the arts need to be paid appropriately. There's plenty of money to go around.

I don't know why this is a question, but for some reason it is. Greed abounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about reality shows???

Bethenny Frankel posted on her Insta a rather compelling case for reality stars who get paid peanuts and don’t get residuals—noting reality shows became important during the last strike (in terms of generating new content).

She’s not wrong.

Previous strikes are what gave rise to the inane reality TV shows

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Universal just cut all the trees that had provided shade to the striking workers. Wow.

https://twitter.com/ChrisStephensMD/status/1681005154609545216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1681005154609545216%7Ctwgr%5E345a2642686c5de17c5bfdbb0ef13e2b9f2e4ec5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lamag.com%2Farticle%2Ftree-pruning-universal-pictures-strike-spite%2F

Despicable.

Like who tf thought this was a good idea, honestly. Cruel, petty, harms the strikers physically, terrible optics, and will also end up killing the trees. Good god.

Doubt those trees will die. They look like ficus trees, which are all over LA and have deep, invasive roots. No law againat pruning ficus.

If those trees belong to the city/county there is.

Was it the city or universal? Show the workers cutting the trees.

DP. Sounds like you don't believe that NBC Universal did the cutting. Trying to get a link that will work (behind a paywall right now) but the studio has said publicly that it, not the city, pruned the trees and does so every year "before high wind season." Mmm-hmm. This is the same corporation currently resisting an LA police department request that they put up a few barriers to create a pedestrian walkway so picketers are not forced to picket in the street due to NBCU's brand new construction project at the very gates picketers were targeting.

If you think the corporations aren't playing hardball with picketers' health and safety, you're wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about reality shows???

Bethenny Frankel posted on her Insta a rather compelling case for reality stars who get paid peanuts and don’t get residuals—noting reality shows became important during the last strike (in terms of generating new content).

She’s not wrong.

Previous strikes are what gave rise to the inane reality TV shows

And the people on them get paid to live their lives, not create any new, original content out of their brains like writers and actors must do to make their livings. I do admit, the lower-level reality participants (not Frankel!) get crappy pay--a few thousand for a season sometimes, not commensurate with the hours they spend on these shows...living their lives. But if they feel they deserve more pay, they should get organized and form their own union. End of story. They shouldn't be out there right now trying to ride the coattails of the actors' strike to make their own claims. What they do and what actors do, and the training and experience actors have to accrue to do their jobs well and stay employed, are not comparable at all.

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain this to me - how come actors as a group can unionize - no matter who their employers is (Hulu, Netflix), but each tiny starbucks store needs its own Union vote? How does that work?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm confused. What are they striking about?

And don't they realize that halting everything only hurts themselves (no premieres, no upcoming movie/TV releases and the revenue, etc)?

Why don't you read an article and come back?

One article. Even just skim it.

+1

plenty of good coverage of both the writers' and now the actors' strikes.

I hope folks can access this--the Post has a paywall but I think maybe the first article is visible?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2023/07/13/why-actors-writers-strike-sag-wga-issues/

There are some truly existential issues at stake for actors as well as writers. And the PP who noted that studios want to pay actors ONCE to scan their likenesses and then use those likenesses as background AI "extras" forever is correct. It's indvidious. It's also not acting. Doing work as an extra is how quite a few actors make some initial money and start moving up to a line, then maybe a tiny role, then onward....

But there are many issues. Read the Post article or hey, just do one quick Google search, PPs who are confused.

Technology has forced a lot of people from their jobs or forced them to pivot. Why should acting be some holy grail that can’t be touched? The reality? Thru could not even hire an extra in the first place and instead just use AI for all extras.

And maybe it’s time that acting became a regular paying job across the board. Why do we need to pay actors millions of dollars in salary? What if they were paid a standard $250k salary a year or even less? Plenty of people who would still want to do it.

Your 250K a year as steady income is a pipe dream for most actors. Please dont' think that "actors (make) millions of dollars a year." That's a tiny handful of people like the Tom Cruises of the world.

But rather than go into more details I'm going to just drop one fact here which puts pay into perspective. Bear this in mind: The pay mentioned here is gig-based, freelance, so it's a figure that most (not all, but most) actors have to cobble together on their own from a role here, a role there, never being guaranteed any role at all.

"As a SAG-AFTRA member, you have to make $26,000 a year to get health insurance. 87 percent of union members don't qualify annually." (source: SAG-AFTRA national board member, actor Dule Hill)

In other words: 87 percent of union members make less than $26,000 a year from acting. That's not Tom Cruise "millions." Gig work is tough. Actors do it because they love it, and we consumers lap it up but it's the studios who make billions who benefit, not the jobbing actors. Do not conflate TV series stars or "celebrities" with jobbing actors.

You do not understand how acting in TV and films actually works, day to day, year in and year out. It is a gig economy. Freelance. Freelancers don't get paid a "standard salary" in a "regular paying job across the board." Even actors employed in TV series filming year after year are working on contracts which are negotiated and renegotiated over and over and over and the studios always want more for less. Studios will NOT ever want to treat actors like they're office workers who get X dollars a year as a "standard salary." Studios want to use them then let them go -- and studios are letting them go much faster than in the past. Think about it. Old-school broadcast TV series used to run (some still do) anywhere from 20 to 24 episodes per season, but increasingly, "seasons" on streaming--where the work is moving--are four, six, eight episodes. Huge difference in the number of months of work, and income, per year that a series job provides to an actor. The amount of assured work and steady income is dwindling. On purpose. It saves the studios money. I'm not saying that creators should be forced to turn a six-episode concept into a 22-episode one just to keep more actors employed longer. Even the actors wouldn't want to mess with the creative side like that. But the reality is that actors work fewer weeks and have longer hiatuses between work and now there's even talk of taking away work as extras--if you don't get why it's both impoverishing and insulting to be reduced to an AI avatar forever and ever, well, I can't make you get it.

You missed my point - Tom Cruise should also be making $250K salary a year and that's it.
And if he quits, oh well, plenty of people in line to replace him.

The point is moot from the start. The people on picket lines today have to deal in realities, not what-if fantasy. I agree, it's a nice fantasy that the Cruises of the world would take a fixed salary like that and then everyone would benefit. It truly would be lovely to have a guaranteed income for all actors. But the reality is that there's a strike on right now so people who can barely make ends meet are not treated as disposable by behemoth employers who make billions. No one's proposing a fixed salary from top to bottom in the real world.

I'm waiting to hear that Cruise and the other big-ticket stars are donating millions to strike funds to provide help for actors (and hey, why not writers too) who are completely without income right now. Maybe the stars will do it anonymously and we wont' hear. But I hope they're doing it.

I mean, I get that we're talking about actors and writers here, but if you consider your post in the broad spectrum of things, I'd rather sign up to pay teachers a guaranteed salary of $250K and never watch another movie again. Come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain this to me - how come actors as a group can unionize - no matter who their employers is (Hulu, Netflix), but each tiny starbucks store needs its own Union vote? How does that work?

Your rights as a worker should be taught in high school.
Collective bargaining ( basics) should be taught in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain this to me - how come actors as a group can unionize - no matter who their employers is (Hulu, Netflix), but each tiny starbucks store needs its own Union vote? How does that work?

Starbucks employees as a whole could unionize, but that would be almost impossible for any union to organize. Maybe in the 60s they could have pulled it off, but not now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain this to me - how come actors as a group can unionize - no matter who their employers is (Hulu, Netflix), but each tiny starbucks store needs its own Union vote? How does that work?

In the world of acting, technically you are not supposed to work AT ALL unless you join the union. And the union dues can be very expensive. So, it's a big deal if you get a speaking role somewhere, because then you can join the union. Same goes for writers, director, producers, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about reality shows???

Bethenny Frankel posted on her Insta a rather compelling case for reality stars who get paid peanuts and don’t get residuals—noting reality shows became important during the last strike (in terms of generating new content).

She’s not wrong.

Previous strikes are what gave rise to the inane reality TV shows

And the people on them get paid to live their lives, not create any new, original content out of their brains like writers and actors must do to make their livings. I do admit, the lower-level reality participants (not Frankel!) get crappy pay--a few thousand for a season sometimes, not commensurate with the hours they spend on these shows...living their lives. But if they feel they deserve more pay, they should get organized and form their own union. End of story. They shouldn't be out there right now trying to ride the coattails of the actors' strike to make their own claims. What they do and what actors do, and the training and experience actors have to accrue to do their jobs well and stay employed, are not comparable at all.

That's a stretch. Some of the scenes in "non-scripted" reality shows may have a basis in reality, but they're recreations or producer prompted drama. They'll even do multiple takes. I'm not saying it's on par with scripted series, but production crews aren't going to waste their times following somebody living their typical lives. They're going in with a story already planned out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about reality shows???

Bethenny Frankel posted on her Insta a rather compelling case for reality stars who get paid peanuts and don’t get residuals—noting reality shows became important during the last strike (in terms of generating new content).

She’s not wrong.

Previous strikes are what gave rise to the inane reality TV shows

And the people on them get paid to live their lives, not create any new, original content out of their brains like writers and actors must do to make their livings. I do admit, the lower-level reality participants (not Frankel!) get crappy pay--a few thousand for a season sometimes, not commensurate with the hours they spend on these shows...living their lives. But if they feel they deserve more pay, they should get organized and form their own union. End of story. They shouldn't be out there right now trying to ride the coattails of the actors' strike to make their own claims. What they do and what actors do, and the training and experience actors have to accrue to do their jobs well and stay employed, are not comparable at all.

That's a stretch. Some of the scenes in "non-scripted" reality shows may have a basis in reality, but they're recreations or producer prompted drama. They'll even do multiple takes. I'm not saying it's on par with scripted series, but production crews aren't going to waste their times following somebody living their typical lives. They're going in with a story already planned out.

That "story" still isn't a scripted plot involving their own creativity. They should unionize if they feel they're working in ways that deserve more compensation. But it's a bad look for them to try to use the actors' and writers' strikes to make points about their own pay. That muddies the waters because reality participants (even with multiple takes and an overarching direction mapped out) are not actors, writers or other "creatives." I'm not saying they don't put in lots of hours --they do. I'm not saying they're well paid--they truly aren't. But they are not creating anything, only moving around inside a structure producers build around them. They should define and work for their own improved contracts and work conditions, rather than talking as if they share the same concerns as actors--whose training, experience, efforts and end results are very different from reality participants'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just saw the video with Mandy Moore who said she's received streaming residual checks for This Is Us for as little as $0.01.

Unreal!

Mandy Moore made 4.5 million per season for This is Us. More money than most human beings on this Earth will see in a lifetime of working. How much more do you think she deserves "up front" to make up for low residuals? It is hard to feel sorry for her. If she doesn't like the residual check, maybe she should find another career.