All your face are belong to us

Here’s a wrinkle I didn’t see coming. We all pretty much know Hollywood writers are on strike, right?

*yawn”

And that the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) has been threatening to go out as well?

SAG-AFTRA’s national board voted unanimously this morning to launch the guild’s first strike against the film and television industry since 1980, according to @DEADLINE. The strike is set to begin at 12:01am tonight.https://t.co/OeAW7E20lY pic.twitter.com/tGXd8gHgGH

— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) July 13, 2023

Welp, as of this afternoon, that’s apparently going to happen at midnight tonight, after talks with the studios and streamers fell apart.

Hollywood actors will go on strike at midnight after talks with studios broke down, joining film and television writers who have been on picket lines since May and deepening the disruption of scores of shows and movies.

Hollywood studios now face their first dual work stoppage in 63 years, forcing them to halt many productions across the United States and abroad. The twin strikes will add to the economic damage from the writers walkout, delivering another blow to an industry struggling with changes to its business.

Both SAG-AFTRA – Hollywood’s largest union, representing 160,000 film and television actors – and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) are demanding increases in base pay and residuals in the streaming TV era plus assurances that their work will not be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI).

I can’t really get all worked up over a lot of people who don’t like me very much and actively work to demonize everything I believe in, but I will allow that there are some serious issues that should be addressed by the studio powers that be. Which is more, quite frankly, than the majority of those people would acknowledge for folks like us were the shoe on the other foot. But that’s what separates us from them.

In any event, the studios say they’ve offered handsome upgrades to the current contract, to include:

• The highest percentage increase in minimums in 35 years

• 76% increase in High Budget SVOD foreign residuals

• Substantial increases in pension and health contribution caps

• Groundbreaking AI proposal which protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performer’s consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.

• 58% increase in salaries for major role (guest star) performers wages on High Budget SVOD Programs.

• Limitation of self-tape requests, including page, time and tech requirements. Options for virtual or in-person auditions.

• 11% pay increase in year 1 for background actors, stand-ins and photo doubles, an additional 17% increase for background actors required to do extensive self-styling, and an additional 62% increase for stand-ins required to deliver lines during a run-through and photo doubles required to memorize and deliver lines on camera.

Etc, etc., blah, blah.

Out of the list, I’ve purposefully highlighted the AI proposal. What is in that release does not at all jibe with what was rather a shocking report out of SAG’s boardroom regarding the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ (AMPTP) initial offer for background actors and AI.
The nerve of it is pretty breathtaking and the implications going forward for general use are pretty horrifying.

Hey I found something “not realistic” and “very disturbing to me.” The AMPTP’s AI proposal reportedly says studios should be able to scan background actors’ faces, pay them for 1 day, and then use their image/likeness for eternity without additional consent or pay. pic.twitter.com/p0vmoPoOSz

— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) July 13, 2023

So, say, if you were a random Roman in a coliseum scene in the next Gladiator, the studio would have the right to scan and digitize your features, use AI to insert it anywhere in any film from that point forward in perpetuity without paying you for that “appearance.”

YOU wouldn’t own your face anymore – the studio would.

And could conceivably build an ‘on call’ cast of tens of thousands of “actors” whom they only paid once.

Fiendishly SCHWEET

Hell, yeah, I’d be out there walking and squawking about that.

I might be willing to chalk it up to union hyperbole – God knows every union in hostile negotiations is fond of flame throwing – but the AMPTP is also playing a ruthless game of hardball, so it could be for reals. After all, if the studios are supposedly waiting for the striking writers to “bleed out”…

According to a recent Deadline report, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is in the strike for the long haul—with a plan to let the Writers Guild of America (WGA) “bleed out” before resuming negotiations. “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” one source told the trade.

…The Deadline report came approximately 30 hours before the actors union, SAG-AFTRA, is set to announce whether it will join the WGA in a strike against the AMPTP or reach a deal. Regardless of whether SAG-AFTRA strikes a deal with the AMPTP, the studios have no intention of coming back to the table with the WGA until the fall, a top-tier producer told Deadline: “Not Halloween precisely, but late October, for sure, is the intention.”

Per Deadline, the AMPTP is willing to wait until it feels that the writers are cash-strapped and more willing to compromise on their demands. “The studios and the AMPTP believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work,” reads the Deadline report. “The studios and streamers feel they would be in a position to dictate most of the terms of any possible deal.” An insider called the strategy “a cruel but necessary evil.”

…why wouldn’t they try to permanently take your face for $187, which is the current going rate for an extra’s day of shooting.

CHA-CHING

This whole Hollywood meltdown could will be an epic soap opera in its own right and that alone is going be entertaining.

But the AI angle – that’s a horse of a different color entirely and one more unsettling log on that fire.

What happens when they don’t tell you they’ve taken your face?