The Film and TV Industries

I wonder how long the movie studios will try and hold out for. No actors and no writers is going to make it difficult to make movies.

They basically can’t function at all without either. With directors on board they can finish up final post production but they can’t do anything else. Like, at all. They can’t even like, mass recast or anything like that because that violates the actor contracts and it can get them sued over it.

I take it from that SAG vote that the US has less restrictive strike laws than the U.K.? Over here a strike with less than 50% turnout in the ballot is illegal.

In the US, the rule in that respect is defined by each union itself. There’s not really an overarching rule, and some smaller unions don’t require a vote at all. In this case though, SAG-AFTRA is unusual because once you’re in and you keep paying your dues, you stay in. You have to actively request to be moved to inactive status which makes you ineligible to vote. There’s a pretty big chunk of members who haven’t acted in ages who keep paying their dues because they want to keep the benefits of being a member, but they barely pay attention otherwise. The result is a lot of due paying members who have been in like…three commercials 30 years ago and not much else because it’s the easiest and cheapest way to have healthcare worth a damn but they don’t do anything else.

I think the justification for this set-up is because of how unreliable the job of acting actually is for many people and having time limits on when you automatically get removed would be a gigantic headache for everyone involved.

The DCU Will NOT Use AI in Animation, Says James Gunn

Korean writers picket in solidarity with Writers Guild of America

Bold of them to say after what happened in The Flash with all the cameos...

That wasn't a Gunn-led film, and I imagine he's thinking of that when he's making these statements.

Well, best statement he can get at this point is "well, the kind of bullshit going on before won't be repeated while I am in charge". If people believe that, it'd be good press, I guess.

We won't get that statement, you don't bite the hand that feeds and trash your boss' decisions and at the end of the day Zsalav bet big on the Flash.

Hence why I said his last statement probably was thinking of what happened in The Flash, as he wouldn't be able to come out and day it without getting fired over it.

So, how long do you think the Writers Strike will go on?

We don't really know. If the SGA goes on strike too, the studios will probably bend pretty quickly, but previous strikes have lasted for months.

Yeah, strikes are usually over very quickly or they're for the long haul.

I think there was only one strike where it lasted for a long time and that was the 2007 strike. I wonder why that strike lasted so long?

Because the studios wouldn't negotiate. That's basically it.

I do wonder if the studios nowadays are different from how the studios were in 2007.

Well, yeah. The primary difference is that a lot of the tech industry wormed its way in there. Comcast, AT&T, Apple, Amazon. And even though AT&T has backed out, their influence is still going to hang around on Warner Bros.

The tech side of things has very little experience with unions because they ruthlessly break them the instant they start forming, so they don't really know what to do when there's an established union they can't break.

An excerpt from an interview with an anonymous Apple executive commenting on the strike.

It's amazing how little self awareness they have that they don't realize that attitude is exactly the problem people have. Like no shit screwing your workers out of every cent possible isn't personal for the corporation, but that doesn't change the fact that it's disgusting and you're not going to get the workers to be happy with it.

I'm willing to argue that in some cases it actually is. Like I recent came across a video about Goodwill and found out, among other thing, that they fired a dude for pointing out the various workplace hazards for disabled people after someone predictably died there (for clairty's sake, the death happened after the company was alerted about these hazards).

Tho other thing I noticed was that the execs were getting paid as if it was a for-profit business, but outside with the obvious wealth disparity that is more for the economics or US politics thread.

A video from How Money Works going into why employees have to get to multiple interviews, also explains IIRC that one reason is to give the company plausible deniability if they were to reject someone for discriminatory reasons by pointing to something in any of the interviews the denied employee had.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jun 19th 2023 at 3:04:58 AM

It's funny he accuses writers of thinking they're the center of the universe. Entertainment CEO's are like the definition of thinking they have the most important job ever even as it seems like it adds value totally disproportional to their salaries.

They can suck a cactus.

Many CE Os are like that, really.

penny pinching and existence is such a hard job. Totally worth six figure salaries.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jun 20th 2023 at 7:47:42 AM

Amy Poehler explains why this writers strike feels different than the last one