SaveTheBiz.org
Posted by Craig Mazin on 07 Jan 2009 at 11:27 pm | Tagged as: WGA Issues
Ted turned me on to this site.
The narrator of this short film (and appearing as “The Director”) is James Cromwell, who has served as SAG’s Secretary-Treasurer.
At this point, Alan and Doug need to forget about their hopes for a strike and start worrying instead about how to keep control of their union. The pro-deal message right now is far more compelling and certainly better organized.
Hmmm, maybe that’s because it also makes more sense?
VoiceGuy has it right: it’s nuts for Rosenberg and Allen to hold a strike authorization vote unless (a) they know they will get the authorization and (b) they fully intend to strike, as opposed to use the authorization as ‘leverage.’ And this video makes a good argument that a strike would itself be nuts.
Do they really not see this?
Depressingly, Craig is right that the militants believe that the rest of the union needs to be slapped into line to support a strike authorization. The special meeting that starts on Monday promises to be a knock-down, drag-out battle between the militants and the moderates.
For a good idea of how dug-in the pro-strike forces are, see this brand-new issue of the Hollywood Division newsletter:
http://www.sag.org/files/documents/Hollywood%20Call%20SheetJan09.pdf
Sigh.
VG
VG, I read the newsletter. Out of context, it seems all very reasonable.
But the context is, as Anne-Marie Johnson points out, the SAG is factionalized. She thinks that the cure for that is the strike authorization vote, which will force all good actors to come to the aid of their Guild. But if the Guild is still badly divided at this stage in the contract cycle, haranguing the membership is not going to heal the divisions. And going into a strike with the divisions she identifies is a strategy for defeat.
It’s also interesting that the newsletter writers can’t peddle the line, “A strike authorization doesn’t guarantee a strike,” with a straight face. There are numerous references in the letter to how the Guild has struck in similar situations in the past — I like the chart that says the strike could be as short as ten days (… or as long as six months).
Apparently the whole argument for the efficacy of the strike boils down to Ed Asner’s:
Does he really believe that the moguls will be any more embarrassed or will suffer any more punishment than they did as a result of the WGA strike? Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that no executive heads rolled as a result of the writers’ strike.If a SAG strike means that the AMPTP companies can stop film production and focus on television production under the AFTRA contract, that could simply make consumers rediscover the joys of television, and the studios might well make more profit on less revenue. Is that not so?
Seems like the only heads that rolled were people with development or “first look” deals that the studios needed an excuse to dump.
The silly season is hitting with increasing intensity leading up to the Monday-Tuesday board meeting. Yesterday it came to light that a high-profile board member was sending around an e-mail urging SAG members to cast their SAG Awards votes not for the actors giving the best performances, but against those actors who had publicly come out against striking — calling them “disloyal.” (Does that terminology remind anyone of anything?) And a group of Membership First supporters is trying to rally a mob to demonstrate in front of the building where this board meeting is set to occur on Monday.
As for the Call Sheet newsletter, this is the first time anyone can remember that the actual roll call vote from a Hollywood board meeting has been published. The vote was on a fairly meaningless motion “reaffirming” the national board’s motion passed in October. Because the national board had already voted and passed the motion, there was no legal significance to the Hollywood board “reaffirming” this motion … it was simply a symbolic and nakedly political act. But by holding the vote and then publishing it here, clearly the militant board majority wanted to put pressure on those who disagreed with them.
No one knows what will happen on Monday and Tuesday. However, I agree with Craig that there’s only one possible outcome in the contract negotiation. That outcome is essentially the same with or without a strike, because the AMPTP is not going to depart materially from what it did with the other guilds. And because it seems unlikely that a strike authorization will pass with the required 75% majority, sending out a strike authorization ballot would likely put SAG in an even worse bargaining position than it is now.
It’s discouraging to watch.
VG
Union solidarity is something you gotta build and cement together in preparation for contract negotiations, not something you can demand and expect as an automatic gift from the membership on the eve of a strike vote. Amazing that these guys who talk up their union cred don’t get that.
An article in the Daily Telegraph Online covering the CES points out how the electronics execs are all putting up a brave front (unlike the porn execs at the Adult World expo across town, who’ve asked for $5 billion in Federal bailout money). But this passage sums up the crucial issue:
So Hollywood may have an even greater role to play in the national economy this year… making the stakes of an actors’ strike even greater.
How dramatic. Like a strike will bring the biz to it’s knees. I don’t think so. Though considering the plethora of crap films out there, it might be a Godsend.
There’s really nothing to worry about here. There will never be a depression like the Great Depression. You can live now on fast food for a dollar a day. A further downturn will just cut down the odds of getting produced. They were pretty bad to begin with. But now you might have to actually write films that people will actually want to produce and that people will actually want to see. You might have to have talent. What a bitch, huh.
It seems to me that the structure of the industry means that the AMPTP can use a SAG strike to its maximum advantage. It can use AFTRA to bypass the strike’s effect on television production to keep its cashflow alive, and then arrange the shutdown of film production so as to cause the maximum collateral damage to other Guilds and unions. That latter tactic has two potential payoffs to the AMPTP: first, it induces other Guild and union members to blame the SAG for costing them work, and second, it weakens the coffers of the other Guilds and unions at both the union level and the individual member level, so that those unions are weaker going into their respective contract negotiations.
Am I wrong in my analysis?
It not that easy. Existing TV shows can’t simply be moved over from SAG to AFTRA — there is a whole decertification process that requires a couple of years. The only thing going to AFTRA right now is new pilots.
The main thing to acknowledge is that SAG can’t do anything by way of a strike without a strike authorization. The ballots were initially supposed to go out shortly after the November 23 breakdown of federal mediation. Then the mailing was postponed until the beginning of January because of accusations that the over-Christmas timing was designed to disenfranchise people who wouldn’t get mail over the holidays. Then the mailing was tabled pending a special national board meeting that is set to begin today. There is wide speculation that the strike authorization will be suspended indefinitely, pending a reconfiguration of the negotiating team and a new run at obtaining a deal.
What this all means is that the studios will have plenty of warning should a strike again become part of the game plan.
I’m not sure how the studios can “arrange the shutdown of film production so as to cause the maximum collateral damage to other Guilds and unions.” If a film is in principal photography, or about to commence principal photography, a strike will stop that process in its tracks. It might well be that a strike authorization ballot going out would be enough to stop things in their tracks. The studios won’t have to do anything extra-clever for other guilds to feel the fallout.
The concern I have, and the concern implicit in the above video, is that a SAG strike could permanently impair production activity in Los Angeles, just as the 2000 Commercials strike permanently killed a big chunk of that work.
VG
VG: thanks. So I was mistaken in thinking that there was enough institutional flexibility that the AMPTP could rebalance its TV production.
My comment about manipulating the impact on film production has to do with deciding which projects to postpone versus which to cancel outright, and deciding how to constitute a post-strike production schedule. That dovetails with your concern: one potential post-strike production schedule is the one that moves the most production possible out of Hollywood for less contentious climes.
Another question: are the charters of AFTRA and SAG, and their respective collective bargaining agreements, constituted such that AFTRA can’t be the bargaining unit on a feature film?
Stuart Creque wrote:
I’m not sure what AFTRA’s “charter” (or whatever the document is) may say or not say on the subject. Historically, however, AFTRA has kept itself out of the feature film business, and has repeatedly stated that it had no intention of getting into that business.
There are a number of customs and conventions at work. One is that SAG, as a rule of thumb, covers production that is done using film (the chemically-coated stuff with sprocket holes), whereas AFTRA covers stuff done on tape (originally, stuff done “television-style” with multi-cameras). The latter concept has evolved into “stuff done digitally” (like onto hard disk or memory cards), and at present SAG and AFTRA each contend that they have jurisdiction over digital.
There is a second custom that intersects the first, and that is “situs.” The general idea is that stuff done on a film studio lot (situs) will belong to SAG, whereas stuff done at a television facility will belong to AFTRA.
My impression is that AFTRA doesn’t want to cross the line into features for a bunch of reasons. And I note, for example, that Sidney Lumet’s 2007 film Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead was shot entirely on digital (then eventually converted to 35mm for release prints) with two-camera shoots but was still, as far as I know, a SAG production.
For now, the area of competition and overlap is television programming, including network prime time and basic & pay cable. AFTRA currently covers the bulk of the broadcast day (which includes news, game shows, soap operas, etc., as well as a handful of prime-time series), while SAG covers a larger proportion of scripted prime-time series. The problem is that scripted prime-time series are becoming an endangered species. Moreover, pilots right now are going to AFTRA even if otherwise they might have gone to SAG because the producers aren’t willing to risk the disruption of a SAG strike. It won’t be long before SAG’s opportunity to pick up new pilots this year will be gone (if it isn’t already).
So here’s the deal, as I see it (and my viewpoint is not especially omniscient):
A SAG strike will interrupt all major studio feature film work.
A SAG strike will shut down a number of prime-time television series.
AFTRA television series will, in theory, be able to continue shooting. However, SAG has threatened to enact a strike rule that forbids dual-card SAG/AFTRA members from auditioning for or working on the AFTRA shows if the show is being produced by a struck employer (someone who is signatory to both the SAG and AFTRA contracts). Thus the ability for AFTRA shows to cast guest stars may be impaired. (Series regulars with ongoing contracts would still be allowed and required to work under those contracts.)
There are a number of indie films in production that have “guaranteed completion” agreements with SAG. This could help fill studio pipelines, although it’s unlikely there will be a Dark Night blockbuster in this group.
The effect of a strike now will be to impair the feature film releases in 2010 and 2011. Studios might be able to play catch-up in the meantime. (This may be one reason Half Blood Prince was kicked over into 2009.) Expect an uptick in features that don’t need actors in the conventional sense, and a further uptick in reality and other non-scripted television programming.
VG
VG:
Thank you for that.
I presume that includes animation. What other categories fall into this grouping?
And which union covers voice actors on animated features? Is that again a film-vs-digital issue? (And does a film like Through a Scanner Darkly or Beowulf fully qualify as animation rather than live-action, even though the animation includes motion-cap or other stylizing of live performances?)
Hoping to avoid the fate of Father William’s overly inquisitive son, I remain,
Yr obt Servt,
Stuart Creque
As far as I know, features (whether animated or live action) would fall under SAG’s “Codified Basic Agreement for Theatrical Films.” Thus, the voice actors would fall under SAG. (There are rates for both on-camera and off-camera actors.)
You guys are the writers, not me, so I’m not sure what all the possibilities are in “features that don’t need actors in the conventional sense.” (By “conventional sense” I meant live-action films that involve many days of principal photography with actors on a set.) Animated features don’t need the voice actors for very long — the voice tracking for a full-length feature can be done in a day or two. After that, the tracks go off into never-never-land for months and months for the actual animation work.
But there may be other things. Imagine something that used only “found” material, like historical (archival) footage, news clips, etc. Or an animated feature à la Fantasia that contained only music in the soundtrack. Maybe none of these offhand ideas are very strong, but I would anticipate that the studios will be looking for other such ideas.
VG
A union can’t prohibit its members from applying for or accepting employment under another union’s jurisdiction, even if both unions represent the same kind of employees.
The WGA found this out back in 2007, when it tried to impose a strike rule that prohibited Guild members from accepting work as writers under IATSE/Animation Guild jurisdiction.
-Ted
I agree with you, Ted. But that doesn’t mean SAG wouldn’t try to impose such a rule, even if invalid. It’s the same mindset that caused the WGA to do what it tried to do.
At this moment the SAG national board is meeting to decide, among other things, whether to scuttle the strike vote or proceed with it. There is rampant rumor that the board has voted to remove Doug Allen from his role as chief negotiator. It will be very interesting to see how this all shakes out.
VG
Rumors ain’t worth the paper they’re printed on.