Reel Suite - May 6, 2008
Good to be back with you again this week! I appreciate all the comments on last week's blog, and I shall endeavor to improve in the weeks ahead. Of course, one comment in particular affected me very deeply, and I had to take Monday off to see my therapist and get my prescriptions refilled. But I'm back and raring to go today.
Well, the talk in the contracts and residuals departments here at Manka continues to revolve around the SAG/AMPTP negotiations and the impending actors strike. Word is the two sides are far from a deal due to SAG's unwillingness to adhere to the establised New Media framework, recommending as many as 70 changes to it, as well as a demand to double, yes double the existing DVD formula. With production costs at an all-time high, acquiescing to these demands would simply increase these costs as well as decrease profitability for the studios.
Guild strikes have a far-reaching impact on all facets of the industry. The 1988 WGA Strike cost the industry an estimated $500 million. It hit many hard, including myself. I had just dropped out of my junior year at Stanford to become a TV actor, because a frat brother told me at a kegger that I'd make a good "wacky neighbor on a sitcom." I struggled for months, until I finally landed an audition as a dorky mailman on the hit series "Small Wonder." The day before my appointment, the WGA membership voted to strike and the network cancelled the series.
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OMG Kurt Barnet! You ol' pooch. I just googled "Nude Johnny Johnson"and "Celebration Theatre" and this popped right up. I was in that show with you! Remember! Write me back.
Chad Lindstrom
chadrightstuff@gmail.com
AMPTP Breaks Off Talks With SAG
As expected, the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended their first round of bargaining talks on Tuesday without an agreement. However, although reports had previously described the negotiations as cordial, the latest ones said that they had ended on a bitter note, fueling the belief that the industry would be staggering into another strike in July. Indeed, SAG President Alan Rosenberg told Daily Variety that the guild may ask its members to authorize a strike as early as next week. In a statement, the AMPTP said that SAG's insistence on "unreasonable demands" had been the reason for its decision to discontinue the talks. SAG, it said, had rejected the "fundamental business and labor principles" that the directors', writers' and producers' guilds had already accepted. For its part SAG maintained that it had "modified" its original demands while the AMPTP had refused to budge from its own position. "Our negotiating team is prepared to work around the clock for as long as it takes to get a fair deal. We want to keep the town working," Rosenberg said in a statement. Meanwhile, negotiators for the AMPTP are expected to open negotiations with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists today (Wednesday). SAG reportedly has 120,000 members; AFTRA, 70,000. About 44,000 belong to both unions.