My points at the microphone were quite simple.
1) the membership wants the negotiating team to be tougher than they are apparently being and we want them to know that to increase their resolve and to know that will support them if they are tougher and we want the producers to know it as well. They are NOT sticking with the WW committee guidelines on new media by conceding a 17 day window - the members won’t support that concession. (AMPTP members make money from ads in the streaming shows from day one - most shows are watchedin the first 5 days on the internet and then replayed at home without redownloading so those first day are EVERYTHING.)

And most membership is much more willing to strike for the reasonable share of new media than the negotiation team is apparently aware of or than the press lets on.

However no one wants it - we prefer a mutually profitable deal - There has NEVER been a better time for all in the media business to make profits from new media productions - cost of production and distribution are falling fast so expenses are falling- it would be ashame if the AMPTP lost their good cooperating history with talent just when the cheapest form of broadcasting is emerging and they could be making huge profits. What will their stockholders say if performers are forced to produce their own shows and go direct to viewers without the AMPTP if the AMPTP won’t negotiate a reasonable contract?

The talent can make shows and get them to viewers now without TV stations. The AMPTP will have a tougher time making shows without actors.

A few extra months of work now is NOT worth the tradeoff of future residuals on internet which will be the dominate form of viewership in the very near future and is already the dominate form for the younger set. (Ask the reocrd companies how long it took for listening habits to change to internet distribution … does the AMPTP want to repeat the record exec’s mistakes by keeping onerous contracts with talent and forcing talent out on their own without the producing companies?)

Members have been expecting a possible strike. The only surprise was that WGA went early. Remember last year a majority of SAG members voted to raise dues to help fund it remember.

2) The result of poor negotiation in #1) is if the negotiating committee doesn’t stick to the WW new media guidelines on new media internet residuals and clip usage it’s likely we will get a contract from the negotiation room that the membership can’t and won’t ratify when it is explained to them - and this will leave the industry in a lurch without a contract - perhaps CAUSING a strike. That’s right - a contract PROPOSAL (which must still be ratified) that comes out of the negotiations that is too lopsided against performers won’t help studios but will possible CAUSE a shutdown of the industry. In other words the producers might think they are making good progress but they need to know they are setting themselves up for failure.

Remember the membership is more savvy now than they were during the DVD era. They won’t let the same mistake be repeated twice of virtually no residuals on new media. Those of us who have worked in the internet world all believe internet/new media views will replace a huge portion of standard broadcast AND IS ALREADY DOING SO FOR THOSE UNDER 30. Viewings from NETWORK TV official network show ad supported web streaming (not youtube pirating) already equal the equivalent of several American Idols every week in viewership.

3) The unlimited clip use proposal is ridiculous plain and simple. Actor are hired for specific performances for a specific show - not the use of all imagery of the actor for any other purpose. Unlimited clip use would make prior images of a performer shot for other purposes compete with the performer when the performer looks for new work - for example advertisers could get imagery from producer of an actor walking with a phone in his hand and under unlimited clip use turn that into a commercial for a phone company.

It also creates a problem in that the performers image could be sullied by professional mashups without controls or juxtapositions with unsavory imagery - I believe I gave the example that with unfettered clip use Indiana Jones #1 could be pretty easily be turned into a pro Nazi movie with some reediting of imagery from the first one. I doubt Harrison Ford would have accepted the role under those circumstances.

4)
Judging from the loud applause and members who didn’t know me and who came across the crowds to find me and shake my hand afterward I would say there was a lot of support for it. There will be more support as we educate the members about how important internet/newmedia residuals will be to their future income and what a travesty unlimited clip use would be to their image and income.

5) and most importantly - it wasn’t my usual performance. It was a unique one .

None of us would do it if we didn’t love it but there will be even more profit in the new media revolution and the performers therefore deserve a bigger not smaller share.

George Watson

The actress who tossed her DVD’s is clearly “living in the future”, to use a term common amongst the tech-savvy. Her broader point, if I might be so bold, may be that where she’s living today, everyone else will be living tomorrow, and SAG should bear this in mind in contract negotiations.

The same hard drives she’s saved her movies onto can feed them just as easily these days to a 65-inch 1080p flat panel TV as a computer screen or an iPhone. We’re not talking about “blown up” movies. We’re talking about saving them on the hard drive at a resolution that’s quite watchable on the big screen in the living room from the barcalounger. And the distribution channel she uses to purchase her movie and “television” content entirely bypasses broadcast, cable, and pay television channels.

As of this moment, she and those of living in the future (when she held up her iPhone, I held up mine, and yeah, I’ve ripped some of my DVD’s too) aren’t statistically significant yet, but we most certainly will be in three years.

The AMPTP drank the creative guilds’ milkshake with VHS and DVD. We speak up because the creative types should have a taste of the next one.

And it’s clear that clip usage and the force majeure situation are prominent in the thoughts of the people negotiating for SAG for this contract.

The internet promotional window was apparently a sore subject at the meeting, as members suspect that the leadership has already conceded this but isn’t saying so publicly. I was told this in no uncertain terms, and I don’t doubt it.

What mheister isn’t saying is that the SAG leadership was careful at the meeting to say that they weren’t seeking a strike authorization vote at this time. Further, such a vote isn’t under consideration at that time.

And while George Watson did his apparently usual performance at the mike, it is not certain that the vast majority of SAG membership really agrees with the idea that everyone is militant and ready to go out.

I am told there was one member who did make a big point about internet distribution. She apparently discussed having tossed her VHS and DVD collections so that she could download entire seasons of TV shows to watch on her iPhone. One really has to wonder if people really intend to watch TV shows and movies on a tiny screen, or as blown-up images from the iPhone to a big screen TV.

If anything is clear, it’s that the SAG leadership is trying to find a way to a new contract rather than a strike. It looks very possible that they will be successful.

The one issue that concerns me is 17/24 day New Media window the AMPTP got out of the WGA and the DGA. Now, I understand New Media revenues - while already in the billions - currently pale in comparison to DVD and other streams, and I know SAG negotiators have the clips issue and force majeur payments to actors from the WGA strike to deal with, BUT I am extremely concerned that if SAG adopts the WGA’s free window for New Media now, we’re going to have a devil of a time getting the moguls to roll that back in three years when New Media revenues are poised to eclipse DVD/Blu-Ray and broadcast/cable television.

We need to be clear on this. The moguls are going to exploit changes in technology and content delivery to migrate distribution of scripted series from broadcast/cable channels to the Internet. It’s already starting to happen, and the pace of that migration will only accelerate.

Most consumers who watch their favorite scripted programming online do so within the first week or so. In the long term, that 17/24 day free window for the moguls constitutes a huge rollback in residual income for working actors.

I must re-emphasize that I believe SAG leadership is doing a fantastic job. These are tough negotiations and it is a difficult time to be doing this. I expressed my concerns to Mr. Rosenberg and Mr. Allen about the New Media window Monday, and I wasn’t the first.

The AMPTP needs to know that a lot of us in SAG aren’t simply going to rubber-stamp the free window the DGA and WGA took. If it were up to me - and I say this with love and respect - if our leadership presented us with a contract that includes that free window, our membership would reject it and send Allen and Doug back to the table with a clear message - actors don’t do windows, and we’re willing to go to the mat on this one.

I do believe that if SAG accepts the free window this year, we’re just putting off an inevitable day of reckoning. The one possible upside to this for actors is that we will have - if we are awake and aware and not distracting ourselves - three years to prepare.

All the hysterical anti-AFTRA fear-mongering by desperate pols on the SAG Board have proven to be so much cat crap. It’s not in anyone’s interest to cave on clips & internet.

If SAG hadn’t played beanball bullyboy for the past 18 months with the ladies who run AFTRA, they’d all be in the room negotiating together. But instead they find themselves out in the hallway in detention…Boys, make sure you clean the gum out from under your desks.

Let’s vote in a new Hollywood SAG Board when this mess resolves itself this Fall.

Get it on!

399

Unfortunately, the stock market seems to encourage shortsighted thinking and management of companies. TV took a lasting hit from the writer’s strike and the AMPTP could’ve avoided it and ended up with the same terms from the get-go instead of grandstanding and acting on ego and emotion instead of good business sense.

Meanwhile through all of this gas prices are going up, food prices are going up, rent is being increased, mortgages are being increased…

After all of these negotiations are over, how many qualified crew members will be around anymore. How many will not have declared bankruptcy or lost their homes or apartments by then. How many will have been forced to move out of L.A.?

I don’t see this town getting back to work for many months.

How sad “Hollywood” has become…

Signed,
A long time member of SAG & AFTRA, married to a “Below The Line” crew member