SAG-AFTRA's Strike-Ending Agreement Still Has Some AI Worries

James Whitbrook
Mon, November 13, 2023 

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher (L) speaks as SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland looks on at a press conference discussing their strike-ending deal with the Hollywood studios on November 10, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

Although the season of Hollywood strikes came to an end when SAG-AFTRA closed its picket lines last week having secured a tentative agreement with the AMPTP, it’s not over yet—ahead of the union membership vote on the potential three-year contract, SAG-AFTRA has released a summary of the deal to read online.


Eighty-six percent of SAG-AFTRA’s board voted to approve the agreement last Friday, November 10, estimated to value around $1 billion, but ahead of the wider membership’s vote a new extended summary of the deal has been released online—as well as a specific visual aid concerning the deal’s AI regulations, a major sticking point during negotiations that saw the strike draw out across 118 days.



Image: SAG-AFTRA


While there are certainly gains here in terms of requiring clear and specific terms of consent—from both living actors and the estates of deceased parties—and levels of compensation for the use of such replicas, especially for background actors, where there are specific protections to ensure replicas cannot be used to fill out minimum requirements for employing background actors, there are no doubt going to be concerns raised at how broad some of the arrangements are as laid out in the tentative agreement.


This is especially the case when it comes to actors consenting to the use of digital replicas and AI to make changes in post-production. According to the agreement, consent is not required in most cases if AI is used for a litany of changes post-production, including dubbing, or to changes to “cosmetics, wardrobe, noise reduction, timing or speed, continuity, pitch or tone, clarity, addition of visual/sound effects or filters, standards and practices, ratings, an adjustment in dialogue or narration” or other similar scenarios, including where traditionally a double would be used.

The broad caveats as well as what details are left out of the summary could be cause for concern as the wider union membership as the ratification process begins—already concerns were being raised over the weekend by some members, such as actress/writer Justine Bateman, who served as a union advisor on generative AI.

“The train track is split. One train track is going, ‘OK, we’re going to participate in this sort of negotiation with the cannibals and we’re going to talk about just how you’re going to be cutting my foot off, and are you going to grill it or boil it, and what kind of sauce are you going to put on it?’” That track is the one that includes generative AI,” Bateman told MSNBC describing the caveats for consent in the agreement, adding that members should only vote to support the agreement “if they don’t want to work anymore” and be replaced by synthetic replicas.

The full Memorandum of Agreement on the deal has yet to be made public, but voting by SAG-AFTRA membership will begin tomorrow, November 14, and is expected to last through to early December.

 Gizmodo

What SAG-AFTRA’s Contract Gives — And Doesn’t Give — on AI Protection and Streaming Pay
Jeremy Fuster
Mon, November 13, 2023 



SAG-AFTRA released an 18-page summary of its deal with Hollywood studios estimated to be worth just over $1 billion. While the summary is sprinkled with details about gains in areas such as auditions, diversity and intimacy coordinators, the key matters of streaming and artificial intelligence will draw the most attention.

Those two issues were front and center with members on the picket lines. Top SAG-AFTRA officials demanded in speeches that studios agree to protect actors’ right to consent to their faces and performances being used to train AI to create replicas. The guild was also pushing for a change in the status quo compensation model, as thousands of actors are losing TV residuals without getting no new compensation from streaming.

On both fronts, actors get a lot of things from this new deal, but they don’t get everything. 

Let’s break it down:

A new streaming fund

SAG-AFTRA pushed for a model in which studios would share a portion of revenue from their streaming services and place it into a new fund that would share that revenue among actors who perform in films and television shows made for streaming. The studios, which are still struggling to get their streamers to turn a profit, flatly refused such an offer.

Looking for a compromise, SAG-AFTRA agreed to give up the revenue sharing model and replace it with what the studios wanted: a performance-based model that rewards shows and films watched by at least 20% of a streamer’s subscribers, as agreed to by the Writers Guild of America in its deal back in September. The big difference is that while WGA members will get a bonus equivalent to 50% of their fixed residual, SAG-AFTRA members will get a 100% bonus.

But the fund that SAG-AFTRA fought to maintain will also be included in the contract, with a portion of the actors’ bonus getting sent to the fund to be shared with all actors who work on streaming shows. SAG-AFTRA agreed in principle with the studios that 25% of the bonus will go to the fund, but that percentage, along with how the fund’s money is disseminated, will be fully determined by a board of trustees that have yet to be selected and will consist of both SAG-AFTRA officials and studio representatives.
Artificial Intelligence

Along with the summary, SAG-AFTRA released a side pamphlet breaking down the key gains on artificial intelligence protections. First and foremost, studios must provide actors with a full description of how they plan to use an AI-generated “digital replica” on a project, and must gain their consent based on that information. This process must be repeated if the studio wishes to create a replica of a performer beyond the project the performer was initially employed on.

Performers whose digital replicas are used must be compensated according to their “pro rata daily rate or the minimum rate, whichever is higher,” along with residuals based on that replica’s performance. Productions must also compensate performers for the number of days that a project’s producer, with “good faith effort,” determines the performer would have needed to work if those scenes were filmed in person.

Some of the protections have caveats, however. While studios are required to gain the consent of an actor if they wish to significantly change their performance in post-production, that consent is not required if it is for standard post-production processes, which the contract lists as “editing, arranging, rearranging, revising or manipulating of photography and/or sound track for purposes of cosmetics, wardrobe, noise reduction, timing or speed, continuity, pitch or tone, clarity, addition of visual/sound effects or filters, standards and practices, ratings, an adjustment in dialogue or narration or other similar purposes.”

Another issue that will likely prompt many questions and discussions during the ratification vote period is that of “synthetic performers,” or AI-generated digital characters created by training AI software with the performances of real-life actors.

SAG-AFTRA negotiated a clause requiring a studio to give them notice and the chance to “bargain in good faith” if a synthetic performer is “used in place of a performer who would have been engaged under this Agreement in a human role,” but was not able to secure the right to veto such use of performers. Actors also will only be able to require consent and compensation from a studio if the synthetic performer includes a distinctive facial feature recognized as belonging to that actor.

The post What SAG-AFTRA’s Contract Gives — And Doesn’t Give — on AI Protection and Streaming Pay appeared first on TheWrap.


The SAG-AFTRA strike is over. Here are 6 things actors got.

Megan Cerullo
Tue, November 14, 2023

The actors strike is over, with the union representing performers last week approving a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios. Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) characterized the deal as a big win, with the contract achieving significant breakthroughs on actors' pay and putting guardrails on the industry's use of generative AI.

Here's a rundown of what actors will get under the new contract, which SAG-AFTRA members must still ratify.

1. Minimum compensation increases

Performers will earn a 7% wage increase effective immediately. That initial pay hike will be followed by a 4% increase on July 1, 2024, and a 3.5% increase on July 1, 2025.

Background actors, stand-ins and photo doubles will immediately earn an 11% wage increase, followed by the same 4% and 3.5% hikes as general performers in 2024 and 2025.

2. Streaming bonuses

The new contract calls for actors to earn "a success payment," along with the usual residual payments, if they work on streaming projects that attract a significant number of viewers.

The success metric is determined by the following formula: The total number of domestic streaming hours over the first 90 exhibition days is divided by the total runtime of the movie or a television series' episodes to determine "domestic views." The "success metric" is calculated by dividing the "domestic views" by the total number of domestic subscribers. If the result is at least 0.2, a bonus is paid.

Seventy-five percent of any bonus money will go to the performer, with the remainder going into a new streaming payment distribution fund to compensate performers who work on streaming shows.

3. Disclosure of viewership stats

On high budget streaming productions, streaming producers will be required to disclose the total number of hours the content was streamed both in the U.S. and Canada and abroad for each quarter. That's intended to help actors determine if they're being fairly compensated relative to a show's distribution and popularity.

4. Limits on artificial intelligence

Film and TV producers must obtain consent from actors to create and use their digital replicas, as well as specify 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 for to do the work being performed by a digital replica.

5. Minimum number of background actors

The new labor contract requires that an increased number of background actors be hired on union terms on the West Coast to equal the minimum number in New York.

Under the new agreement, on TV shows in West Coast cities, 25 background actors, up from 22, will be covered by the contract. For feature films, the West Coast minimum jumps from 57 to 85.

6. Relocation bonuses

Performers in series who have to relocate for work will be entitled to a maximum relocation benefit of up to $5,000 a month 

Studios Can Now Make AI Clones of Your Favorite Actors
Krystie Yandoli
Mon, November 13, 2023 

SAG-AFTRA Holds Press Conference To Discuss Strike-Ending Agreement With Studios - Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Last week when SAG-AFTRA reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the details around the issue of artificial intelligence were at the top of everyone’s mind. Now, the union has released specific language around how AI provisions will appear in the contract. A graphic chart breaks down how the union and the studios plan to regulate artificial intelligence for actors across the entertainment industry.

In the case of artificial intelligence, any actor can be digitally recreated. The contract says employment-based digital replicas are “created during a performer’s employment with their physical participation, and used to portray the performer in scenes they didn’t actually shoot.” It’s mandatory for performers to give their consent, and if the performer does not consent before they die, then consent is still needed from “an authorized representative or the Union,” and the contract needs to clearly and specifically describe the use of this replica. As far as compensation, actors are entitled to be paid “for the creation and use of their replicas, and for use in additional projects or other mediums.” They will also be paid residuals, when actors are paid for their TV or film project re-airing on cable or streaming, in the amount they would typically receive if they were acting themselves, not using replicas.

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For those independently created digital replicas, which are made from existing materials and used to portray actors in scenes they didn’t actually film in real life, producers are also obligated to get permission from these actors beforehand. If consent is not obtained before death, the studios still need “an authorized representative or the Union” to approve it. The contract also needs to explicitly describe how studios and producers intend to use the digital replica. Regarding payment, the contract states that “compensation and residuals [are] freely bargained,” which does not mean performers are necessarily “entitled” to compensation for the creation of the replicas and subsequent use in other projects.

When it comes to Generative AI (GAI), which is defined in the contract as, “A subset of artificial intelligence that learns patterns from data and produces content based on those patterns, able to simulate a performer’s voice, facial expressions, and movements to create entirely new content,” the agreement states that producers need permission from an actor if they plan to make a computer generated character that clearly looks like that actor. Both parties need to agree on how the artificially created character will be used in the project. The Union also has to be notified by producers if they create artificial performers so the two parties can then “bargain over whether compensation or any other consideration is appropriate.” The guidelines also state that, “Producers acknowledge importance of human performance and the risk of job replacement when utilizing GAI.”

Specifically, when it comes to digital replicas of background actors, which the contract defines as a “digital version of a background actor’s voice or likeness, made with the actor physically present, for scenes they didn’t actually film,” performers must be notified 48 hours in advance “or at booking if less than 48 hours ahead.” There’s also a requirement for “clear and separate consent” when using a background actor’s digital replica in a movie. In circumstances when the actor has died, the Union or the actors’ estate must also consent. As far as using digital replicas to replace background actors entirely, the contract states these replicas “will not be used to avoid the engagement of background actors” nor will they be used to meet the background counts for the day of filming. Compensation-wise, background actors will be paid for their digital replicas as if they were working the full day themselves. If their digital replica is used prominently in the film, background actors will also get paid a principal actor’s rate for the amount of days they would have worked in-person.

On Friday, the potential new contract was approved by 86 percent of union board members. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland discussed some of the details in a press conference on the same day.

“We feel that there is a robust and comprehensive set of protections for our members against the implementation of AI in the industry,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “It allows the industry to go forward. It does not block AI but it makes sure that performers are protected, the rights of consent are protected, the rights to pay compensation and the rights of employment are protected.”

While the majority of SAG national board members voted in favor of this contract and Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland are lauding the AI restrictions as a success, some other members are not happy with the deal the Union struck with the AMPTP.

Actress Justine Bateman has been notably critical of the provisions around artificial intelligence, sharing on X, formerly known as Twitter, a breakdown of her specific issues with the new contract. She also appeared on MSNBC to discuss where she believes the proposed AI negotiation fell short.

“The most serious issue of them all is the inclusion in the agreement of ‘Synthetic Performers,’ or ‘AI Objects’ resembling humans. This gives the studios/streamers a green-light to use human-looking AI Objects instead of hiring a human actor,” Bateman posted on X. “It’s one thing to use GAI to make a King Kong or a flying serpent (though this displaces many VFX/CGI artists), it is another thing to have an AI Object play a human character instead of a real actor. To me, this inclusion is an anathema to a union contract at all.”

Bateman added: “I find it baffling that a union representing human actors would give approval of those same actors being replaced by an AI Object. And don’t forget, those AI Objects are a mash-up of all actors’ past performances, adding insult to injury. Bottomline, we are in for a very unpleasant era for actors and crew. The use of ‘digital doubles’ alone will reduce the number of available jobs, because bigger name actors will have the opportunity to double or triple-book themselves on multiple projects at once.”

Voting is set to begin on Tuesday for members of SAG-AFTRA to ratify the agreement and make it official.

 Rolling Stone

Fran Drescher Decries “Low-Level” Critics Of SAG-AFTRA Deal; Full Contract May Not Be Available Before Ratification Vote Finishes

Dominic Patten
Mon, November 13, 2023


Fran Drescher may have injected some Buddhism into SAG-AFTRA’s online meeting today on the new tentative agreement with the studios, but there was almost nothing monastic about the guild president’s opinion of critics of the November 8 deal.

“I just want you to know that nobody was thrown under the bus,” Drescher told a self-described Official Member Informational Meeting on Zoom this morning of less-than-stellar assessments of the agreement that SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP reached last week after a 118 days strike that shut Hollywood down for months.

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“If you read things like that, it’s very inflammatory and unfortunate because it’s using social media and chat rooms to advance someone’s personal agenda,” the recently overwhelmingly re-elected SAG-AFTRA president add, stressing she wasn’t “going to name names” Monday.

Still, while not mentioning the likes of Justine Bateman, it was pretty clear who Drescher was referring to in the virtual meeting. Decrying “naysayers” and “low-level people who are buzzing,” the union chief addressed the dozens and dozens of members on the Zoom with a hard swipe at “principled people who will vote over one issue or kill an entire deal that benefits so many because of one issue that was not obtained — and I implore you to not think that way.”

On November 10, a SAG-AFTRA National Board meeting went much longer than anticipated as debate over the deal raged behind closed doors. In the end, Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland emerged late Friday afternoon to reveal that nearly 14% of the board had voted against taking the deal to the general membership for ratification — a stark contrast to the uniformity DGA and WGA leaders brought to the equivalent votes earlier this year.

As details have dribbled out of the language and scope of the new deal with the studios, Bateman and others have spotlighted the shortcomings of the hard-fought agreement on issues such as AI protections and success-based bonuses for streaming shows. “Bottom line, we are in for a very unpleasant era for actors and crew,” the Family Ties alum and guild AI adviser cautioned on November 11 online. “The use of ‘digital doubles’ alone will reduce the number of available jobs, because bigger-name actors will have the opportunity to double- or triple-book themselves on multiple projects at once,” Bateman stated, strategically noting the fallout to IATSE and Teamsters members – both of whom have contract negotiations of their own coming next year.



As eligible members of the 160,000-strong SAG-AFTRA start the three-week voting process Tuesday on ratifying the tentative agreement, a PR battle is taking shape to sell the deal – with today’s meeting the first of many with members to come over the next few weeks.

“This deal has set the groundwork for our future and generations to come, it is major,” an already-campaigning Drescher said Monday in a sharp tone with language she has used many times since the AMPTP and the guild buried the hatchet last week on the new three-year deal. “We didn’t get that, but we got this, this, this and this, and we’ll get that next time. In negotiation, you have to weigh and measure and make your informed decision on behalf of the greater good.”

In that vein, a fully-informed decision might not be possible for SAG-AFTRA members this year before they vote on the tentative agreement.

“I know there’s been a lot of people who have asked about the full Memorandum of Agreement and when or if they’ll be able to see that,” Crabtree-Ireland said today of the 128-page document after delving into details of the deal and before taking questions.

“I want to just know that has never been the case in the past that we’ve had a Memorandum of Agreement done in time for the ratification process,” the guild National Executive Director added. “This contract negotiation is even more expansive than any of the prior ones — certainly than I’ve been involved in my last 23 years here. We will do our best to try and get that completed in time to publish it for purposes of the ratification vote but the 18-page summary of the agreement is what we have ready now, and that’s what’s posted. I think that should, you know, that’s been what we’ve always published in the past and has very detailed and extensive information about what’s been agreed to in the in the contract.

“So we definitely will do the best we can on that front, but just wanted to let everybody know what to expect there,” Crabtree-Ireland said.

RELATED: “This Was A Negotiation For The Future”: Fran Drescher & Duncan Crabtree-Ireland On SAG-AFTRA Deal, AI & Informed Consent + Importance Of CEOs

Since the “unprecedented” deal, as SAG-AFTRA brass have called it, with the AMPTP was announced late last week, the guild has held a press conference on the agreement, and Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland have given innumerable interviews. On November 10, after the presser at SAG-AFTRA HQ on Wilshire Blvd, the guild put out an expanded bullet points, followed late last night by that aforementioned 18-page summary.

RELATED: Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Talks About End Of Strike As Star-Powered Hollywood Premieres Return With ‘The Crown’

Today’s members-only online huddle was the latest session in the leadership’s push to seal the deal. In that context, the persuasive Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland have a public ally from the other side of the table. Telling Deadline last night that he is “definitely” happy with the deal, Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos added, “It’s all in front of the members now, so it’s up to them to ratify it.”

Very Zen of the exec, who was one of the CEO Gang of Four who directly participated in the final round of talks with the guild.

 Deadline


SAG-AFTRA’s Strike-Ending Deal Wasn’t Finalized Until Hours Before Its Approval

Jeremy Fuster
Tue, November 14, 2023 

Late last Tuesday, 27 members of the actor’s negotiating committee — with another 18 on Zoom — huddled for a third straight day at the SAG-AFTRA headquarters in Los Angeles to meticulously review the “best, last and final offer” from the Hollywood studios.

As the committee prepared to vote on whether to approve the deal and declare the 117-day actors strike over, David Jolliffe, a 25-year veteran of SAG-AFTRA contract negotiations, urged president Fran Drescher to wait just one more day. The key compromise on streaming compensation made with studio executives, he implored, needed to be locked in before any vote could be made.

“I told Fran and the committee that we should take a step back, spend the night and wait for a response from the AMPTP, because there were key points that we needed to ensure were going to be in this contract for us to approve it,” Jolliffe told TheWrap.

In the end, SAG-AFTRA did not finalize its agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers until just hours before announcing its approval on Wednesday evening. The $1 billion agreement ended six months of strikes that had paralyzed the entertainment world.

The turbulent five weeks of on-and-off talks to end the actors’ strike were in some ways similar and in other ways very different to the talks that led to a deal between the AMPTP and the Writers Guild of America.

While there were as many counterproposals exchanged between SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP — as well as a studios-imposed pause in the talks as they did with the WGA — there was no “finally, they f—ing get it” breakthrough.

The talks that went from Oct. 2 to Nov. 8 were the first between the two sides since the strike began. The impasses that had prevented a deal from being reached back during the summer still remained, and it took weeks of talks between AMPTP President Carol Lombardini, the studio CEOs, SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and Drescher to come to a compromise.

Impeding the road to agreement, Crabtree-Ireland told TheWrap, were discussions on artificial intelligence, which were an active part of negotiations from start to finish. They required input from a wide range of studio representatives because of the impact the technology has on IP rights, the production process, labor compensation and many other issues.

“It was a complex issue that was made more difficult by the fact that we had gone more than two months without talking,” Crabtree-Ireland said.

Beyond those principal figures, there were dozens of others ironing out the finer details. Negotiating committee members like Jolliffe, Frances Fisher, Shari Belafonte and chief contracts officer Ray Rodriguez spent many days in side rooms with AMPTP representatives, joined by attorneys for both sides.

It was in these talks that key contract gains such as an increased relocation allowance for series performers, protections against burdensome requirements for auditions, and the inclusion of performance capture work under union coverage, were locked into the contract.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland (Getty Images)

Throughout the process, Drescher was insistent that the CEOs be present to discuss all the issues in the contract. With the guild aiming to build a deal that reflected the dramatic shifts Hollywood has undergone in the era of streaming, the president felt it was necessary to have the top executives’ input every step of the way.

“We said [to the AMPTP], ‘We’re going to go over your heads. We want to talk to your bosses,’” Drescher told TheWrap.

It was an approach that chafed the studio execs, according to two insiders with knowledge of the AMPTP side of talks. The CEOs, while keeping abreast of how talks were progressing, were expecting to only negotiate directly with Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland on the biggest issues on the contract.

“All the execs wanted a deal to get done, but there’s a reason why [Lombardini] and all the AMPTP lawyers do much of that contract work,” one insider said. “The CEOs have companies to run and wildly different schedules, and while they know the key issues, they aren’t as deeply involved in the contract language as the labor reps who are hired to represent them.”

Streaming fund lines in the sand

But the CEOs did need to be on hand to construct the key compromise that ended the strike: the new fund that will be established through streaming performance bonuses to help working class performers get a new source of income that had been lost from years of eroding linear TV residuals.

The issue led the AMPTP to break off talks on Oct. 11, just hours after receiving a SAG-AFTRA counterproposal including the revenue-sharing proposal. The stalemate ended on Oct. 23 after Disney CEO Bob Iger reached out to Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland, saying there was an urgent need to finish the deal and get the industry back to work.

Even after talks resumed, any contract involving SAG-AFTRA’s proposed system of sharing a percentage of a streaming service’s revenue would prove a dealbreaker for the studios. The executives felt it was unfair for the union to ask the studios to share in the riches of a show or film’s streaming success while leaving them to take the hit on any failures.

Studio insiders say that while all the CEOs present at the meetings made that argument, it was Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos who particularly drove home to SAG-AFTRA that the AMPTP would not agree to revenue sharing in any way, and whatever streaming compensation model was created needed to be based around the performance bonus model agreed to by the WGA.

“Every studio is still trying to get these streaming services to turn a profit,” one insider said. “There was no way that revenue sharing was ever going to fly.”

Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland eventually accepted that hard line, and presented a hard line of their own: They would not yield on the fund intended to create a new stream of income for actors.

As Drescher put it, the number of shows that would have qualified for performance bonuses under the WGA’s model were a “thimbleful” of the thousands of titles added to streaming services each year. Agreeing to the same terms on streaming bonuses that the WGA agreed to would have left thousands of actors who don’t perform on those top-performing titles in the same precarious position: With their acting income at a fraction of what they once got in the era of linear TV, pay TV, and physical home video residuals.

Ted Sarandos (Netflix)

“I told myself that money is money, no matter where it comes from, but we explained to them that we needed another source of revenue because the people that were working in the streaming platforms didn’t have the tail of earnings that they did in linear television,” Drescher said.

As the talks dragged into November, further talks between Crabtree-Ireland and the AMPTP led to the breakthrough: SAG-AFTRA would agree to a performance bonus structure with more money than what was offered to the WGA. While 75% of that bonus money would go to the actors on shows and movies watched by a certain percentage of a streamer’s subscribers, the remaining 25% would go to a new fund run by trustees from the guild and the studios to be sent to all actors who work on streaming services.

But when SAG-AFTRA presented its final offer on Nov. 4, the guild found that the studios had not yet included the fund in the contract. The AMPTP assured SAG-AFTRA that it would be there. But Jolliffe insisted that was not enough.

AMPTP insiders told TheWrap that the fund was not in the contract when the studios presented the final offer because their lawyers were still reviewing the proposed fund to ensure it was legally sound. The concern was that such a fund could face a legal challenge for violating anti-bribery statutes in the Labor Management Relations Act forbidding employers from paying union officials.
AI ‘synthetic performers’ protections a final sticking point

Those lawyers were also reviewing the contract’s AI provisions, as they had been for much of the final week of talks, particularly clauses sought by the guild regarding the potential use of actors’ performances to create “synthetic performers,” or AI-generated characters that are not strictly replicas of real-life actors.

“The guild was arguing that if an actor’s performance was used to train AI to create a whole new character, that actor was still entitled to money,“ a studio insider said. “That’s something no court has ever ruled on.”

On Wednesday morning, the AMPTP reached out to Crabtree-Ireland and confirmed that the fund and the synthetic performer protections would be included in the contract. The studio lawyers determined that the streaming fund would not violate anti-bribery labor laws as the funds were specifically earmarked for rank-and-file SAG-AFTRA members, not officials. And the two sides agreed that an actor could be entitled to consent and compensation over a synthetic performer if that AI character used a distinct facial characteristic of the actor.

With that guarantee locked in, SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee unanimously approved the deal, and at 5 p.m. on Nov. 8, the guild sent out an announcement that the strike was over.
Every studio is still trying to get these streaming services to turn a profit. There was no way that revenue sharing was ever going to fly.”

Studio insider

One day later, in a phone conversation with TheWrap, Drescher said she felt “grateful, exhausted, relieved and triumphant all at once.” While she and her negotiating committee never wavered in their insistence that the strike wouldn’t end without a fair deal, she acknowledged the immense anxiety that had gripped countless Hollywood workers who had spent months dealing with the financial and emotional stress of the strike. She said she didn’t take any of that sacrifice for granted.

“We could feel the pressure mounting in those last few days. I don’t think any of us were getting much sleep,” Drescher said. “It was so great that it was almost unbearable, but I am so proud of the work that every member of our committee, all of them taking this on as volunteers, did to get us to the end of this long fight.”

For David Jolliffe, whom has now finished his ninth SAG-AFTRA contract cycle, this one is by far his proudest.

“Every time we’ve finished negotiations, I’ve felt disappointed that we lost out on something important,” he said. “Definitely not this time.”

The post SAG-AFTRA’s Strike-Ending Deal Wasn’t Finalized Until Hours Before Its Approval appeared first on TheWrap.

Hollywood strikes sap economy as industry readies for revamp

Dawn Chmielewski
Wed, November 15, 2023 

Striking writers and actors slashed spending, burned through savings and piled up debt to survive. Dry cleaners and other service industries laid off staff, while prop houses sold inventory or shuttered.

Preliminary estimates place the economic cost at more than $6 billion in lost wages and business impacts across California and other production-heavy states such as Georgia and New Mexico, as most scripted film and television production ground to a halt.

Sets for movies and TV shows are lighting up again as studios rush to resume filming. Still, Hollywood is unlikely to return to the frenzied production pace of the streaming wars, when studios competed for subscribers and cachet. Studios facing higher labor costs, falling television ad revenue and an increasingly skeptical Wall Street are reducing the number of TV shows, cutting jobs and moving some production to cheaper locations overseas.

Total economic damage from the strike, including business failures, will take time to tabulate as experts sort through data.

The human toll will be harder to quantify beyond the painful personal accounts of people like Celia Finkelstein, an actor and member of the Writers Guild of America (WGA). She and her production-coordinator husband went without work for six months.

“There was no income in our household,” Finkelstein told Reuters. “We were grateful to have WGA loans and savings to lean on, but it was a very tough summer."

WGA members went on strike in May, followed in July by SAG-AFTRA performers' union members.

Screenwriters returned to work in September after winning pay increases, curbs on artificial intelligence use and benefits such as residuals that reward writers for popular streaming shows. Hollywood actors won similar gains in a tentative agreement reached with the studios on Nov. 8.

STRUGGLING TO EARN ENOUGH

The strike dealt a final blow so some careers. Aspiring actor Serena Kashmir quit the business after working in Hollywood for more than 11 years.

“I was working five ‘survival jobs’ and was still living with my mother,” Kashmir said. “I have a decent resume, footage, connections, and a degree in acting, but it didn't add up.”

Kashmir concluded “full-time acting” was not a reality, so she moved to Colorado to make her living in another field.

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher has said the new contract has "historic" gains that would help preserve acting as a profession. But if talent flight persists, it can have long-term implications for Hollywood, which has long relied on a steady influx of workers attracted to the glamorous industry, said Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist for the Milken Institute think tank.

“If people can't afford to stick around, then the pool of people trying to get in diminishes, and it's a real concern,” Klowden said.

Long-established businesses, like Faux Library Studio Props in North Hollywood, a warehouse brimming with hollowed Styrofoam books, desks and office decor, barely hung on.

Owner Marc Meyer Jr. laid off all but one employee and relied on his landlord's generosity — and a GoFundMe campaign started by two friends — to remain afloat. He avoided the fate of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s prop warehouse, which closed and auctioned off everything from surf boards to fake skulls.

“I’ve seen executive desks go for $5," Meyer said. "It just breaks my heart."

'A BIG SLOWDOWN'

Even before the strikes, production had already started to decline or move abroad before in response to declining television advertising revenue, a diminished movie box office and investor pressure to turn streaming businesses profitable.

The companies began laying off thousands of workers and reducing content spending by billions. Disney, for example, told investors on a recent earnings call it expected content spending in fiscal 2024 to total $25 billion, down $2 billion from the prior year.

Global spending on programming effectively flatlined in 2023, according to analytics firm Ampere Analysis.

“That’s a very different trend to what’s been happening over the prior 10 years,” said Ampere executive director Guy Bisson, noting worldwide content spending rose 31% from 2015 to 2019. “Relatively speaking, there is a big slowdown.”

Moody’s Investors Service estimates the new labor agreements will cost studios an additional $450 million to $600 million a year collectively. Analyst Neil Begley predicts companies will try to absorb costs by hiring fewer A-list actors, doing less on-location filming or reducing spending on special effects and post-production.

Companies may seek out more tax breaks and financing subsidies to offset expenses. Moody’s predicts studios will film more productions outside the U.S., where costs are lower, and emulate the Netflix model, greenlighting stories with global appeal.

Ampere data shows that 69% of Netflix’s upcoming new original shows are being produced outside the U.S., as it fuels the global growth of its platform with local content.

One talent agent predicted the number of scripted series could drop from “Peak TV” levels of 599 in 2022 to 350 or fewer next year, which will ripple through cast and crew.

“So they won wonderful things,” said the agent, who requested anonymity. “But I do think the new costs that every movie and show will incur, because of what they were able to get, you’re going to see the other side. You’re going to see less production within a year or two, for sure.”

(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski, Danielle Broadway and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Mary Milliken and David Gregorio)