Jon Cryer, William H. Macy, Leslie Mann and James Spader star in Warner Bros.’ family comedy adventure “Shorts,” directed by Robert Rodriguez from his own screenplay.
Rodriguez (”Spy Kids” trilogy) is also producing the film with Elizabeth Avellan under their Troublemaker Studios banner. Dan Lin, Hunt Lowry and Stacy Cohen exec produce the film, which is starting production in Austin, Texas.
Read the whole story in Daily Variety
Dear AFTRA Member:
I am delighted to report that after 17 days of some of the hardest bargaining in which I’ve participated during the past decade as a union leader, your Primetime Negotiating Committee has reached a tentative agreement with the television producers that achieves higher pay and improved working conditions for AFTRA members working on primetime network dramatic programs.
Highlights of our new three-year agreement—known as “Exhibit A” of the Network Code—include:
* Increases in base pay rates in each year of the contract.
* Increases in employer contributions to the AFTRA Health and Retirement Plan to 15% in 2009.
* Significant increases in “major role” minimums and overtime pay for three-day players.
* A raise in the number of covered background actors in Los Angeles.
* Improved terms and conditions for performers on CW programming.
* Confirmed jurisdiction over programs produced directly for the Internet and New Media.
* New residuals structures for paid Internet downloads (electronic sell-through) and ad-supported streaming that increase the rates currently paid by employers.
* Preservation of the bedrock principle of performer consent for non-promotional use of excerpts in New Media.
* Expanded access to data on new media transactions plus a sunset stipulation on all New Media provisions, which will allow both sides to revisit this area with fresh and informed viewpoints when the agreement expires in 2011.
We will send you a more thorough description of the proposed deal following the AFTRA National Board meeting next week. (For a fact sheet and more information, read the news release at www.aftra.com.) If approved by the National Board, the agreement will be submitted to you for ratification. When you have had a chance to study the details, I think you will agree that the agreement not only achieves meaningful economic improvements for working performers, but it also makes significant progress in the critical and rapidly growing area of New Media.
This victory for performers in the current challenging environment was due to the hard work and long hours put in by your Negotiating Committee, led by chair Matt Kimbrough, and our dedicated staff, led by National Executive Director Kim Roberts Hedgpeth and New York Local Executive Director Stephen Burrow—all of whom worked straight through the Memorial Day weekend to conclude negotiations at 4 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Based on our experience in this year’s AFTRA Network Code talks—as well as that of the DGA and WGA in their respective negotiations earlier in the year—we knew going into these talks that we would be confronted with some very challenging issues. This is why we felt it was so important for negotiations over actors’ contracts to begin sooner rather than later, and why we worked so hard to make this happen.
It’s also why the working men and women of the Negotiating Committee took a business-like approach to the talks. Fiery rhetoric has its place, but this victory was a direct result of our willingness to keep focused on our priorities while working hard to find creative solutions to the unforgiving realities of the TV business during this time of rapid change.
This was particularly true when it came to New Media. New Media is changing everything. And, yes change can be uncomfortable. But clinging to the old ways is a recipe for disaster; just ask the thousands of AFTRA members in the recording industry. With this in mind, our goal in these negotiations was not to set up barriers to prevent the employers from entering the New Media business, but to ensure that our members have a fair share and a protected stake in that business as it develops.
We also owe our success to the support we received from the entire Hollywood labor community. Following the long-standing tradition of union solidarity practiced by the Writers, Directors, and Screen Actors Guilds, as well as IATSE, we were happy to welcome observers from all of our sister unions to all of our bargaining sessions (excepting only the confidential sidebars that are a standard part of every negotiation). In particular, we are grateful to SAG for its generosity in giving our negotiators the benefit of its earlier experience bargaining with the AMPTP. This was an extremely helpful favor that we are in the process of returning.
I look forward to discussing the terms of our new agreement with all of you in the very near future. In the meantime, please join me in thanking—and congratulating—our negotiating committee and staff for the magnificent job they have done.
In solidarity,
ROBERTA REARDON
AFTRA National President
The latest information on SAG and AMPTP negotiations from DAILY VARIETY:
Hollywood’s strike fever has dropped a few degrees as SAG and the majors resumed talks Wednesday with the majors after AFTRA signed a primetime pact in the middle of the night.
AFTRA’s deal, completed at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday on the 18th day of talks, will serve as a pressure point on the Screen Actors Guild to accept similar terms — though SAG’s leaders emphasize that they’re a long way from closing half a dozen key deal points. Insiders say the guild’s talks will probably go right up against the June 30 expiration and may continue into July, requiring a day-to-day extension of the current contract.
After a perfunctory meeting Wednesday, SAG and reps for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — who were sleep-challenged by the marathon negotiation with AFTRA — are set to resume talks at 2 p.m. today.
Link to the full article HERE.
AFTRA and the AMPTP have announced agreement on a new primetime contract that, per Daily Variety, ” will ease — but not eliminate — the town’s fears of an actors strike.”
The announcement of the AFTRA deal comes as SAG is scheduled to reconvene meetings with AMPTP this morning.
Per Daily Variety:
The deal includes new media provisions similar to those in the DGA and WGA deals covering programs streamed over the web and downloads of TV shows and sets the same thresholds for coverage of made-for-the-internet programs. As with the director and writer deals, the AFTRA pact did not include any gains in DVD residuals.
And AFTRA also said the pact retains actors’ consent over online use of clips, an issue that had emerged as a dominant concern at the negotiations. Both SAG and AFTRA had opposed the AMPTP’s proposal that actors agree to drop the consent requirement for online clips, in order to establish a viable business model that could compete with the massive levels of pirated clips on the web.
AFTRA said the pact calls for it and the companies to “develop a mechanism” by which performers can provide or withhold consent for non-promotional use of clips from TV libraries. For programs produced after July 1, companies can bargain for consent for the right to use clips at the time of original employment.
“This is another groundbreaking agreement for AFTRA,” said AFTRA national president Roberta Reardon in a statement. “In addition to achieving meaningful gains in compensation and working conditions for performers, it also establishes AFTRA jurisdiction in the dynamic area of new media and it preserves performers’ consent for use of excerpts of traditional TV shows in new media.
Read the entire Daily Variety article here.
The Hollywood Reporter version of the AFTRA and AMPTP agreement can be found here.
In a statement, the AMPTP said both sides were “challenged during these talks to find a way to fairly and sensibly tailor our industry’s new media framework to meet the needs of actors. As a result of compromise and creativity by both parties, we reached an agreement that makes the new media framework work for all actors.”
Now that AFTRA has come to an agreement, SAG is expected to start up its negotiations again with the AMPTP. Talks were suspended May 6 after both sides were unable to reach an agreement and AFTRA was slated to begin its formal negotiations the following after it had twice postponed bargaining to let SAG continue.
“We now look forward to the resumption of talks with SAG, to building on the foundation laid during our first round of SAG talks, and to reaching an agreement that will prevent another harmful and unnecessary strike,” the AMPTP said.
Let’s recap the SAG and AFTRA negotiations with AMPTP:
SAG and the AMPTP negotiated until May 6 when AFTRA refused to postpone their own negotiations so SAG could complete their contract talks. AFTRA began negotiations with the general perception that the work would be swift and that there would be a settlement between AFTRA and AMPTP, putting pressure on SAG to likewise settle.
Then a week or so ago, AFTRA in seeming solidarity with SAG, announced that they could not accept the AMPTP proposal with respect to clip usage on the internet. We were told that SAG had observers in the negotiations with AMPTP just as AFTRA had observers in the SAG negotiations.
Eventually SAG agreed to restart negotiations with AMPTP on Wednesday, May 28th. Cryptic announcements released by AFTRA over the past several days indicated that the AMPTP and AFTRA were indeed close to a deal.
Then as of about 5pm today we have this story from Daily Variety:
Even as insiders insisted that a deal was within reach, AFTRA and the majors continued to test the town’s patience by going down to the wire after three weeks of talks.
With rival thesp union SAG champing at the bit to resume its negotiations today, AFTRA had been widely expected to announce a tentative agreement Tuesday with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Televison Producers. Negotiators had worked for nine consecutive days, including well into evenings in recent sessions, to finalize details.
Instead, no deal had emerged as of late afternoon Tuesday amid a news blackout. It’s understood frustration has been mounting among the congloms due to massive amounts of time on a single issue — the companies’ proposal that actors agree to drop the consent requirement for online clips — along with momentum stalling on small details in recent sessions.
Uncertainty reigned Tuesday as to whether the AFTRA talks would be extended into today to wrap up the negotiations. It’s understood the congloms have made it clear they won’t give AFTRA another specific date for resuming talks, opting instead to spend the time negotiating with SAG since the guild controls all feature work and most TV work.
AFTRA’s case of cold feet may stem from its leaders being hesitant about making a deal prior to SAG’s. Such a pact will probably be heavily criticized by SAG — given that the relationship between the performers unions is already deeply troubled.
Conspiracy theorists who don’t trust AFTRA very much at all might think that AFTRA and AMPTP do in fact have a deal, including an agreement to keep it quiet until after SAG settles or asks members for a strike authorization.
This afternoon, SAG members received the following missive from President Alan Rosenberg which includes the assertion that SAG observers were not given the same access to AFTRA negotiations that AFTRA observers had been given to the SAG talks.:
May 27, 2008
Dear SAG Members,
Tomorrow we will resume TV/Theatrical contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). As you know, the AMPTP suspended our negotiations on May 6 to begin talks with AFTRA for its primetime Exhibit A contract.
Screen Actors Guild observers were present for only 6 of the 18 days that AFTRA has been meeting with the AMPTP. We were proud to invite AFTRA to attend every day of our bargaining sessions. In the event that our committee met in executive session with only senior staff present, or in sidebar with a handful of staff and members, we reported the discussions and results of the sessions and gave AFTRA every document. Unfortunately that level of transparency was not reciprocated. Observers were in fact told they could not attend 12 days of confidential sessions. As a result SAG has not had a representative there for the last week. We don’t have any details about the status of the talks except that AFTRA and the AMPTP are continuing to meet today, and we will resume our negotiations at 10 a.m. at the AMPTP tomorrow morning.
Your National Negotiating Committee remains committed to getting the best terms possible for actors. We have spent the entire 2 ½ weeks since talks were suspended reaching out to members around the country. We held Town Hall meetings in Los Angeles, New York and via videoconference in Chicago, Miami and San Francisco. We also visited numerous sets in Los Angeles and movie locations in New York. We met with high profile actors in groups and sought input from as many members as possible. We asked you to provide your thoughts via email, and thousands of you responded.
We are going back into these critical negotiations armed with your thoughts, observations, demands, and your blessings. Your leaders will do everything possible to get a fair contract. You and your families deserve nothing less.
The main outstanding issues remain the same as they were in early May:
Middle Class Actors: Actors and background actors are struggling to stay in the game. While management has said they have money to spend here, we want to make sure it’s spent in ways that make a real difference: increases in minimums, including major role, mileage, schedule and money breaks, and more coverage for background actors, for example.
Clips: We have said no to management’s demands of you to give up your right to consent to the use of clips containing your images.
DVD: We simply want the employers to pay your Pension & Health contributions on top of your residual, instead of taking it out of your share of DVD revenues. The entire eligible cast shares only 1% of that revenue. You shouldn’t have to pay your own P& H contributions out of that percentage.
Force Majeur: The SAG contract has longstanding provisions for down periods when a project goes out of production because of an Act of God or strike by another union. We have said no to management’s proposal to wipe away pending claims and to force you to negotiate these rights by yourself
New Media Jurisdiction: SAG wants to cover ALL new media projects, no matter how low the budget. We should not allow major studios and networks to produce non-union new media projects without SAG actors because they have low budgets.
I promise to keep you apprised of our progress over the coming days. Thank you for your support and please continue to provide input by emailing Contract2008 at sag.org.
In unity,
Alan Rosenberg
Can anyone confirm whether or not this whole mess is being taped for a new reality series?
That seems to be the feeling in the film industry trades as talks between the two parties continued over the weekend and even over the Memorial holiday. The letter sent from AFTRA to members (published here in a previous post) struck an optimistic tone and that tone, combined with a lot of wishful thinking has the Hollywood press looking for a deal sooner rather than later.
SAG and AMPTP are scheduled to resume talks on Wednesday which means that if AFTRA is going to make its deal first, we should be hearing something today. While AFTRA and SAG have been at odds prior to and during the contract negotiations, there have been recent signs that some cooperation between the two guilds is occurring.
This week looks to be critical in the determination of just how bumpy a ride the film industry will be taking over the summer and into fall. Stay tuned.
The latest from Daily Variety is here, including this excerpt:
With SAG anxiously waiting in the wings, AFTRA and the majors are believed to be near a tentative deal on the union’s primetime contract.
Amid a news blackout, neither side issued any official announcement as of Monday evening, but it was understood that AFTRA and the AMPTP had entered the final stages of reaching a three-year agreement. Monday marked the 16th day of negotiations between the two orgs.
AFTRA leaders, who have touted their pragmatic approach, had been widely expected to make a deal before the Screen Actors Guild did. SAG is scheduled to resume its talks with the AMPTP on Wednesday.
In agreeing to negotiate over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, both AFTRA and the AMPTP had started sending strong signals that they were closing in on a deal.
This is the latest email blast from AFTRA to members regarding negotiations with the AMPTP:
May 25, 2008
Dear AFTRA Member:
For more than two weeks, your Primetime Negotiating Committee has been working hard to achieve significant gains in wages and working conditions for AFTRA members who work under our contract covering primetime network dramatic programs (Exhibit A of the AFTRA Network Television Code). Here is where things currently stand.
Our talks with the employers have been both constructive and productive, and your committee remains committed to reaching a fair agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). To that end, I can report that we are prepared to bargain continuously, for as long as it takes, including working straight through the Memorial Day Weekend.
Based on our experience in this year’s AFTRA Network Code talks—as well as that of the DGA and WGA in their respective negotiations earlier in the year—we went into this round of collective bargaining knowing we would be confronted with some very challenging issues. This is why we felt it was so important for negotiations over actors’ contracts to begin sooner rather than later, and why we worked so hard to make that happen.
It’s also why we are taking a business-like approach to negotiations. We face a formidable adversary across the table. While we appreciate the challenges the companies face as a result of new technology and fragmenting audiences, our concern is performers’ well-being. Your committee is smart and well-educated about both the issues we’re confronting and what we’re dealing with. So ignore the grandstanding rhetoric—your committee understands what is at stake. We all depend on these contracts for our livelihoods, and your committee is completely focused on improving them and the lives of all working performers.
In this spirit, I want to note that the AFTRA Negotiating Committee is grateful for the input of SAG staff observers, and the other union observers, all of whom were extended the same invitation and courtesy that the SAG Negotiating Committee extended to the AFTRA observers during the SAG talks. We also intend to brief SAG on our talks with the AMPTP before SAG resumes its negotiations with employers.
Your committee’s priority is to get the best possible contract that protects actors. As I’ve mentioned in previous updates, in addition to seeking improvements in compensation, coverage, and health and retirement benefits, we are also confronting a number of tough challenges involving New Media. Because many of the issues we face in this area are completely unprecedented—most notably, the knotty problem of clip consent—we are trying to think out of the box in order to reach pragmatic resolutions. An editorial in Friday’s Los Angeles Times noted that rather than recoiling from new technology, the entire industry must seize the opportunities presented by the Internet. The Times suggested that performers need to ”focus as much on protecting income streams as images, because the latter is simply beyond their control in the Internet era. That doesn’t mean giving carte blanche to any use of clips. But it does mean shifting from a self-protective crouch into a more market-oriented stance.” To this end, AFTRA is focused on working with employers to find a creative solution that will protect our members’ images while at the same time encouraging the growth of the new market.
On a final note, I want to report that AFTRA members ratified the Sound Recordings Code on Friday. This national contract covers royalty artists and session singers who work with more than 1,200 recording companies, including the four major labels—EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner—and most of their subsidiary labels. The agreement is a great step forward for AFTRA recording artists and singers as it provides increased compensation and benefits for recordings in both physical and digital formats.
I am hopeful that we will soon reach a similarly groundbreaking agreement for primetime that will once again include significant gains for working performers.
In solidarity,
ROBERTA REARDON
AFTRA National President
I’m becoming a real fan of actor and author Markus Flanagan. I’ve already put up a review of his excellent book, ONE LESS BITTER ACTOR. Since reading the book I’ve started keeping up with Flanagan’s blog as well. I must say that this guy must have tremendous confidence because he is fearless in exposing details of his journey in and through the actor’s life. He doesn’t post every day, but when he does, it’s usually well worth the wait:
Here’s an excerpt from today’s post and I encourage you to bookmark his blog or subscribe to his RSS feed and check it out often.
In an effort to get enough work by June 30th (to make my health insurance minimums before a strike deadline), a friend started to send me the daily breakdowns so I could see what was roles were available for me. She said that it would double my auditions because as hard as they try, agents just miss stuff. The theory was that this would put me in many more rooms over the next 4 weeks improving my odds for the jobs I need. So, I’d scour the lists for appropriate roles and send in emails to my agent and manager.
Gosh I wish I hadn’t….
Read the full post at the ONE LESS BITTER ACTOR BLOG.
Abandoning the Nest is a must read article in the Austin Chronicle by Joe O’Connell.
Consider the facts: Between 1998 and 2006, Hollywood studio films had combined production in Texas of more than $530 million, averaging eight or nine films a year, according to Texas Film Commission figures. The entire year of 2007 eked out a mere $300,000 for the few days that A Mighty Heart landed in Austin. Even independent films are veering from the Lone Star State, with a drop in numbers from 37 tracked by the Texas Film Commission in 2006 to nine in 2007. It’s no big surprise who the culprit is: States like neighboring New Mexico and Louisiana offer heftier incentives to entice Hollywood to come a-calling.
More on that later. For now, here are the figures that concern Thornton and his fellow film crew professionals: Between 1998 and 2006, those Hollywood films produced more than 8,300 temporary crew jobs. In 2007, it was 20. Ouch. The independents created almost 8,500 temporary crew openings during the same time frame – almost 1,800 in 2006 alone – but only 461 jobs in 2007. Double ouch…
…Texas finally joined the incentives race in 2007, when the film industry banded together as the Texas Motion Picture Alliance and convinced the Legislature to approve a two-year program funded at $10 million a year, with an additional $2 million set aside for creation of a state film archive, crew training programs, and administrative costs. It came after a 2005 program that was approved without funding by the Legislature and offered a scant 5% rebate (the original bill asked for 20%) and included a befuddling, bemusing clause that precludes payment for films that “portray Texas or Texans in a negative fashion.”…
…The worst-kept secret in the Texas film scene is that an increase from a 5% to a 15% incentive is the goal for the 2009 Legislative session. Bob Hudgins, head of the Texas Film Commission, admits that the current incentive level is primarily attracting commercial shoots, which fall under the radar of Louisiana and New Mexico incentives, and is perhaps helping keep some television work here. The industry’s savior the last two years has been filming of the television shows Prison Break in the Dallas area and Friday Night Lights around Austin. Despite incentives, Prison Break is moving production to Los Angeles this year to follow a new plotline. So far, 95 completed projects, including the two TV series, have applied for Texas film incentive funds for a pending payout of $6 million. Of the applications, 72 are for commercials. “The reason we haven’t used as much as we’ve had available,” Hudgins explains, “is frankly because our 5 percent is not competitive with what other states are doing.”
Read the entire article in the Austin Chronicle online.
Recently I recommended a book by Markus Flanagan called ONE LESS BITTER ACTOR. This really is a terrific book for all actors and particularly so for actors at the beginning of this journey. Below is a video of an interview with Flanagan talking about his book and his philosophies on the business of acting. There is also a link to an additional video.
Good Morning Colorado-int. w/ Markus Flanagan from Markus Flanagan on Vimeo.
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