Actors' strike
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
THIS! This is correct. Please don't protest by boycotting streaming. It might seem logical to do so but neither union is calling for that. PP is right: If people keep on streaming and watching, the studios are going to realize they have audiences but are rapidly running out of content and will feel more pressure to talk to the unions. Source: Friends in SAG-AFTRA! |
Anonymous
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. |
Anonymous
So we don't need to boycott theater films either ? |
Anonymous
I'm the DCUM poster who always complains about CEO salaries versus their staff's salaries. Same situation here. Executives making millions while most of the people who make that possible are struggling to support themselves. Also maybe the big stars don't need to make so much more than everyone else. Yes, they should make more (they are the draw, they have a bigger role, etc.), but is such a huge disparity necessary? |
Anonymous
+1,000 And fairer pay and residuals. Actual career-building staff jobs rather than ever-shrinking gig work (for writers). An end to predatory charges for the "privilege" of self-taping auditions (for actors). And more. Most people who aren't in the industry aren't aware of how much is at stake for both the actors and writers right now. (But you, PP, clearly are!) |
Anonymous
Acting isn't a holy grail that can't be touched, but it's a profession that has union leverage, and of course they're going to use that leverage to protect their bottom line. Most actors would DREAM to make $250k a year. The minimum to get health insurance through SAG is something like $26k a year, and many struggle to maintain that minimum on day jobs and commercials. These are the working actors most at risk, because they're the ones who would be offered the one time buyout for their likeness so they can become the Wilhelm Scream of background extras until the end of time. |
Anonymous
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. |
Anonymous
| Replace these morons with ai |
Anonymous
Hurr durr |
Anonymous
That's the long term plan, but AI isn't good enough yet. This is the last time the actors and writers will have any leverage to prevent it |
Anonymous
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. |
Anonymous
There is no need for acting just create a likeness and sell it for ai. That's the new way. |
Anonymous
Thank you. I wrote the longer version I think while you were posting this! I despair when people assume "actors make millions" and then also fail to understand that acting is freelance work, so union protection is vital. The health insurance issue is especially tough. The union of course does have to have a floor for earnings that trigger union-provided health insurance, but it gives me shivers to think of anyone slipping below a certain threshold and suddenly losing insurance. I feel the same way about anyone whose health insurance access is precarious, in any industry. But the data that 87 percent of SAG-AFTRA members earn below the threshold for insurance just makes it all hit home: This isn't a profession where "millions" is even remotely in range, much less some fantasy of a steady, predictable $250K. |
Anonymous
You are missing the point that actors aren't employees on salary. They are freelance, and earn whatever they negotiate in the contract. |
Anonymous
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. |