Rolling Labor Action Thread

Feel like the AI stuff is a distraction that the studios are happy to concede on/use as a distraction.

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/can-a-writers-strike-save-hollywood?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=email

"As a coder and someone with a computer science degree let me tell you why my films are terrible"

Cited in that Matt Stoller article:

Ten years ago, 33% of TV writers were paid the minimum rate. Now, according to the WGA, 49% are. Accounting for inflation, writer pay has declined 14% in the last five years. The median weekly writer-producer pay is down 23% over the last decade, with inflation factored in.

Thanks for the link.

and the companies for which they write ... their profits haven't gone down much or have they?

Bandcamp United has won its vote:

https://blog.bandcamp.com/2023/05/19/bandcamp-and-bandcamp-united-release-joint-statement-on-union-vote/

More WGA strike talk

https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-screenwriting-life-with-me-1096076/episodes/138-your-wga-strike-questions-173016839

Michael Schur interview in Deadline

https://apple.news/AW5YT5dDlTv2GEoC8q1nd9w

Great interview, thanks.

This one might be even more enjoyable

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/05/meet-the-writers-strikes-secret-weapon-hollywood-teamsters-boss-lindsay-dougherty

Good Shohei Ohtani analogy on that Michael Schur interview.

The WGA strike coming not that long after Covid production shutdowns of just a couple years ago is pretty brutal on not just writers but working actors, all the day to day production people as well.

Emmy campaign season is in full swing and it's astounding the studios have not even started talks after a month of strikes. Contempt is a good word.

Err, 2 weeks+. Feels like a month.

SCHUR: Look, there are 600 television shows; there’s one Mike White. The purpose of the guild is to protect the 599 people who aren’t that one person, right? It’s like, (the Los Angeles Angels’) Shohei Ohtan is a hitter and a pitcher. If all baseball teams told all of their employees that they had to both be all-star level hitters and pitchers because one guy did it, that wouldn’t seem fair. And it’s not a perfect analogy, but the goal of the union is to protect the 7000 episodic TV members who aren’t the very small number of people who prefer to do it in the way that they prefer to do it. And if the very worst thing that happened was we saved 6,958 jobs and four people had to hire three consultants to give them a second set of eyes on their episodes of their show, I think we would take that deal.

“The WGA strike coming not that long after Covid production shutdowns of just a couple years ago is pretty brutal on not just writers but working actors, all the day to day production people as well.”

I’m hoping all these unions team up and show one another solidarityz

Ha, the “z” shouldn’t have been there

You love to see it

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/david-zaslav-booed-boston-university-graduation-writers-strike-1235497440/

Lol

Get his ass

Lol @ this David Simon interview.

"I'd rather put a gun in my mouth"

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/19/1177194215/tv-writer-david-simon-weighs-in-on-the-writers-guild-of-america-strike

Interesting take from Simon

Re: use of AI in writing

SIMON: Not only I think is it a fundamental violation of the integrity of writers and also of copyright to - you know, when I sold all the scripts I sold, you know, 150 to HBO and, you know, maybe another 50 to NBC, I didn't sell them so that they could be thrown into a computer with other people's and be used again by a corporation. So...

That is kind of true, from a business and legal perspective, because AI could be used as a way to obscure chain of creation. Studios are usually on a hair-trigger alert about not accepting any kind of unsolicited material, because they are subject to so many idea theft claims. And U.S. copyright law is hear an all-time high point in terms of legitimizing infringement claims for even de minimus copying.

Normally studios have to be on guard to be able to show independent creation or "clean room" development of their materials at all times to defend such claims. The fair use defense to copyright infringement is less friendly to allegedly transformative uses after Goldsmith v. Warhol.

So unless you know and can trace all the inputs into AI generated writing, it can start down a slippery slope of essentially idea theft or copyright infringement if the inputs include copyrighted material. This cuts both ways too. A writer could choose to use AI in their writing, but normally has to warrant that all material is original, so if they choose to use AI they are then exposed to claims for breach of the warranty that all material in script is original.

Again, I don't think any of this means no one can or should use AI in creation. It's just what makes a Guild production version not. Plenty of writers do non-union side projects all the time.

Re musicians

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/why-songwriters-cant-have-their-own-writers-strike-yet/

Fantastic piece, this

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/opinion/wga-hollywood-writers-strike-unions.html

Gift link version of above story.

Thanks for that, Ned.

Here’s another strike:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-31/amazon-workers-walk-out-to-protest-climate-office-return-policy#xj4y7vzkg

This is all worth listening to, but there’s a really interesting point made at around the 42 minute mark of how little it would cost the studios to get to where WGA is asking them to go.

https://postshowrecaps.com/tv-show/the-writers-strike-a-discussion-with-wga-member-justin-shanes/

The DGA seems to have squeezed something out of the studios

https://deadline.com/2023/06/directors-hollywood-studios-reach-deal-new-contract-1235399542/

SAG authorizes strike if it comes to it:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-06-05/sag-aftra-strike-hollywood-labor-amptp-strike-authorization

98% margin! The equal of the WGA authorization vote.

If you need a free-read link:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sag-aftra-members-authorize-strike-nearly-98-percent-work-stoppage-1235507295/

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/19/1177194215/tv-writer-david-simon-weighs-in-on-the-writers-guild-of-america-strike

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, May 23, 2023 6:36 AM (one week ago

apparently they went with the Season 5 theme music or was that Steve Earle?

The DGA seems to have squeezed something out of the studios

morelike the studios have convinced the union with the smallest voting base and comparative best per-member compensation not to join in solidarity with their more numerous and more precarious colleagues, reinforcing a class division that benefits the studios?

Yay oh wait

LA this summer! pic.twitter.com/5uJqSdyuP8

— Americana At Brand Memes (@americanamemes) June 6, 2023

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/david-byrne-history-of-union-avoidance_n_647e6c0fe4b0047ed782e1ad

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/writers-strike-sag-aftra-actors-1235508507/amp/

this may be a dumb question, but ... are they getting strike benefits from the Union and how do strike benefits work, and what role do they play in successful vs. unsuccessful labor actions?

According to this story, projectionists at an NYC Alamo Drafthouse (unclear which) filed a petition to unionize Weds

On Fri, Alamo sent an email notifying of its intention to eliminate the projectionist role and replace with with "technical engineer" https://t.co/D08dT7xlEH

— Screen Slate (@ScreenSlate) June 11, 2023

good.

With their latest win, @SBWorkersUnited is now in 80% of U.S. states.

The union's recent victory in Missoula, Montana means that there are now 331 unionized Starbucks spread across 40 states.

Just 1.5 years ago there were zero.https://t.co/Owmwgi3A9a

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) June 26, 2023

Pretty good background on the WGA itself, and what it provides its members

https://podtail.com/en/podcast/bonehead-humor/ep-285-todd-farmer-and-the-wga-strike/

SAG-AFTRA went to bed

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/bob-iger-writers-actors-strike-disney-ceo-1235669169/

Hahaha respectfully sir, fuck you

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/2023/7/13/23793828/sag-aftra-strike-wga-hollywood

I didn't realize that Fran Drescher was such a militant firebrand

Fran Drescher's speech is worth watching:

The business model has changed for all of us - this applies to music equally #solidarity pic.twitter.com/j8sbmisCD3

— Damon K 🎤 (@dada_drummer) July 13, 2023

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/orange-is-the-new-black-signalled-the-rot-inside-the-streaming-economy

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/notes-on-hollywood/orange-is-the-new-black-signalled-the-rot-inside-the-streaming-economy🕸

H/t sleeve

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/actors-strike-sag-artificial-intelligence-hollywood-studios-background-1234788191/amp/

I meant to C&P this good Janis Ian post along with that link, here it is:

* you may share anything I post here.
A few people on this page have objected to the SAG-AFTRA strike on the grounds that "you get to do what you love" "you're overpaid already" "I can't afford to take my kids to movies because of you" and my favorite, "I can't afford tickets to sports events any more."
???
So let me explain just a couple of things.
- Statistically, 2% of actors make a living wage. Even fewer singers make that much.
- SAG-AFTRA doesn't only represent actors. It represents singers, dancers, DJs, puppeteers, stunt performers, and dozens of other professions.
- You may work in an industry that will contribute to your pension fund, provide matching funds, provide health benefits. We get none of that. The only benefits artists get are through our unions, and we pay for those.
- Years ago, the union caved to Amazon and its subsidiaries by making deals that ruined audiobook narration and a host of other things. As a personal instance, I narrated The Singer and the Song, which was nominated for an Audie (the audiobook equivalent of a Grammy nomination). It involved singing parts of more than 20 songs, creating new arrangements for them all that would suit solo vocal and guitar, researching names of places and pronunciations, and a host of other things. I spent two full weeks of my life on the project and was paid for 7 hour's work, because that's how long the audiobook plays. At that time, the rate was about $230 an hour, so for my two week's work I was paid $134 a day, or about $14 an hour for a basic nine hour day.
- Most performer's "days" are more like 12 hours.
- Most performers earn in the region of $8-$10 an hour if they're lucky.
- The studios are not "negotiating". Read the below article from Rolling Stone to see what they want from us. If you happened to be lucky enough to be a "background actor" on a show that needs warm bodies in a restaurant, or walking around the street, you'd be paid $200 for up to 16 hour's work, and have to agree to have your body scanned, after which the studio would OWN that scan and the right to use it FOREVER.
- As a last aside, please don't come on my page and tell me artists get to do what we love so we shouldn't be paid for it, because we don't really work as hard as non-artists. Until I stopped touring, 12-hour work days were routine, and I was lucky if that's all it took.
Thank you for your support, of art, and of artists.

Damn, good post. And YIKES.

also relevant along w/the Black Mirror episode everyone is referencing that I have not seen

https://bojackhorseman.fandom.com/wiki/Secretariat_(film)

After an incident with her and her daughter Penny, BoJack returned to L.A. to find the film has been finished without him. They did this by using a CGI version of BoJack, which was created from a computer scan they did of his face during the first few weeks of shooting in Brand New Couch. In fact, they actually replaced the real BoJack with the CGI version for the entire movie, meaning that BoJack technically isn't in the film at all.

https://deadline.com/2023/07/oliver-stone-oppenheimer-sag-aftra-wga-strike-roots-1235438219/