Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
SAG Strke deal
21 Plays11 months ago
Just some of things SAG got in deal
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:18
Speaker
All right, welcome back to fright central I'm doc back here again as always with kec. How's it going, buddy? Enchanted
00:00:28
Speaker
Enchanted uh yeah first I want to
SAG Strike Tentative Agreement
00:00:31
Speaker
get into the strike The sag strike which is finally over I mean they still have to the members off the vote on it but they finally came to agreement after like what like 175 days or something like that and
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah, whatever. Once the writers settled their strike, I knew that SAG was only a matter of time. I didn't really think that the SAG strike was going... I would have been surprised if it went on for another 60 days. What was it? 30 days? Was it 30 or less?
00:01:04
Speaker
about two to three weeks yeah i think it was less than 30 days yeah uh but yeah we finally came to an end on the ninth and then uh the leverage at that point so it had uh
00:01:19
Speaker
Yeah, the board members finally agreed on it as well, except for two board members, which they didn't want any AI as well. They were like, no, there should be no AI at all. But everyone else had agreed. That's just a little bit naive. I mean, the future isn't going... I mean, there's going to be a need for some of it.
00:01:46
Speaker
I mean, because AI can really do some good, but anyway, not to go on the whole AI sidebar. Completely. But yeah, they only released six main points. The members, again, still have to ratify this. But I'll go through just real quick the six points that they did get. Again, there was a lot of other stuff that we don't know about that hasn't been released yet.
00:02:14
Speaker
But these are the six confirmed things that I mean, although it hasn't, I guess, been like officially signed yet. I mean, it's all parties agreed to it in principle. So I mean, yeah, everybody's going to be signed in.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, and everyone's back to work.
Wage Increases and Relocation Bonuses
00:02:32
Speaker
And yeah, yeah. And so I assume like, it'll be if the companies were to back out now, there would be like an additional lawsuit. So like, you know, I'm going to say that.
00:02:45
Speaker
It wouldn't be the companies back now, it would be the actors. The studios have already agreed to this, it's just the members. Yeah, I'm saying if the studios were to suddenly do a one-eighth, and then I'm saying that there would be a wall, because all the actors are already back to work, that's what I mean. Yeah, but again, the actors still could be like, nah, we don't agree, we're going back on strike. That could always happen.
00:03:11
Speaker
But the likelihood is not very high. But anyway, so minimum compensation increases. Performers, that's everybody with a speaking rule, earns a 7% wage increase effective immediately. The initial pay hike will be followed by 4% in July 2024, and then a 3.5% increase July 2025.
00:03:34
Speaker
Now background actors, stand-ins, and photo doubles will immediately earn an 11% wage increase, followed by the same 4% and 3.5% hikes in 24% and 25%. So that's pretty big right there. Then there was also relocation bonuses. Performers in a series who have to relocate for work will be entitled to a maximum relocation benefit of up to $5,000 a month for six months.
00:04:03
Speaker
That's a 200% increase on the previous amount. There's a minimum number of background actors that have been increased. So the West Coast now equals the minimum number on the East Coast. So it's 25 background actors for TV shows that used to be 22. And for feature films, the minimum jumps from 57 to 85.
Streaming Rules and Success Bonuses
00:04:33
Speaker
There is a disclosure of viewership status, stats, sorry, on high budget streaming productions. Streaming producers will be required to disclose the total number of hours the content was streamed in both US, Canada, and abroad for each quarter. That's intended to help actors determine if they're being fairly compensated relative to the show's distribution and popularity. Then there is...
00:05:01
Speaker
Well, here's how they determine whether they get their streaming bonuses, which was one of the things that they were fighting for. It's going to be a success payment along with the usual residual payments if they work on a streaming project that attracts a significant number of views.
00:05:19
Speaker
The success matrix is determined by the following formula. All right, now bear with me. The total number of domestic... Are you sure you want to do this? I'm going to give you a chance right now. No one's going to blame you. You can just say it was a success and move on. Do you really want to go through with all this? It's not a whole lot. It's not a whole lot. So you're accepting the challenge.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yes. The total number of domestic streaming hours over the first 90 days is divided by the total runtime of the movie or television series episodes to determine domestic views.
00:06:06
Speaker
Now, the success metric is calculated by dividing the domestic views by the total number of subscribers. Well, that's domestic subscribers as well. If the result is at least 0.2, a bonus is paid.
AI and Digital Replicas in Entertainment
00:06:21
Speaker
Now, 75% of that bonus money will go to the performer with the remainder going to a new streaming payment distribution fund to compensate performers who work on the streaming shows.
00:06:33
Speaker
So the main actors will get it and then like the other, you know, it will get spread out among everyone else. I didn't think that was too difficult. Challenge, challenge crushed. I wouldn't like pull out a pen and pad and try to do the math on the spot. I mean, we won't know that.
00:06:56
Speaker
We won't know any, like how well they'd like that, because all that information just goes to like, you know, SAG, so they get the numbers.
00:07:04
Speaker
You know, so we won't know what like how many people are subscribed unless like they say or how many how well it's doing unless like, you know, they release that information. So naturally, some function of the numbers are always this that's just like something that's just something that happens. It could either be too much or too little. But like, I'm assuming that they're going to try to figure out some way to
00:07:29
Speaker
I mean you're obviously going to always want to compensate your employees as little as humanly possible. Yeah, so they have to really close numbers to the actors. They can like, you know, do the math.
00:07:41
Speaker
Themselves to make sure they get paid right and again in like three years. They don't it'll something else will come up and they'll be back at again with new negotiations like always so Hopefully they don't have to go on strike next time, but you know Really make the argument that they could have negotiated all this stuff while still working and not being on strike especially since like AI wasn't like
00:08:07
Speaker
the
00:08:27
Speaker
on bias because I dislike Fran Drescher so immensely, but I realized that I am in the vast minority. If you just go, I mean, I was trying to, before this cast, I was trying to find anti-Fran Drescher sediment so I could scream it during this cast, and I found some
00:08:54
Speaker
But the sources I found it from are let's just say not ones that I would want to cite in private to my friends, let alone publicly over this podcast. And so I'm just going to go ahead and say most people think that Fran Drescher was a very
00:09:18
Speaker
very effective union leader that uh was able to negotiate this thing very well um i mean that is the vast opinion of like everyone that i've not only say that's like a member of sag but also like the independent public at large everyone seemed to believe that fran dresser was very very um
00:09:48
Speaker
very, very well done in this task. So I mean, I'm Yeah, they seem they have gotten mostly most of what they want to obviously like the things that they had asked for in the beginning is negotiation tactic and they didn't get exactly what they want it but like that's everything but I feel like the bigger name actors that were the most worried about their
00:10:13
Speaker
eventual AI likenesses being displayed I believe that like the marquee actors the established actors they're the ones that really made out because they would have probably well I'm not gonna say a lot to lose but they would definitely have more to lose than anyone else
00:10:33
Speaker
with their likeness being portrayed without any consent whatsoever. So I think that this benefited the big actors more than it did the little guy. I think that sort of something that they tried to say. I feel like the little guy didn't get as much as me, but we don't know yet. There's still stuff that has not been released. Well, let me tell you what the limits on artificial intelligence is, because it's the last sticking point that I haven't even said yet.
00:11:08
Speaker
So the film and TV producers must obtain consent from actors to create and use their digital replicas as well as specifically how they intend to use that digital likeness. Actors are entitled to compensation at their usual rate for the number of days they would otherwise have been paid
00:11:43
Speaker
you're gonna you now not only do you have to like spend the money to pay that actor to stay at home but now you have to like digitally try to recreate them i think that's pretty good protection and that includes background actors too so i think they get they get the same amount of protections but obviously it would cost
00:11:52
Speaker
to do their work being performed by a digital replica.
00:11:59
Speaker
more for the actors to sit at home if they didn't want to do it. Also, with the smaller actors too, there could be a lot more debate as to whether or not it was actually their likeness being portrayed. You couldn't do that with, say, Brad Pitt.
Movie Anecdotes and Tangents
00:12:19
Speaker
But it sounds like he could be at home in a coke
00:12:23
Speaker
fueled orgy and like somebody's like portraying him that he like gave them the rights to do and he's like just getting paid to stay home and do cocaine like I'm just making a point yeah
00:12:42
Speaker
Oh, I don't know if I brought it up on the last cast, but you had mentioned biting with something about AI. And what it was was that he had like, he had seen like, I guess somebody like recreated like his like his voice and stuff or like, you know, for audio or something. But then they had as part of like, you know, like they like watch movies and stuff. He had watched Mission Impossible.
00:13:13
Speaker
will have a
00:13:28
Speaker
They had a lot of scandal in terms of internet piracy and stuff like that that came upon Barack Obama's desk.
00:13:39
Speaker
And they used to call him like, you know, uh, the Hollywood president. Like it was like known that he kind of had the actors back, you know, he had a lot of friends in that community and stuff like that. So, I mean, I think Biden at that time, pretty much just like kind of stayed out of it. But like, you know, it wouldn't have surprised me for like Biden to take like.
00:14:03
Speaker
a strong stance behind the actors. And when he mentioned, when he made that reference to AI, I thought he was talking about the actors, but it seemed like at first you're saying he wasn't really, and then- He wasn't talking about the actors at all. He was just talking about protections for like government use and like any-
00:14:25
Speaker
that
00:14:45
Speaker
and like AI, you know, getting out of hand and like taking over milli- and sinking like subs and stuff like that. But like, it still wasn't like about protections for actors. It was about military applications for AI. But he saw something and he was just like... But he did watch a movie and was like, oh shit, yeah.
00:15:07
Speaker
That's funny to me that he was watching Mission Impossible Yeah, but uh, oh and the last bitter thing I have about the strike was uh, you know, David Zasloff who's the head of a Discovery, you know, one of ours discovery. Yeah, he said after the writers strike He said the writers were right about almost everything and then he goes so what if we over
00:15:36
Speaker
this dude keeps shooting himself in the fucking foot like he's trying to be like this big Hollywood guy and he keeps saying like the fucking dumbest shit ever like I don't know like yeah I mean I agree that that was a stupid thing to say in public
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:27
Speaker
the fifth
00:16:38
Speaker
uh... well apparently it was a it was finished filming like everything was complete it had gotten positive tests uh... you know screenings and everything and then they decided to you know cancel it and you know take the tax write-off well there's an outpour of outrage from the creators and everybody so they decide to uncancelet but not they're not really sit themselves they're gonna let them shop at around
00:17:05
Speaker
so like it's fucking dumbest fucking thing ever so like a lot of people like are wait what do you I'm sorry could you just like reiterate that a little bit what do you mean they're gonna they're gonna who's gonna shop it around I'm sorry I they're gonna let the they're gonna let the creators of the movie you know the they're gonna let them shop it out to other studios and any other studio could and what's wrong with that
00:17:35
Speaker
the
Controversial Studio Decisions
00:17:55
Speaker
everybody knows Looney Tunes is already on it. Yeah, it's something that was getting a positive reaction to and it's like, yeah, I know. I was like, yeah, I could see if he decided it was like, all right, we're getting a good at like, let's, let's release it ourselves. Like you're going to make money off of this. Like no matter what, you know what I mean?
00:18:15
Speaker
Justin and it's just like an attempt to make more money like to try that like they're hoping that they're gonna land somebody like larger that has interest in it and maybe will want to invest more in future like could that be their logic like
00:18:32
Speaker
the the
00:18:53
Speaker
That could work, but that does seem very risky. Most people would not do that. Yeah. It's already backfired on them, because a lot of creators are now like, well, you canceled the Batgirl movie after it was almost completed. It just needed effects done on it. Who was playing Batgirl just real quick? Oh, I don't remember. But it was like, yeah, not important.
00:19:23
Speaker
But Brandon Frazier was in it. So anyway, yeah, so they canceled that. They shelved that for a tax write-off. Then they were doing that to this, which actually got positive test screenings. So now creators are like, well, why would we go work with you if the potential is that somebody is never going to see if you're just going to shelve it for a tax write-off?
00:19:46
Speaker
So people are going to have to put in their contract and be like, yo, if you don't release this, it's going to cost you this amount of money to do this. You're going to have to pay us even more if you don't release it.
Future of AI and Streaming Negotiations
00:19:58
Speaker
It just seems like a bad business. It's a very bad business decision.
00:20:06
Speaker
I mean I'm trying to think of like what they might have been thinking and maybe they were up for like a risky gamble to see if they could attract like some big fish but it just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense it just seems like that would be high risk for something that you already have in the bag
00:20:29
Speaker
where you know it's most likely going to be successful if you were just to release it right now in its current form yourself.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah, like the inaugural thing makes sense because it wasn't testing that well. And they were redoing their whole DC universe anyway with James Gunn taking over. So like that made sense. But like this one, it's just like, wait, it's already finished. Like, why would you why would you shelve it for 30 million when you could potentially make, you know, 50 to 100 million? This is Looney Tunes we're talking about. So it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:21:07
Speaker
Well, just speaking of Marvel, there's just something I need to mention real quick. I just need to know what's that?
00:21:14
Speaker
I said, this was DC, not Marvel. Yeah, this was DC, but you had mentioned a Marvel movie a second ago. And I just wanted to say... No, that was a DC movie. Batgirl was a DC movie. Whatever. I don't know if it was DC or Marvel, but I was watching Jimmy Kimmel last night. And he did this little spoof for him, and Guillermo were in the courtroom. And there were these two people giving their... the defense and plaintiff.
00:21:44
Speaker
you know, giving their ridiculous, uh, you know, summary defenses and, you know, whatever. And, uh, in the back, Jimmy Kimmel sees a woman and he's like, aren't you, you look really familiar. And he's like, you're that chick that got punched in the face in the subway in that one, uh, I think it was a Marvel movie.
00:22:07
Speaker
say but it was an old woman and she gets like any showed the club and she gets like slapped in the face and so he like totally turns the whole court around and just focus just about that woman having to randomly be in there and that's all i want to say i thought yeah that
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, that was from the Captain Marvel movie. Dude, I'm not really a fan of either of them. Marvel and DC, that's totally interchangeable with me. I wouldn't know either way.
00:22:45
Speaker
It was a really funny moment. She's sitting on the subway and Captain Marvel punches her in the face. I was like, why did she hit an old woman in the face? Because she was a shapeshifter. Oh, the old woman was? Yeah. Oh, OK. All right. I thought she just struck an old woman like that. Everyone on the train thinks, and it's fucking hilarious. Oh, because the old woman did look back at her and looked mad.
00:23:12
Speaker
when like she slapped her like you know it wasn't like oh how dare you slap me she looked mad but I don't know it was just you know I'm a fan of Jimmy Kimmel I thought that was hilarious yeah so uh in the end um what are your final thoughts on the end of the actor's strike
00:23:32
Speaker
I think
00:23:52
Speaker
what they should have got or do you believe that they should have got more do you think that there's most likely you had mentioned three years down the line you could foresee another striker
00:24:06
Speaker
I mean the negotiations anyway, um, I will see what points negotiations don't count. I'm talking about like actual like strikes and stuff like that. Do you foresee like with improvements to technology? Do you see that there's going to be, um, like, you know,
00:24:26
Speaker
inevitable conflict in the near future? Do you think that they got a pretty good deal on this and that this will probably be a lasting peace between the actors and the companies? I mean,
Government Intervention on AI
00:24:43
Speaker
who knows? I'm sure it'll be another fight for more residuals for streaming, but who knows what the streaming landscape will be in three years?
00:24:55
Speaker
But yeah, that's what I mean. At the rate that technology is expanding, I mean, three years from now, we could be talking about like a totally different thing. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure AI and streaming residuals will still be a big thing. Yeah, I think so, too. And I also believe that they're going to do everything in their power to get to find loopholes in this whole AI.
00:25:23
Speaker
I think that's going to be like, you know work around and I mean, I think that that will probably Well, I mean I see that the little guy will probably get hurt the most because if I mean, you know There's individual actors that have the bankroll to hire their own legal team and like go after them class action
00:25:48
Speaker
So I mean, you know, I think the little guy is like probably the most susceptible to AI loopholes in the future. I mean, I'm just trying to use deductive logic. That's what I think. I could be totally wrong.
00:26:02
Speaker
You know, I could see like background actors being harder to like be like, yo, I wasn't there for that. That's, that's me right there in the corner. And it's like kind of blurry, but you can't really tell. Like, yeah, I could definitely see that. That's what I see. I think, and look, I'm happy that the strike is over. I hope that there's a lasting piece. I hope everybody abides by the rules, regardless of how naive I may or may not sound.
00:26:29
Speaker
I think ultimately the best way to do this and you might disagree and I've talked to other people that told me that they disagreed that there should be a large scale like government interaction but I do believe that Congress should have a role in enacting some regulations because I think that if there was certain government mandates that law
00:26:57
Speaker
makers put into place, then we wouldn't have to worry about these strikes, because both sides would have already been in some kind of legal, contractual, whatever obligation to uphold the laws of the land.
00:27:15
Speaker
if Congress were to pass a law that basically says, you know, under no circumstances can you use someone's likeness without their permission. That would be a broad overall defining term. Now, obviously, you know, that would not count for, you know,
00:27:36
Speaker
pictures that were produced outside of the United States. So maybe if it was something that was like filmed in Canada or something, maybe that wouldn't encompass congressional regulation or something like that. But I think in the long term,
00:27:52
Speaker
I would like to see the government just pass something that basically says what I think is just common sense and that is if you want to use someone's likeness to make money, you need to at the very least have their permission, not necessarily pay them, but at least have their permission to use them.
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, and if they're passed away, you know, like, you know, surviving family members or the estate, obviously, I think one of the things that Biden... Well, that's a whole nother. I mean, that's a whole nother. I mean, that's where things get a little bit more complicated. I don't really want to get into all that right now, but I understand what you mean. Yeah, I think one of the things Biden had did sign into law
00:28:45
Speaker
uh, regarding AI was that, um, pictures need to be watermarked if they were AI.
00:28:52
Speaker
I think he did believe that that was done through executive action though. Yeah. Yeah. So that can just be reversed by whoever is, Oh Jesus. I don't even like to think about who could be in that office next. But I mean, that's something that could be easily reversible. That's why I was saying that the congressional body signed something into
00:29:19
Speaker
all that will stand the test of time, or at least, you know, for right now.
Strike Resolution Reflections
00:29:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, we'll see. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much all I have that. Do you have any last thoughts on this?
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think there were some other things that the actors had wanted that they didn't get. I couldn't name any off the top of my head right now, but I believe that... Well, we're going to be talking about this more once the full picture gets released. If they show everything that was released. But I mean, whatever they didn't get... Do you think there's any reason why they're going to hold things back from the public?
00:29:57
Speaker
I don't know like sometimes like there's there's stuff that they just don't release it's for members only or whatever but uh I was just gonna say whatever they didn't get now like you know they'll be asking again you know next time so but we'll see if that evenly like the smaller things like you're talking about funding the government
00:30:19
Speaker
the fifth
00:30:38
Speaker
They'll be like, OK, so we didn't get these smaller. I don't think they might lead to a strike. I think it's got to be something big like AI and residuals again for them to go on strike. If it wasn't for AI, I think they could have came to some type of agreement back the same thing with the writers. They probably would have came back to something. But, you know, the students are greedy and they just want to, you know, they want to scam people, which they had already been doing and they'd already started putting people like in background scenes that they've been caught doing.
00:31:06
Speaker
But if it wasn't for that, it might not fall. Everybody's greedy. I guess I don't think that the studios are any more or less greedy than other companies, other huge corporate entities that are responsible for record levels of inflation at the grocery store right now.
00:31:27
Speaker
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I'm not going to get into that though, but I'm just... I'm not either, I'm just saying that they have pretty much the same level of greed as everybody else. Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm not trying to make them out to be greater henchmen than the henchmen that we've already known and had in place for many many many
00:31:55
Speaker
I was only comparing their greed to what, like, you know, the actors and the writers who actually create all the content want it. You know what I mean? That's all. I wasn't comparing them to other greedy corporations because I know there's way worse companies out there that do terrible things.
00:32:13
Speaker
for the environment and everybody but like yeah i was just saying like i was just saying everybody has an equal amount of greed well yeah that's not actually true but like everybody has like a certain level of greed that is semi-universal and they have the well you know
00:32:35
Speaker
We'll be talking about that. I think Greed is definitely going to be one of the themes that comes into a cast that we're going to be doing in the not too distant future. This is Mike Flanagan's final. It was in a trilogy, House of the Usher.
00:32:56
Speaker
It was like a trilogy piece. Well, regardless, we're going to be talking about that. No, it was his final Netflix thing, but yeah, we'll talk about that on the next class. I think greed is going to be one of the main topics that are discussed when we get into that, which I thought was very interesting.
00:33:18
Speaker
As for the actor strike, no final thoughts on it, just happy it's over. I would say that I'm just happy that both the writers and actors are, you know, at least in some kind of like agreement and now we can move forward until the next big drama comes along. And that's about the best that I think we can all hope for at this point.
00:33:47
Speaker
Yeah,
Conclusion and Thanksgiving Wishes
00:33:48
Speaker
now we can finally get back to just talking about movies and TV shows. Yeah, yeah. We don't have to boggle down Fright Central talking about fucking legal shit that really of us, really neither of us like completely understand if we're going to go on this.
00:34:04
Speaker
you know so we could just get back to talking about the shit that like matters you know what I mean and I'm just glad that everybody is well at least on the outside seemingly satisfied and we can move on
00:34:19
Speaker
Yes. Well, that's it for tonight's cast. Join us next time. Visit our Facebook page, FrightCentral.com. I mean, sorry, Facebook.com slash Fright Central. I do not have a website. Don't go there. Yeah. And have a happy Thanksgiving and I will talk to you soon. All right, saying.