Writer's Strike: What are writer's in LA striking for? | Screen Babble
Alex Moreland updates, Kelly, Steven and the Screen Babble podcast with the latest action from the writer's strike in LA.
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00:00 So yes, just before we move on to the deep dive, Alex,
00:03 will you talk to us a little bit about what's happening with the actors' strike in LA,
00:07 because it's kind of all kicked off since last week.
00:10 So just so listeners have an idea of what it's all about.
00:13 So a lot of it is, it's all kind of basic working condition stuff.
00:19 The SAG-AFTRA board released this kind of list of their negotiating positions
00:27 and the responses they got from the AMPTP,
00:31 which is the collection of producers and companies that they were negotiating with.
00:36 And a lot of it is things like health care, pensions,
00:43 but also things like adequate provision of water on set.
00:49 Oh, God, are you serious?
00:52 And so there was a thing going around about meal breaks on long shoots, that kind of thing.
00:59 Because the way it works at the minute is there is a penalty if a shoot goes on too long
01:08 without giving them a meal break, but that's like a flat fee.
01:13 So you get a lot of productions that will, once they've gone over,
01:18 they'll just keep going because they're like,
01:19 "Oh, well, we've already paid the 200 quid or whatever it is."
01:22 Looking through it, a lot of it is just like rejected, rejected,
01:26 acknowledge that we take ages to pay you on time,
01:30 but we're not going to change that, rejected, that thing.
01:32 Because a lot of this is about not your sort of George Clooney's big stars,
01:39 but the kind of actors, the people in the background.
01:45 The sort of things that have got the most attention, I guess, is residual payments,
01:50 which is when an actor has been in something, they've been in it once, they're paid for it once.
01:56 Every time it's repeated, they should be paid for it again.
01:59 It's very much an issue that the likes of Netflix will take advantage, basically,
02:06 and not pay proper residuals, or they'll really kind of squeeze it down.
02:10 They're very opaque with their sort of viewing data to make sure people don't find out.
02:16 One of the Orange Is The New Black actors posted a video of their paycheck.
02:22 So they were like, "Oh, look, here's every episode.
02:25 Oh my God, I'm going to get such a big payment from this."
02:27 For the entirety of the series being streamed on Netflix for the past,
02:33 whatever it is, the past month, the past quarter, all around the world,
02:36 27 cents for the full series.
02:39 And that's one of the sort of headline stars.
02:44 And then the other thing, which has kind of become an issue,
02:49 I think, more than anyone was necessarily expecting, is the sort of the AI performances thing.
02:55 Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.
02:58 Where they're kind of contriving their performances.
03:01 Yeah, yeah, so at war, generating it entirely.
03:04 So, yeah, that must be terrifying for actors,
03:08 like anyone using their voice or their face or whatever and what they're doing.
03:13 Because that runs the whole sort of spectrum from,
03:16 you know, like the big stars being brought back to life after they're dead.
03:22 The Flash recently was terrible for that.
03:26 And they had one character that was played by no one
03:32 because it was just a CGI amalgamation of different people.
03:35 But then it also goes all the way down to the background actors again.
03:41 There was talk of sort of on the first day, a background actor comes to set,
03:45 they'll be scanned once and that's it.
03:47 They can be populated in the background ongoing forever.
03:51 Oh, God.
03:51 Which would be a huge issue for them.
03:53 Oh, dear.
03:54 Yeah, so that's the strike.
03:56 Yeah, it's difficult because it's an industry that's in such demand.
04:01 You know, everybody wants to be an actor or an actress or whatever in LA.
04:06 And there's someone lined up right behind you if you won't do the things
04:10 and if you won't toe the line, you know, so it's terrible that they have those.
04:14 What seemed like quite a few of those are quite basic conditions, really.
04:19 So more power to them.
04:21 Absolutely.
04:21 As I said on the previous episode,
04:23 we might be doing a lot more Back to the Future come autumn, winter.
04:27 [Music]