2023/07/28
Michael Tran/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNSLOS ANGELES — While A-list actors, including Oscar winners Jessica Chastain, Brendan Frasier, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jane Fonda joined WGA and SAG-AFTRA picket lines earlier this week, below-the-line workers are more concerned about their own union reps’ lack of presence than Ben Affleck’s.
Below-the-line crew members include hair and makeup artists, costumers, grips, script supervisors and craft services — the workers that are usually the first in and last out during a day of filming. Though they’re not technically striking, the WGA/SAG -AFTRA strike has left thousands of BTL workers with little to no income — with their emotions teetering from terrified to livid.
”As much as I support the writers’ and actors’ cause, I also want people to know that crew rates are a lot less and to survive in L.A. in the current economic climate is very hard,” key costumerMadeline Maciag (“NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Big Sky”) told the Daily News.
Maciag, a member ofIATSE Local 705, stressed that she would “like the world to know that this is going to be a devastating situation for below-the-line crew.”
The Writers Guild of America walked off the job over two months ago and was recently joined by the Screen Actors Guild. The last time both unions struck simultaneously was in 1960.
”We don’t get residuals nor has our pay increased in proportion with the economy,” something she blames on her union’s failure to negotiate when their contracts were up some two years ago.
Makeup artist Jennifer Daranyi (“Masked Singer,” “Schooled”) who launched her career after touring with Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Tori Amos, agrees with Maciag.
”Two years ago we were given a 3% [pay] increase when inflation was at 6%,” Daranyi told the News. She said that her union leaders encouraged them to not put up a fight as did Maciag’s.
“Sadly, we missed our chance,” she said. “Now I am getting really worried about my health insurance, which ends in January and I can’t afford to live in Los Angeles with no income.”
Script supervisor Ari Halpern had worked on the ABC series “The Goldbergs” for 10 years before the show wrapped in February.
”Financially, I am going to be okay, but it is my insurance that will be an issue,” said Halperin, who explained that BTL workers must work at least 400 hours in a six-month period to be eligible for health care.
”Anything over that just goes to waste, which is insane,” he said. “If this strike goes longer than six months, I will be uninsured.”
The same is true for Dayani and Maciag, along with thousands of other Californians and union members, who are also frustrated by streaming services’ refusal to share residuals.
”You’re never going to see those numbers,” a Hollywood insider told the Daily News, who doesn’t expect to see the likes of Tom Cruise or George Clooney on the picket line.
The only thing I can think of about the big stars is that they don’t want to piss anybody off,” she continued. “Everybody knows that this is a relationship-based business and there’s nothing that the actors can do to force the hand of the studios other than go on strike.
I’m sure the agents are having their say, but behind the scenes. Nobody wants to play this out in public or point fingers. Because they all have to do business together once everything gets back on track.”
Daranyi recalls how, based on astronomically high Nielsen ratings, that the cast of “Friends” was able to successfully negotiate million-dollar paychecks — per episode. The ratings gave not only the actors, but also the writers and arguably anyone who worked on the hit show, quantifiable proof that their contributions were generating revenue.
”Netflix has been around [as a streaming service] for 10-12 years now,” said Daranyi, “But they keep saying that they are new service.”
Multiple sources told the News that it was a Netflix executive that reportedly told Deadline the “endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”
”What I would like to know is do the studios care?” said Maciag. “Do they care that crew members work 12, 14, sometimes 16-hour days just to scrape by in L.A.?”
As it seems, the studio executives couldn’t care less, sending many more in the industry into a state of existential ennui. California Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed Thursday to mediate negotiations between the unions, providing little more than cold comfort to his constituents.
”You watch the [Jeffrey] Epstein documentary and you understand that these people all live in a different realm,” said Dayani. “It’s kind of like, the actors and the writers are going up against Big Pharma, and the AMPTP said, ‘Let them bleed out.’”
“How disgusting that [they] let that be put into print. They do not care.”
Earlier this year, Gov. Newsom signed a law to prolong tax credits for movie and television productions, that can be refunded. At the end of filming, if a studio has credits worth more than what it owes in taxes, the state will pay the studio the difference in cash – tax breaks the little guy will never see.
”It is not going to trickle down to us,” Dayani said.
“We are like the little, tiny ants that are collecting all of the carcasses and moving them over to the dirt where all the other insects and all the other bugs can help it decompose and eat and feed off of it.”
© New York Daily News
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