SAG Does "Nearly 100" Indie Strike Deals

The Screen Actors Guild and the AMPTP talks continue. But SAG is wisely following the WGA playbook and pushing ahead with its month-old program helping indie moviemakers to weather a strike, if there is one, as long as they don't have financing or distribution deals with any AMPTP-represented studio or company. Now SAG is about to announce that it has reached "nearly 100" separate indie deals. Back in March, the union made available so-called Guaranteed Completion Contracts (GCC) which, like the interim deals done during the WGA strike, call on producers to abide by the terms of any interim contract that SAG may offer and to become signatory to the final negotiated contract with the AMPTP. Again, like the WGA deals, these contracts are offered at the actors guild's discretion. SAG's aim with so many deals is to help indie prods keep going, show that its contract terms are reasonable, keep actors working, and -- in my opinion -- piss off the Hollywood CEOs who still could be struck.

« UPDATE: Many UTA Partners Are in Play; Tracey Jacobs Not Leaving UTA For Now   Mystery Behind ICM's New Talent Hire »

10 Comments »

  1. So here we go another group of worthless contracts. Who is to say that these film won’t wind up being distributed by the studios that might be struck. They will wind up on cable and guess who owns that.

    Comment by just a thought — April 22, 2008 @ 6:28 pm

  2. “and piss off the Hollywood CEOs who’ll be struck”. Um, they won’t be struck if they accept SAG’s very reasonable requests for the new contract.

    Comment by mheister — April 22, 2008 @ 6:43 pm

  3. Your dreaming mheister. I’ve listened to you palabra all during the writers strike and I guess I will have to listen to more. You must be unemployed and a trustafarian, to want to set another strike. I now know your not a writer and most likely not working actor. You got some pair to want more pain and more suffering. Your the worst kind of person, for I see. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Guess what that means.

    Comment by just a thought — April 22, 2008 @ 8:00 pm

  4. The people making these deals should be kept at arm’s length.

    Comment by The Long Arm — April 22, 2008 @ 11:41 pm

  5. When Just A Thought wrote, “….I now know your not a writer…”, I will presume nor is Just A Thought, by that grade school mistake.

    Comment by andy — April 23, 2008 @ 8:01 am

  6. This is meaningless in regards to negotiating leverage against the AMPTP. First, the idea to offer GCCs was to appease actors whom were concerned they would be out of work well before June 1 because no new production could begin because productions wouldnt be able to get the necessary insurance. Second, these deals (to my knowledge) do not offer strike waivers moving forward allowing actors to provide their services to new production during an actual strike, and even if they do independent production is not significant enough to make an impact on the industry (kind of like the situation with WGA’s delas during their strike).

    Comment by Intrigued — April 23, 2008 @ 12:47 pm

  7. BZZZZZZZZZZZT Intrigued. Thanks for playing though. SAG is also going to offer interim deals with the same basic provision as the GCC deals for productions beginning after a strike (if one does in fact occur).

    Don’t believe me? Call SAG and ask…

    Comment by yo — April 23, 2008 @ 3:26 pm

  8. mheister

    I guess you must be an English teacher.

    Comment by just a thought — April 24, 2008 @ 12:00 am

  9. yo,

    try reading my post again…

    i clearly said i wasn’t sure if SAG intended to issue strike waivers to new production once/if a strike started. i further went on to say that even if they do, because of the very very small percentage the independent prodcution accounts for in the industry it really isn’t leverage against the AMPTP. (ie just how all those side deals the WGA cut with independents proved to have to bargaining effect on the AMPTP)

    so maybe you need to try again, and learn how to read and comprehend before you call me out!

    Comment by Intrigued — April 24, 2008 @ 2:21 pm

  10. I’m just trying to get my head around the situation to find if there is any intersection of these requests.

    Can anyone simply detail, without smart arse over simplification, what SAG is most likely requesting be different in the new contracts.

    thanks in advance.

    Comment by Clarity — April 30, 2008 @ 9:06 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

XHTML ( You can use these tags): <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong> .