Given the explicit "we'll just wait for them to lose their housing" messaging from the Hollywood executives...
Good on SAG-AFTRA. This can only increase the bargaining power of both groups.
Good on SAG-AFTRA. This can only increase the bargaining power of both groups.
Yeah, that was fuckin disgusting. Its tar and feather territory if you ask me.
I'm in full support of this strike and I applaud the actors for getting in on it. Bring the studios to their knees if that's what it takes.
It made sense to me when you had terrestrial television stations with actual monopolies over broadcast rights.
But now with the internet they have many vectors to share and market their content.
So you won't be on NBC or Netflix or whatever, so what, post it on Twitter and YouTube. If they move to alternative distribution platforms and the studios don't do anything then the studios will lose their audience and thus their revenues.
They could also pool their money, crowdfund, or otherwise shoot for a bigger budget, in which case they could mimic the first Coen Brothers movie, "Blood Simple", which had a $1.5 million budget. There's also "The Blair Witch Project" ($200k), "Clerks" ($230k), "Paranormal Activity" ($15k), etc. [3]
I truly hope this latest labor dispute causes an industry shift in the direction of creatives taking more control over production and distribution of their content. Musician Anton Newcombe said this about the recording industry, and I think it applies equally well to film studios:
"...it’s a mafia. And until they can write the letter that I’m writing, they are the postman, and I am the letter writer. Period. End of discussion."
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Maintenance
There were some very cool things that came out of the last strike (like Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog) but I would guess that at least 75% of you have never heard of it.
From VFX to catering, there's a lot of labor needed - much of which is highly specialized - that would cost too much to contract or develop independently.
1) access to capital to cover the cost of production. $/min of a Mandalorian episode or even a late night comedy show is way above self funding capacity of most of the people employed as writers or actors.
2) critical mass providing leverage in distribution. It is very very cheap for Netflix to market just one more show, as compared with the costs of a new subscription service to try to acquire new customers. On the feature side, studios pay a lot less to be in theaters (as percentage of box office revenue) than indie films.
> So you won't be on NBC or Netflix or whatever, so what, post it on Twitter and YouTube.
It's not like people haven't been trying. But take any successful show in the last few years, it simply could not have made nearly the same audience or revenue on these platforms. The stuff you see there is already hyper optimized for these platforms - it'd be a very poor business decision to take a show with the production cost of TV or subscription services, and monetize it purely on these platforms.
This is exactly it. There are tons of incredible series with high production values on YouTube created on shoestring budgets, but they mostly cater to very specific niches. They can succeed on YouTube because they aren't going for the broad appeal and hyper-consistent development cycle required for TV channels to pick them up. If such an ecosystem existed in the early 00s, some of these series probably would have been picked up and made incredibly successful to a much broader audience by channels like Discovery, History, or TLC, but falling cable subscriptions has resulted in massive consolidation diluting the original premises of these networks, thus forcing them to focus on more generalized content. (The 2007-2008 WGA strike certainly didn't help, but I think this was inevitable with the subsequent rise of streaming services - the strike just kickstarted the realityfication/enshittification of cable TV a couple years early.)
That's not to say that no YouTube series or YouTubers can make it on TV, but they have to fall into the niche of having broad appeal on YouTube without being limited to YouTube, and I think Drew Gooden made this point really well in his video covering Lilly Singh's late night show [0], which got off to a horrendous start because studio execs, blinded by the prospect of getting a popular YouTuber to make a show for them and (hopefully) get that YouTuber's audience to throw their eyeballs at it, did not attempt to create a show that worked for Lilly, but instead shoved Lilly into a tired formula which she floundered in. (Keep in mind that Lilly's core YouTube demographic would be sound asleep by the time each episode aired at 1:30 AM, and one wonders the kind of discussions that led to this show getting greenlit in the first place.)
In a way, though, we're already seeing lots of content which is hyper-optimized for streaming services that is paid for by the big studios - I remember seeing an interview with some writers for a show only available on Netflix (I think, and I wish I could remember anything more specific) who remarked that with broadcast shows, you had to fit everything neatly into very specific timeslots, and that each timeslot had to have a hook to keep you sticking around after the commercial break, but when you're writing for a streaming platform, all those considerations just go out the window, allowing for much easier and more natural storytelling, like a movie.
Of course, you could still air these shows on TV, but they wouldn't work as well on TV as, much like movies that get chopped up for broadcast, very rarely do you have good hooks before commercial breaks. In addition, many shows made for streaming services do not follow the standard 18-22/37-42 minute show length, which means you have to either insert a ton of ads to pad the runtime into a 30/60/90 minute timeslot or have an odd lineup until you can get to some other oddball-length show (or until the infomercials begin).
At this point, I would think the union. I have a family member in Equity that couldn't play in his own productions because he couldn't afford to pay himself. Sounds like a joke, but it's true.
Refusing to accept a deal is akin to acts of violence? I feel like the pro-union rhetoric is getting hyperbolic, and is detrimental to the quality of the discussion. If simply refusing to accept a deal is "tar and feather territory", then what do you call it when studios are literally covering union members in tar and feather? "tar feather (fr!) territory"? Rather than discussing actually relevant topics like which side's offer is objectively more fair, half the comments here are about trying to describe the studio's actions in increasingly hyperbolic terms.
Its not 'refusing to accept a deal', its this:
"“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline." [0]
I don't think I can get more hyperbolic than "our stance is we won't talk to them until they're freezing in the streets".
[0] https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studio...
The union members are choosing not to accept a deal that will leave them nearly destitute.
The studio execs are choosing not to accept a deal that will...leave them still massively wealthy, just slightly less so.
[1] various sources, e.g. https://www.ign.com/articles/hollywood-studios-want-writers-...
I fully acknowledge the hardship that the union members are going through, and that the impact is likely disproportionate. However, that's a negative impact brought on by themselves by choosing to engage in said strikes. The union might still be in the "right" in terms of what they're demanding, but they're still the proximate cause of their own hardship.
See my previous comment: "The union might still be in the "right" in terms of what they're demanding, "
My only point was that the union and its members was presented with two choices: accepting a "bad" offer, or striking in hopes of getting a better offer. If they chose the latter and lost out, it was entirely their decision that led to their predicament.
Nor should it lessen the condemnation faced by these companies.
EDIT: To be clear, I expect a company's executive team in the 21st century to act ethically and with even the smallest bit of compassion for their coworkers. I do not expect them to act like some entitled plantation owner in the late 19th century.
And if that's me being naive, it's a naivety I'll gladly take to the grave.
If you don't approve of this, you don't approve of unionization. Because this is how it works.
But then again, defenestration of a bunch of execs might just be the exact thing the world needs to put some fear back into these ghouls again.
Weird, my definition of "unionization" is "workers bargaining collectively". It doesn't involve any veiled threats of violence.
They have made an offer of employment to the union, following the legal framework in the country.
It’s the same predicament any striking worker has. Each party is applying significant financial pressure on each other to get what they hope will be a better deal than the current offer.
How… how do you think this works in other strikes?
Abusing the massive wealth imbalance to force people back to work under your own terms is violence. They should be happy people haven't actually resorted to violence in return.
How it works in other strikes? It'll depend on the context. Your small company that can't afford everyone striking for a month will go to the negotiation table and reach a deal. Other companies? In my lifetime, I have seen offices destroyed, CEOs sequestrated. And you know what? It worked.
Historically when the key demand is "we want fair pay" versus "we are not giving you another dime", this strategy from the employer ends in violence.
So, not a great plan for employers tbh
I mean, I'm very pro-union rights, but I think in this case, it's pretty simple. If you don't work, you don't get paid. Both the studios and the unions are playing by the rules, here.
It may not produce a fair outcome (because the distribution of power in society isn't fair), but it is at least a fair process.
And the union should really have put aside more money to fund a longer strike.
What's the point of coming to the negotiation table when the other side's demands is so far from what you're willing to offer?
>Their entire plan is waiting them out so they'll accept a worse offer.
It takes two to make a deal. By refusing to accept a deal, both sides' are hoping to inflict damage to the other side so they can get what they want. You might have your own opinions about which side has the more reasonable offer and is therefore in the "right", but both sides are essentially trying to do the same thing.
Uh, does this situation not fit the dictionary definition of negotiation? Such a gulf in demands/desires/position between the sides necessitates negotiation and compromise. The institution saying "lol fuck them, we'll starve 'em out" is monstrous in that context, imo.
>Uh, does such a situation not fit the dictionary definition of negotiation?
There's nothing in the definition of "negotiation" that necessitates compromise. Moreover, negotiation isn't an end goal in and of itself. The point is to reach an agreement (ie. contract), and the very definition of a contract is that it's voluntary. That means walking away is an entirely valid response.
I'm fully expecting more dogmatic/richer members to bankroll the strike to prevent it breaking. I'm guessing through loans or something.