JOURNEY OF THE WORKING ACTOR

Screen Actors Guild Foundation and Screen Actors Guild are delighted to continue offering innovative “business of acting” seminars to Guild members across the nation at no charge, via live video stream on the Internet!

LifeRaft Live Stream allows you to participate online and submit questions to panelists every Tuesday, 6-8pm (PT) through April 27, 2010. To learn more about the program, view the current 2010 LifeRaft Live Stream schedule and to participate in these events online, simply visit the SAG Foundation LifeRaft Live Stream show page at www.sagfoundation.org All LifeRaft Live Stream events are available for later viewing here as well.

The next LifeRaft Live Stream event is:

Journey of the Working Actor
6-8 p.m. (PT), Tuesday, February 9

Join accomplished Los Angeles actor/author Michael Bofshever  www.michaelbofshever.com), along with his stellar panel of familiar-faced working actors, as he discusses a variety of questions pertaining to the many aspects of what it takes to succeed and live the life of a working actor. Topics to be addressed include the Foundation to Having a Career, Audition Know How, Life on Set, Agents and Managers, and the Art of Perseverance.

Michael has taken “Journey of the Working Actor” to over half the SAG branches across the nation and has garnered wonderful feedback – now, LifeRaft Live Stream is happy to share his professional insights with Guild members everywhere.

Guild members who wish to attend LifeRaft seminars in person may visit www.sagfoundation.org to register for seating at the events held at:

SAG Foundation Actors Center
5757 Wilshire Blvd., Mezzanine Level
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(parking will be validated)

Celebrating its 25th Anniversary in 2010, the SAG Foundation is proud to assist, educate and inspire SAG members in their careers, lives and communities. See you online!

Please note: If you are receiving multiple SAG Foundation notices you may have indicated a preference for more than one Foundation email region list. You may review and adjust this option at any time by logging into www.sagfoundation.org and viewing the “Email Notices” setting on your User Account page.

This is an excellent video from the SAG Foundation LifeRaft series that was originally available only to SAG members. Whether you’re putting together your first actor reel or getting ready to re-edit and add your latest credits, there is information here for you. Top industry guests including casting directory Gary Zuckerbrod and highly sought after editor Wayne Rawley of Secret Handshake Entertainment tell what they’re looking for in a demo reel and offer sage advice on how to avoid the most common pitfalls.

Discover the ins & outs of the TX Moving Image Industry Incentive Program & building the biz in Texas.

Join this open forum for producers, directors, actors and crew. Learn about the new incentives for growing work in Film, Commercial Advertising, Corporate Film, Video Gaming, & New Media. Find out how the new incentives have impacted Texas production, who’s using the incentives, and how home grown creativity can benefit from the new program.

When: Sunday, July 12, 2009

4 p.m. – 6 p.m.

Where: Congregation Beth Israel

3901 Shoal Creek Blvd.

Austin, TX 78756

(512) 454-6806

Panel includes:

· Bob Hudgins—Director, Texas Film Commission

· Linda Dowell—Regional Branch Division Exec Director, SAG

· TJ Jones— Texas Regional Director, AFTRA

· Craig Berlin—Business Manager, Pro-Tape Systems

· Ken Rector—Business Manager, IATSE Local 484

· Tom Booker—Moderator, Austin Conservatory

Cost: FREE

Please RSVP to Sheila Cooper at: (972)361-8185 OR (800) 724-0767, option 7 or  sheila.cooper at sag.org

Don’t Become Media Roadkill

This SRO event returns to Austin to speak of all things Screen Actors Guild.

Keep your career in the fast lane and off the shoulder.

Get all the info you need for your next film, webisode, video game, commercial, industrial or music video.

Join SAG Experts:
Darrien Michele Gipson, National Director of SAGIndie
Bob Jensen, Manager of National New Media Department
Steve Graham, National Director of Digital Marketing (iActor)
Todd Amorde, National Director of Organizing

Indie filmmakers, game developers, animators, directors, cds, agents and performers get together to get questions answered and discuss building the biz.

When: Saturday, March 14, 2009
2 – 4 p.m.
(Members only reception begins at 1 p.m.)

Where: 501 Studios
501 North IH-35
Austin, TX 78702
Free parking

Cost? Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing.

TIME: 7:15am

LOCATION: The South Steps of the Capitol Building

WARDROBE: Wear Red. Look nice.

AGENDA:

· 7:15am – CALL TIME! Be on the South Steps of the Capitol Building in
your snazzy red outfits! There will be a table set up where you can get
information, pick up a Rally Fan, and be directed to the Rally area.

· 7:30am to 8:30am – Governor Rick Perry and other film bigwigs will
address our group while we RALLY and make a big show for the press

· 8:30am to 9:15am – Skits based on popular Texas films will be
performed for our entertainment and encouragement

· 9:15am to 11:15am – Rally on the steps OR walk the halls of the
Capitol wearing your red and carrying a sign or fan

· 11:30am to 1:30pm – Form a receiving line into and out of the lunch
tent so we can thank the legislators for their time and attention to our
issue (NOTE: Lunch is being served only to the legislators, their staff,
and TXMPA members who are taking meetings with them, not all in attendance!)

You are not REQUIRED to stay for any length of time for the Rally, but
we’d love to have the largest group possible earlier in the day to make
the best impression on the Governor and the press. If you can only come
for an hour or two, plan to be there right at CALL TIME!

Here’s what I know:

The AMPTP says they can’t make any money on so called NEW MEDIA (internet delivery of new product) if they pay actors what they pay for Network TV or Cable TV, especially the residuals that actors earn for reruns.

Really? Want to see some recent residuals I got for Cable TV usage?:

CPT Holdings, Inc. 12.19.2008 $29.60 Net Amount: 19.93
Payor: CPT Holdings, Inc.

Columbia Tristar Television, Inc. 12.18.2008 $14.65 Net Amount: 9.87
Payor: Columbia Tristar Television, Inc.

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. 12.04.2008 $72.59 Net Amount: 48.89
Payor: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

These residual payments may make me blush, but it’s not from embarrassment of being over paid. These are the kind of residuals that come from taking the AMPTP at their word.

Apparently that cable TV ‘experiment’ has worked out pretty well for 20+ years but the actors have never able to significantly improve on the deal we cut with the AMPTP when the pleading from the producers was ‘don’t kill this infant technology’.

Regardless of the opinion of how SAG negotiations were handled by the now defunct team of Rosenberg and Allen, hardly anyone I’ve spoken with or read has offered the opinion that the AMPTP offer to SAG is a good deal for actors. Good? It’s not even a reasonable deal.

Universally it seems it is understood that the deal that AFTRA and WGA signed are not ones that the guilds can be happy with or proud of. Yet SAG, because of an inexplicable lack of communication skills among other reasons, has let itself and ‘the actors’ become the punching bag for the rest of the industry. Gotta hand it to AMPTP for looking like the guys in the white hats. Unlike the guilds, the producers have played their hand beautifully.

If actors give up the contracted guarantee of residual income from television and films because they are now distributed (streamed or downloaded) via the internet, then frankly I’m left to ponder: WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF MEMBERSHIP IN SAG?

Actors by and large simply do not work enough, even at current rates, to make a living in the profession without residual income. Even WITH residual income most actors don’t make a real living from SAG wages. Why do I continue to turn down non union work when the new contract gives producers the okay to produce non union?

Once again we’re told to accept this deal now and we’ll ‘revisit’ the issues when the technology is more mature. Uh. Sure.

Well now it seems that the IATSE folks (from whom SAG has received little public support as our own contract woes have dragged on and on) are having their own issues with their leadership and with the AMPTP.

Nikke Finke’s site has a very good piece today about the IATSE contract situation.

Here is a section of the post on today’s DHD website:

… the IATSE/AMPTP Memo Of Agreement which opponents are calling “the worst concessionary contract” that the Hollywood locals have ever seen. As one activist in the International Cinematographers Guild emailed his IATSE Local 600 members: “So far as I’m concerned, the MOA gives away employment opportunities in New Media, guts our health plan, and gives no security to those who work on a day to day, or part-time, basis. This contract gives away every reason I can think of for belonging to a union. On top of that, it sews up ‘jurisdiction’ over the Internet which means that no group can create an alternative union that might fight for realistic wages and reasonable terms and conditions of employment.”

Substitute “SAG” for “IATSE” and it just sounds like more of the same from the AMPTP. So now, IATSE members who face loss of insurance benefits and loss of a livable wage from NEW MEDIA, how does it feel to be in the position SAG members have been in for the past 8 months? It’s not that easy to ‘just accept the deal’ is it?

A couple of pull quotes from the comments on Finke’s site:

…The New Media contract issues should be a bigger focus for all IATSE members. You might have your 300 or 400 hours to get your teeth cleaned every six months but you won’t be making enough on a “Web Episode” with no real guide lines on rates or staff requirements to make your house or rent payments.

New Media is the future. It should be made under the Basic Hollywood Agreement…

…And I hope that all members can read here, the Facebook site, or 400hours.com to see that anyone who votes in favor of this contract is voting himself, or herself, out of union protection in new media, voting themselves out of a share of future earnings, and possibly voting themselves out of their health care.

This contract, in conjunction with the contracts of the last twenty years, takes a gigantic step forward in dismantling our union and union protections. VOTE NO. VOTE “AGAINST RATIFICATION”.

Furthermore, now I hope all my brothers and sisters in IA can see how foolish it is to not support our sister guilds of WGA, DGA, and SAG…

Why The Smoke & Mirrors, SAG & AMPTP?

I don’t see why the SAG National Majority and their pals, the Big Media labor lawyers, are needing to waste more than an hour in talks since all they’re doing is Xeroxing AFTRA’s TV/Theatrical Contract. These past two days have consisted of nothing more than playing at negotiations. Sure, feature players will be thrown a few bones regarding French hours and force majeure and other stuff the AMPTP was going to back off anyway. Heck, the plan by the AMPTP all along was to make a big show of only giving in to the so-called “moderates” once they came into power in order to make them look all that much better compared to the “militants”? Nice to know that the SAG National Majority is following the AMPTP’s script to perfection. So color me unimpressed when this deal is reached lickety split. And the heavy-lifting residuals issues really necessary to the continued financial security of SAG and its members will be left off the table.

Read all the DHD Coverage here

SAGWatch BLOG

From Digital Media Law:

SAG and the AMPTP ended their second day of talks at about 10:00 p.m. this evening (Weds.), but will resume tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. for a third, previously unannounced day of talks, said a source close to the negotiations. No other info was available on the progress of negotiations, but this is obviously a hopeful sign in a situation that’s been largely devoid of them until the last 30 days.

Negotiations had resumed Tuesday, accompanied by dueling protests, one from an organization of below-the-liners calling itself Back to Work, organized largely by camera operators Jon Philion and Andrew Rowlands and cinematographers Ed Gutentag and Bruce McCleery, and the other from Membership First. BtW was urging a deal, while MF was protesting the likelihood that the talks would result in what they consider an unacceptable deal. There were about 100 protesters in all, reports Variety.