fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6036 ]

[ SECRET POST #6036 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6036 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #863.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Anyone want to give a quick run down of why they're striking? I am very out of the loop.

Studios are screwing them over.

Wow. That is incredibly unhelpful information!

They asked for quick, that was as quick as I could make it.

Wage stagnation in the face of inflation coupled with loss of residuals due to the streaming model means that actors who aren't A-listers are now or could soon be making poverty wages for the foreseeable future. Added to that, studios are already making noises about replacing actors with AI. There are probably other issues, but those are the ones I know about.

Thank you. This was wonderfully informative and succinct.

AFAIK there are two big issues driving both the writers' and the actors' strikes.

The first one is residuals - basically, small payments that writers and actors receive over time as things they've worked on continue to make money through things like DVD sales, reruns on TV, stuff like that. These are crucial to allowing actors and writers to make a living, but they're small at the best of times, and now there's a huge argument over how much studios should have to pay in residuals for things based on streaming views.

The second major issue is staffing issues, where the actors and writers want to make sure that studios continue hiring enough actors and writers. And the biggest part of that is AI, because studios want to be able to do things like use generative models to write scripts, or scan background actors' likenesses and then use AI to digitally generate them in the future instead of continuing to hire background actors, and cut down the number of actors and writers they hire at all. And there's also other staffing things for the writers, because writers get a really raw deal. But those are probably the two biggest concerns.

Thank you! Very informative. The AI stuff is so creepy I had no idea about any of that!

Not an actor or anything related, but a typical 9-5 job with lower but steady pay doesn't work for most actors, because there's just not enough movies/shows/etc for everybody to work all the time and also the work schedules they do have when they are working can be nuts, like start at 2 am, stand in artificial rain until sunset, repeat for two weeks, get foot rot, go back to rerecord six lines two months later while actively working on something else.

And then not work for a year.

So actors get paid a few cents every time a show gets rebroadcast, so they have something to live on (or at least pay for gas or groceries) while busing tables or driving an Uber or whatever, and maybe half a cent for every fifty dvds or vhs that sold if they were enough of a big name to get a cut of merch and stuff.

Or at least, they used to get paid that way.

Streaming changed reimbursement rates so those tiny residual payments are lower and don't kick in until a show has run for a couple seasons, because, Netflix et al argued, they were a new business model and not profitable but eventually it would be better for actors and writers to work with them than traditional studios, for... reasons. And dvds are dinosaurs and Netflix mostly doesn't make them for shows unless another studio that still releases them is also involved.

And if streamers cancel shows before a certain number of seasons, and pull them so they seasons that were filmed are only available for a year or whatever, that residual payment money goes from "groceries and gas for a couple weeks" to "maybe you can buy the occasional hotdog, and not a good one."

Also most actors are not rolling in money, and one of the proposed contract revisions was to pay background actors for one day of work, 3d scan them, get a voiceprint, and use their likeness and voice for eternity with no further work or residual payments.

Which seems really dumb even from a business standpoint to me because where are new big name actors going to come from if they can't work their way up from bit parts anymore?

Except my guess is current (and former, dead, no longer able to withdraw their labor) big name actors would also just be scanned and their digital replicas would star in everything but the occasional rich talentless douchebag's vanity project where the novelty of a real human acting would make up for the bit where all the rich "pay to play" "actors" can't actually act for shit.

Other than paying poverty wages, the studios also want to be able to take AI scans of motions and emotions and pay for that one day of scanning, and then own the scans in perpetuity with no residuals, so they can use the actor's image for free forever.

Mr Makes-27-million-dollars-before-bonuses says that actors asking for non-poverty wages and no AI are being unreasonable.

It's not really 27 million *before* bonuses.

It's $1 million salary, plus a cash bonus around $1 million that could be more or less based on performance (and also it just got increased to $4 million a few days ago), and $25 million in bonus stock. So, around $27 million total (or now $31 million) but only $1 million before bonuses.

/pedant

Thank you. Scanning someones face and emotions and then owning that persons likeness is so creepy. I can totally see why that would be an issue to strike over and get on top of before it gets going.

Studio heads make more than writers/actors do. They might have AI take over and put everybody out of work. Actors not seeing enough hefty residual checks so that they can live like human beings.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #6036 ]

Re: Actors' strike

Re: Actors' strike

Re: Actors' strike

Re: Actors' strike

Re: Actors' strike

ayrt

Re: Actors' strike

ayrt

Re: Actors' strike

Re: Actors' strike

Re: Actors' strike

ayrt

Re: Actors' strike