Archive for the ‘Daily Variety’ category

SAG extends commercials contract

August 27th, 2008

With the SAG in a stalemate with the majors over its feature-primetime contract, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists have opted for a six-month extension of their commercials contract until March 31.

SAG and AFTRA, which plan to negotiate jointly on the ad deal, made the disclosure Wednesday in a brief joint announcement with the ad industry.

It’s the second extension of the pact, which had been set to expire Oct. 29. The unions and the ad industry agreed in 2006 to a two-year extension of the contract in order to allow Booz Allen Hamilton to conduct an independent study about changing revenue models in the ad biz due to the impact of new media.

The announcement did not include any indication of when negotiations will start, but it’s unlikely that SAG will be ready to begin talks until it resolves its feature-primetime deal.

Read the whole story at DAILY VARIETY

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Posted in AFTRA, Actors, Auditions, Big Media, Commercials, Daily Variety, Residuals, SAG, Voice Actor, WGA

Tags: AFTRA Commercial Contract SAG

AMPTP STANCE on NEW MEDIA UNITES SAG BOARD

July 30th, 2008

It looks like warring factions inside SAG have found some common ground vs the AMPTP. Finally, all the SAG board agrees that allowing SAG sanctioned, non-Union production and no residuals for certain so called new media production is a bad idea for actors.

Daily Variety reporter and AMPTP fanboy, Dave McNary lays it all out in his article in Daily Variety dated July 29, 2008:

“SAG’s national board — which often finds itself amid pitched internal battles — has received backing from the fledgling Unite for Strength faction over its stance that the majors’ final offer to the guild is unacceptable.

SAG’s board voted unanimously over the weekend that it could not endorse the new-media provisions in the AMPTP’s offer — singling out provisions allowing non-union work in low-budget productions along with a lack of a guarantee of residuals for new-media programs replayed on digital platforms.

Unite for Strength announced last week a slate of 31 Hollywood division candidates with the aim of wresting control of SAG’s board from the ruling Membership First faction. Despite its assertions that SAG’s leaders have mishandled the negotiations, Unite for Strength said it’s in step on the policy stance.

“United for Strength fully supports the recent SAG board motion reasserting SAG’s commitment to the core principle that it does not authorize our employers to make nonunion product under our contracts, regardless of the medium or budget level,” the group said Tuesday. “We believe SAG needs new leadership, but we also agree with SAG’s negotiators that actors need real gains from a new contract.”

Unite for Strength also said in the statement that it agrees that the original goals of SAG’s negotiating committee — including pay and mileage increases, increased pension and health contributions, residuals on new media, protection from product integration abuses, increased DVD residuals and preservation of force majeure protections.

“Unite for Strength believes actors should have all those protections and more,” the group said. “We support our families with SAG earnings, so getting the strongest deal for actors is our top priority. And we know our current negotiating team feels the same way.”

Read McNary’s whole article in Daily Variety.

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Acting, Actors, Alan Rosenberg, Big Media, Daily Variety, Hollywood, NOW MEDIA, Producers, Residuals, SAG, Tommy G. Kendrick

Tags: AFTRA AMPTP CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS Daily Variety New Media NOW MEDIA SAG Strike

Dark Knight Punishes Step Brothers

July 28th, 2008

Rank Title Weekend Gross

1 The Dark Knight (2008) $75.6M $314M
2 Step Brothers (2008) $30M $30M
3 Mamma Mia! (2008) $17.9M $62.7M
4 The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008) $10.2M $10.2M
5 Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) $9.41M $60.2M
6 Hancock (2008) $8.2M $206M
7 WALL·E (2008) $6.35M $195M
8 Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) $4.93M $65.9M
9 Space Chimps (2008) $4.38M $16M
10 Wanted (2008) $2.73M $129M

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Posted in Box Office, Box Office Mojo, DARK KNIGHT, Daily Variety, Film Distribution, Producers, SAG

Tags: Box Office Daily Variety DARK KNIGHT Hollywood Reporter Residuals

SAG and AMPTP In Negotiation Constipation

July 21st, 2008

No movement. That’s all there is to report on the ongoing standoff between SAG and the AMPTP. Trade publications put attendance at Saturday’s SAG membership meeting in Hollywood at 450 – 750, depending on which industry rag you want to believe. The producer-friendly Daily Variety article actually has the attendance at the upper end of that scale, for whatever that is worth.

Both trades reported that SAG membership expressed strong support for the leadership and for their handling of this contract negotiation. SAG leaders are still taking the stance that negotiations are ongoing and that the AMPTP needs to respond to the latest SAG proposals. Meanwhile the AMPTP continues to stick to its position that negotiations have ended and that it is up to SAG to accept or reject the contract terms as announced, that is : accept the AFTRA deal.

At this point SAG has still not requested a strike authorization vote nor has the AMPTP declared an official ‘IMPASSE’ that would allow producers to move forward with either a lockout of actors or begin productions under the terms they have offered and force SAG actors to report or no-show.

Thus we continue with the de facto strike, de facto lockout situation that has AMPTP member film production in a holding pattern.

Stay tuned…

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Alan Rosenberg, Daily Variety, Hollywood, Hollywood Reporter, NOW MEDIA, Producers, Residuals, SAG, Strike

Tags: AFTRA AMPTP CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS New Media NOW MEDIA SAG Strike

DARK KNIGHT Light Up Box Office – $155 Million and Counting

July 21st, 2008

One of the best reviewed films of the year had a stunning opening this weekend with an estimated take in excess of $155 million while playing on 4,366 screens. Apparently that wasn’t enough screens because the weekend was a virtual sellout and HOLLYWOOD REPORTER published a report of tickets selling on Ebay for around $50.

There is extensive coverage of the DARK KNIGHT box office saga at DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD DAILY.

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Posted in Big Media, Box Office, Box Office Mojo, DARK KNIGHT, Daily Variety, Deadline Hollywood Daily, Hollywood Reporter, Producers

Tags: Box Office Daily Variety DARK KNIGHT Hollywood Reporter Residuals

NEW MEDIA: Amazon.com Offers Streaming Video On Demand

July 18th, 2008

The following story on Amazon.com’s new Video on Demand service appears in newspapers across the country today, 7/18/08. This is just one more example of where film and video distribution is headed. And it is one more example of why the AMPTP is trying to force feed a bad deal on Screen Actors Guild members. As SAG said in its recent white paper: It’s not NEW MEDIA, its NOW MEDIA.

By BRAD STONE
Published: July 17, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — In a significant step toward vanquishing the local video store and keeping couch potatoes planted firmly in front of their televisions and computers, Amazon.com will introduce a new online store of TV shows and movies on Thursday, called Amazon Video on Demand.

BIG PRODUCER$ Monetize YouTube Clip$

July 17th, 2008

While we wait for a resolution of the current contract ‘negotiations’ between SAG and the AMPTP, a few show biz reports give a look under the tent at why SAG is so concerned about issues like clip usage and residuals from new media. As an example, look at the deal announced this week between YouTube and Lionsgate as reported in the trades Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter:

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Rather than fight its fans, Lionsgate has made a deal with YouTube aimed at satisfying — and monetizing — the people who post clips of its films, like “Dirty Dancing,” which receive millions of views.

The studio will make excerpts from several hundred of its film and TV productions available on a branded YouTube channel that will allow users to share, embed, upload and mash up the clips.

Nothing to get excited about. Or is it? What does this move portend for the actors, writers, directors whose work is featured in these clips?

…”Jordan Hoffner, YouTube’s head of premium content partnerships, said his company is in talks to strike similar arrangements with other studios.

Pact follows other clip deals, but is noteworthy for its user flexibility at a time when Viacom is embroiled in a $1 billion copyright infringement suit with YouTube parent Google.”The deal also could highlight the contentious issue of what digital residuals might be owed to actors and other profit participants.

“Revenue generated with any piece of Lionsgate content is recorded and documented,” said Curt Marvis, Lionsgate’s president of digital media. “Splits are still to be determined, but there will be a trail of knowledge. I think that’s still being discussed (with guilds)…

…The deal has similarities to one struck between YouTube and CBS nearly two years ago, just before Google announced its acquisition of YouTube. A few months ago, Hulu, the joint venture of News Corp. and NBC Universal, loosened its restrictions on YouTube file-sharing, allowing short clips with embedded Hulu ads to stream on a branded YouTube channel.

However, the Lionsgate partnership calls for a heretofore unseen spirit of generosity in its user permissions.

“(The partnership) grew out of discussions about claiming — the process of getting content off YouTube,” Marvis said. “But if there’s an audience for our content, it was like, ‘Wait a minute. Let’s not put our heads in the sands here. Let’s give them what they want and get revenue from it.’”

Let’s not put our heads in the sand, indeed. For a group of people in the communication business, it seems to me that SAG has done a fairly poor job of informing the public of the moves being made by producers and studios on an almost daily basis that are directly related to the key issues in this contract negotiation.

Unfortunately, the horse is already out of the barn on this round of negotiations and it doesn’t appear likely that issues of clip use and residual income will be decided in a manner that will significantly benefit actors going forward. Based on prior experience, if we don’t ‘get it now’ we likely won’t be getting it at all.

The producers have, it appears, once again been successful in getting SAG to accept a contract that has terms that will make it very difficult for the average working actor to make a living….certainly not if he/she is counting on residual income streams.

It has become clear that this round of negotiations was seized by the AMPTP as the moment in time to roll back or even eliminate actors residual income streams as we have come to know them. We are at a time of changing technology that has opened the door to this move by producers.

Perhaps more of the Hollywood elite would object to the AMPTP tactics if we would refer to them as BIG MEDIA, BIG PRODUCER$, BIG ENTERTAINMENT or the BIG AMPTP, or BIG STUDIO$. It doesn’t have quite the ring of BIG OIL or BIG CORPORATIONS but somehow some of the same group of stars who constantly rail about BIG EVERYTHING don’t seem to see the studios and producers in the same light.

Could it be because many of these BIG STARS also have BIG FINANCIAL INTERESTS in BIG STUDIOS and BIG PRODUCTION COMPANIES? I guess not. These people have far too much integrity to do something only the Bushes and Cheneyes of the world would do. Right?

I’ll think about that when the next round of residual checks comes in and I deposit those checks for $10 and $20. I just don’t see how the producers can afford to pay those kind of prices for shows running on cable TV. I mean, nobody watches cable TV. Do they?

I’ll sure be glad when that infant technology grow$ up.

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Daily Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Producers, Residuals, SAG, Strike, Tommy G. Kendrick, WGA, Writers

Tags: AMPTP CLIP USAGE LIONSGATE Residuals SAG YOUTUBE

SIDEBAR: SAG and AMPTP MEET TODAY…BUT TO WHAT END

July 16th, 2008

In what is being termed a ’sidebar’ meeting, an off the record meeting with an unspecified agenda, the AMPTP has agreed to meet with SAG negotiators today to discuss the current contract stalemate. AMPTP insists that the offer on the table is in fact their ‘last best final’ offer and that there will be no movement off that offer on their part.

SAG has continued to insist that the two sides are indeed still negotiating. Apparently SAG leaders are the only party to this drama that thinks negotiating can continue if only one side is willing to participate.

Daily Variety’s Dave McNary continues his coverage in what has become a predictable anti-SAG slant with the following:

In a sign that SAG may be edging toward closing a feature-primetime deal, negotiators for the guild and the majors have agreed to a meeting today.

SAG, which sought the get-together, is playing it close to the vest as to the purpose of the meeting — officially a “sidebar” that’s off the record and will involve a small group from each side.

But the session could help negotiators hammer out a few face-saving tweaks — mostly in non-economic areas — that would enable SAG leaders to support the final offer or at least send it to members without trashing it. The session could also lead to bringing in Disney chief Robert Iger and News Corp. president Peter Chernin to close the deal or enlisting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who recently said he’d be willing to intervene as a mediator if asked.

Still, no one from the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers will be surprised if SAG continues to stall. SAG’s public posture for the past two weeks has been to blast the final offer — while insisting it hasn’t actually rejected the deal — and propose counteroffers in hopes that the congloms will budge from their oft-repeated position that the June 30 final offer won’t be revised.

The SAG reaction to McNary’s AMPTP-friendly reporting is discussed at Deadline Hollywood Daily:

SAG Denies Variety’s Latest Fabrication

EXCLUSIVE: The Screen Actors Guild is furious over Variety’s erroneous report tonight that the guild “may agree to the majors’ request to send out their final offer to the 120,000 guild members at the end of July.” I’m told by one insider, “It’s bullshit, especially the headline.” That started out “SAG to send offer to members” until it was changed after complaints to the equally misleading “SAG may send offer to it’s members”. Said another source, “Absolutely not true at this time. Irresponsible reporting.” The article also makes false assertions that SAG has stalled the negotiations — ridiculous since it’s now the AMPTP’s turn to respond to SAG’s counter-offer. This is yet another example of the trade writer Dave McNary making up a story about the guild negotiations that has no basis in reality, just like he did repeatedly during the WGA strike.

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Actors, Alan Rosenberg, Daily Variety, Producers, SAG, Strike

Tags: AMPTP Daily Variety Deadline Hollywood Daily SAG Strike

SAG Picks Door No. 3. Opts to Disrupt AFTRA Contract Ratification

June 8th, 2008

If there were any doubt that SAG leadership would do anything to avoid asking SAG membership for a strike authorization vote, just look at the course the SAG and AMPTP negotiations are taking.

A story in Saturday’s Daily Variety online lays out the scenario:

In a move that will unnerve Hollywood, the longtime feud between the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists has gone nuclear.

SAG’s launched an extraordinary campaign to persuade its 44,000 members who also hold AFTRA cards to defeat ratification of AFTRA’s primetime deal. SAG’s stunning move, voted up Friday by its bitterly divided national exec committee on a 13-10 margin, prompted AFTRA to threaten to take SAG to court for interfering in its internal affairs.

And in an odd confluence of events, SAG’s resuming its feature-primetime negotiations with the majors this morning while holding a “solidarity” rally at the same time at guild headquarters in Hollywood — with the latter event undoubtedly used to bash AFTRA.

“This is really unfortunate and I’m frankly horrified to see my SAG dues money spent this way,” said AFTRA president Roberta Reardon on Sunday. “I think SAG should be concentrating on making a deal. And it’s disingenuous of SAG to call it a ‘solidarity’ rally when it’s clear that it will be an anti-AFTRA rally.”

Still, SAG leaders haven’t taken the step of calling for a strike authorization, even though its contract expires in three weeks. Instead, SAG insists that it’s all about getting a better deal for actors and notes it’s still far apart from the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers.

Once again it will be lawyers who will be the big winners in this mess, not the membership of either SAG or AFTRA. AFTRA has already threatened legal action against SAG for ‘meddling’ in the AFTRA contract ratification process.

This move by SAG places actors with dual membership in an interesting and uncomfortable position. Since most of my income is now from SAG rather than AFTRA, I’m inclinded to lean more toward the direction urged by SAG leadership. But, still, it doesn’t feel ‘right’.

Things were much easier when the two groups cooperated and when actors in one union felt a common bond with actors in the other. It was just this sort of eventuality – actors’ guild vs actors’ guild – that concerned those working for a now long-dead merger of SAG and AFTRA. It has taken a few years, but the inability of the two guilds to effect a merger looks to be playing directly into the hands of producers.

But even the producers group is probably looking at SAG and AFTRA like contestants on some reality show about dysfunctional families. Where is Dr. Phil when we need him? The public perception is likely to be that Screen Actors Guild is the party that is acting irresponsibly, drawing out the possibility of a strike.

The move by SAG to derail the AFTRA ratification is one that rather smacks of desperation. SAG is desperate. Desperate to ensure that the membership is not saddled with another inadequate contract. Desperate to make sure that the coming explosion in internet production and distribution does not leave actors looking at what ’should have been’. Desperate to not repeat the same mistakes made in the negotiation of the deals on cable tv, deals that remain inadequate twenty years after their initial ratification.

Somehow the fact that producers have been unwilling to compromise on key issues including DVD residuals, streaming video and authorization of clip usage hasn’t resulted in any public pressure for the producers to be more flexible. Most of the entertainment press seems predisposed to cast SAG as the bad guy who should ‘just settle’ and avoid another work stoppage. The press doesn’t seem to see what the future looks like for actors unless an equitable agreement is consummated.

Read the latest full article here from DAILY VARIETY

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Posted in AFTRA, AMPTP, Daily Variety, Filmmakers, Hollywood, Producers, Residuals, SAG, SAG Membership, Strike, Tommy G. Kendrick

Tags: AFTRA AMPTP CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS SAG SAG FIGHTS WITH AFTRA Strike

SAG Waivers Allow Indie Productions to Shoot During Strike

June 4th, 2008

As negotiations begin again with the AMPTP, SAG is using one tool at its disposal that might put some pressure on the producers organization to settle, a waiver available only to indie productions.

By signing the SAG waiver the production company agrees to comply with the eventual deal hammered out with the AMPTP. This deal assures those signing that their projects can continue working in the event of a strike following the June 30th contract expiration date.

Among the titles know to be working with the SAG waiver:

* “Edge of Darkness,” directed by Martin Campbell and starring Mel Gibson.

* Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush drama “W,” starring Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks. (Shooting in Louisiana)

* “My One and Only” starring Renee Zellweger and Chris Noth and directed by Richard Loncraine.

* “Big Eyes,” with Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski directing. Kate Hudson and Tom Haden Church star.

* “Labor Pains,” with Lara Shapiro directing a Capitol Films castoff in which Lindsay Lohan stars.

* “Pandorum,” a sci-fi space thriller starring Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster and directed by Christian Alvert.

* “Bad Lieutenant,” starring Nicolas Cage. Werner Herzog is directing. (will Shoot in New Orleans)

* “Killing Pablo,” with Joe Carnahan directing and Bob Yari producing .

* “Brooklyn’s Finest,” with Antoine Fuqua directing Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle.

As Daily Variety says:

The current number of waivers is triple what SAG had signed three months ago — and an indication there will be a modicum of feature shooting in the coming months.

SAG waivers are available only to productions that have no financing or distribution deals in place with producers represented by the AMPTP.

The full take from Daily Variety is available Here.

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Posted in AMPTP, Actors, Daily Variety, Filmmaking, Louisiana Film Production, Producers, SAG, Strike, Tommy G. Kendrick

Tags: AFTRA AMPTP CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS SAG SAG Waivers Strike

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- Tommy G. Kendrick is a native of Beaumont, Texas who began his acting career at the Dallas Theater Center. At DTC, Tommy worked with legendary theater artist Paul Baker and the late playwright Preston Jones on the original productions of his highly regarded TEXAS TRILOGY. Tommy spent 15 years in Los Angeles where he performed in commercials, industrials, television, films, improv comedy and on the legitimate stage. Tommy now lives in and works out of Austin, Texas. For Booking information please contact Collier Talent: 512-236-0500.
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