If they want to blame anyone for anything, it's the garbage their putting out there (Knight Rider? Really?) and the good stuff they're getting rid of (Dirty Sexy Money and Pushing Daisies anyone??)

Or have an American Idol style show where the public votes for all their salaries after they perform.

And if they start charging to watch shows online, fuck them. No money from me.

We need a good strike!

this strike is about THE EXACT SAME REASON the writers went on strike last year - and it seems the studios RENEGED on THAT deal too!

it's the fucking STUDIOS who are causing problems here, for the same reason MUSIC industry execs are shitting themselves right now - they CAN NOT get away with the fucking highway robbery they have been basing their industry on for the past thirty forty years now because the world has CHANGED and they need to CHANGE with it.

this is about getting them ON BOARD with working out how the fucking industry is going to function for the NEXT thirty forty years...

You're not required to enter a credit card number or anything and pay so much for each show that's watched.

I saw Wal-Mart mentioned and I want to say: Wal-Mart = Satan.

If your trapped in that 1-5 grand packet as an actor and work is slow, or your pay isn't stedily increasing, or the acting gigs outright die- Then by all means work another job and get a better agent to represent you and go to more tryouts, and be happy to have gotten this far- but don't believe your owed a fucking thing- you got further than most.

If your making $40-500 per gig, then your a fucking extra, and whats worse a Groupie Extra if you've been doing this for ages, and if you consider this work. then you really need to rethink your life. You sir are not an actor yet and if you've been doing this for ages you may never get the chance to be one. Not everyone gets a Samuel L. Jackson chance. All I can suggest is school if your stuck flipping burgers. It's that or porn. That's it!

That is all.

"TOM: Not even enough to pay my Church dues!"

"DEPP: Because of global recession, I can no longer afford the fuel for the private jet, which I used to fly my pet monkey to the sets of my European movies. I count on you, my devoted 16-year old girls, to remedy this."

"SAMUEL: Had to sell my motherfuckin' diamond shitter an' replace it wit' a motherfuckin' gold shitter. You got any idea how that looks? Every motherfuckin' rapper got a motherfuckin' toilet made of gold! Now I look like a motherfuckin' rapper! I'm sick of these motherfuckin' recessions on my motherfuckin' toilet!"

That is where their pain is coming from, well that and some REALLY fucked up decisions in Detroit regarding not keeping up with what the American people want. So Hollywood is now feeling the pinch once again. Another union, another strike looming. I agree with getting paid for what's coming to you, but at what cost? Ya, sure if you don't work for a few months because of a strike, that job bussing tables could help keep food on your table at home...WAIT, shit that place you been working at bussing tables just closed because the economy sucks. FUCK! NOW WHAT!?!

Also, ya know if those actors making MILLIONS on their "talent" are on the picket line, if there is a strike, I call fowl. Because, if they did care so much about their fellow SAG brothers and sisters, why wouldn't they take a portion of their millions, maybe just 10%, and put it into a "SAG out of work actor fund". Ya know, just a little Reagan Ecomnomics for ya. The ole' trickle down effect. That would really show them you care. Not standing on the line with them shouting "WE WANT MORE MONEY". Fuck that.

Yeah, the studios are evil pretentious pricks who enjoy fucking their talent in the ass any chance they can just to make an extra buck, but really it's their cocks doing the fucking. You can negotiate with a hooker, but either way all you wanna do is get fucked.

actually if you want a model that seems to work pretty well - it might not be perfect but seems pretty robust - take a look at the PORN industry.

yes that's surely gonna provoke a lot of lame jokes but here is an industry that has successfully embraced every paradigm shift - including THE INTERNET - and while I'm sure there's a lot of dodgy stuff going on you don't ever hear about (or even want to!) the fact remains nobody has ever heard of a FLUFFERS STRIKE, or discussions with the CAMGIRLS UNION or any other such nonsense!

of course having said that I think maybe someone ought to look at what they're paying their writers ;)

Yeah, in the immortal words of Mr. White: Piss on this fucking turd.

These guys can fuck right off, I'll just go back to spending my money on vidja games with voice actors who don't bitch about the money they get. Fucking whiny bitches. 'Waaah! I'm making millions, but not flip-tillions of monies! Get my Auditor (The $cientology one, not the IRS one) and find me a way to become MORE clear!

Actors better shut the fuck up. This is not the season to be squwaking about how much MORE money you need, fucktards.

Currently, the UAW is being run by reps FOR the industry rather than labor reps. That's a fucking shame, and it needs to change. But without unions, most fucking kids would still be working all fucking week to make a pittance. The system needs improvement, not elimination.

To all reasonable people with reasoned responses to the union talk, this was intended to enrage knee-jerk righties who hate Labor, but still reap the benefits of those who fought for a Middle Class.

You think a struggling actor should quit his dream and get a nine to fiver like you did? Fuck you.

You think the writers and the actors and the directors are the bad guys here? Fuck you. Look at the common factor in all these negotiations: the fucking studios.

Youre telling me if you weren't getting screwed by your employer, you wouldn't try to get what's owed you? Fuck you.

And if you have this much contempt for every actor out there bc it's not a real job, here's a tip: stop watching all movies, all tv, and all DVDs. What the fuck are you even doing on AICN if you hate entertainers so much.

So yeah, fuck all of you if you share those viewpoints

The overriding factor to all the anti-actor tb is the fact that thousands upon thousands of hard working people around the world have lost their jobs because a bunch of greedy motherfuckers have run huge corporations into the ground and the moron public have lived beyond their means for years.

So for the actors to do it in this current financial climate, and to put countless industry related jobs at risk is the most selfish fucking thing they could possibly do. Should low-level actors be entitled to a more even share of the spoils? Sure, why not. But use some common fucking sense and bide their time and go for it when it's more fiscally appropriate.

And I'll re-iterate my earlier point. If you have a family(ie. kids), and are bitching about not being able to support them, then you are a selfish cunt. Fuck your "dream". You need to take responsibility for your family, for your kids, and if one of those kids goes hungry because you are a "struggling actor" and too much of a selfish prick to get a nine to fiver, then you deserve to have your head caved in. If you only have yourself, then struggle all you fucking want.

That is all.

First thing Hollywood is a business. This how business operates. Without studios there are NO movies and TV. Like it or not they are part of the process.

Do the studios need to refine how the operate, yes they do, but so do the Actors and the guilds.

One of the biggest issues that Both the studios and the unions face is that the strike last has taken a big bite out of revenue. Its down across the board. What do you think will happen when parasitic oranizations like TMZ and The National Enquirer start showing pictures and videos of various actors showing up to strike in expensive cars or on vacations that most people can't afford? Revenues will go down even more, that means even more "working" actors will get scaled back as studios cut production costs. Last year there was a bit of sympathy for writers because well they're writers, they look like reguar people, fat and dumpy. Nobody is going to have a lot of sympathy for good looking actors who make good bank complaining about money.

Please don't be naive as to believe that this strike is help the "little guy actor" strikes are always about guys at the top. The ones that will see the most benefit are the guys at top of the Studios, The Union heads and the actors at the top of the payscale.

"Fuck you for believing your own unions hype that this is about something you are 'owed'"

"And really FUCK YOU for not even realizing that your attitude would be offensive to the other hard working people in the industry who's jobs you think so little of"

Hah! Really, way to go you fucking idiot, I'm not an actor. I AM one of those other hard-working people in the industry. But you're too far up your own ass in hateful vindictiveness against those you and I and everyone else watch on tv everyday to realize you don't have to be an actor to think to the studios, not the striking unions, are the real bad guys here.

How about we boycott every fucking movie, and don't go! Oh except Avatar-because it'll be fucking our eyeballs in 2009.

Tobey McQuire is getting like 50 million for Spidey 4 and 5. For a 6-9 month shoot.

FUCK THAT SHIT! I'm not going.

But everyone else is getting their cut too!. It's not just the actors who are greedy.

Higher minimum rates, better benefits, higher residuals is good for a rank and file member, but it is of no concern to big stars like Will Smith, Leo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt. They are all paid so highly that it easily offsets the cost of any benefits, plus their residual deals are negotiated separately and are better than the Guild minimum no matter what. So it is hard for SAG to stand up to the studios when their best bargaining tools, the stars, don’t feel like negotiations benefit them that much and prolonged negotiation actually hurt the stars (since they are not working and making those millions).

But once again I will add that I think they won’t have much chance when the studios only care about less than 1% of your members, and those members feel very little solidarity to you and your cause.

At the risk of repeating myself AGAIN, the writing is on the wall for the fucking studio Executive and they need to get their heads out of their asses and come to the table BEFORE they find themselves about as irrelevant as floppy disks - sure they were useful once, but a great big pain in the ass and a welcome relief when something better came along...

This has ALREADY happened in other industries

Radiohead released an album online WITHOUT any Executive involvement - and that album made them more money than ALL the rest of their previous "studio" (I use the term analogously) works COMBINED. It's worked the same for other artists as well.

Journalists are lining up to start a BLOG because the man-in-the-street is getting more exposure in the New York Times (as an example) than the man with the Pulitzer who they just spent thousands on to put on a plane to Falujiah.

The OLD system is DONE WITH and all you guys are arguing about the OLD system here.

Think about the NEXT 30 years - really take a moment to try to imagine it - do you REALLY think the studio system we have right now is going to be a part of that future?

If the answer is yes then WAKE THE FUCK UP

GM has laid off over 34000 hourly workers in the past 2 years and are looking at another 5500 - AND sticking their hand out for some bailout money. Toyota is experiencing the same slow down in sales and halted production in Texas and Indiana for the past three months. Know how many hourly workers Toyota has laid off?

ZERO

What is the difference between them? One is stuck in the PAST with an outdated, low quality, inefficient production system producing essentially the same product (with a few cosmetic enhancements) since the 1980's.

The other is looking at the future and taking advantage of this down time in production to upskill its workers and develop their production lines even further.

You want more examples?

Coz I got plenty

I am kind of bipolar on this issue. Part of me wants Hollywood to keep working because I enjoy seeing my shows and films. The other part of me is enjoying this slow death that Hollywood is perpetrating on themselves. Everyone in Hollywood and even most people who post here have gotten so far out of touch with mainstream people it is mind boggling. Hollywood has become so self-absorbed that they really see themselves as the most important part of their career equation. I would say about 80 percent of film and television workers want to make what they want instead of making what the public wants to see. This is fine except they get paid by the regular people who pay to see their stuff. The alliance between the industry and the critics is designed to do this. Hollywood makes what it wants us to go see and the critics (might as well be the official Hollywood PR arm) tells us what is good and what we should go see. They then are truly mystified when the people go see what they want anyway and -- shocker -- it is the popcorn fare they turn their noses up at. They wonder why revenues were going down. They wonder why the awards shows lose audience. They have become so engrossed in their own egos that they quit making entertainment for the people and are just making it for themselves.

These strikes are just another example. Nobody cares about revenue sharing because most of the people who will benefit from that don't need it. Yes, the bit actor struggles to make ends meet, but are they going to be the ones who benefit from a strike? I doubt it. All another strike is going to do is remind people that there is more to entertainment than the television.

I heard the same damn thing right from a GM employee's mouth. But the sick fuck thing is, he told me about this 2 years ago. So this shit has been around for a long time.

Toyota is expanding its US plants. They are non-union and don't pay their employees so much. In Japan though there has been problems with overworked employees.

Can't the big 3 make their 7 billion that they are asking for each by cutting EVERYONE's pay down significantly, remove bonuses, throw out all the fluff. X amount per hour, basic benefits.....that's it folks. It's either that or NO FUCKING JOB!

People are assholes for buying all these half-ass cars for the prices they ask. How much for this car? "25,000." "OK!" They charge these amount because they can. Who decides the market the customer or the maker?

With US/Russian relations a little... strained, there is the very real possibility American astronauts will not be able to catch rides to the ISS on Russian rockets, when this happens.

They even had to resort to selling off patents a couple of weeks ago - developed on your taxpayer dime btw - in an effort to fill the coffers, not to mention remain relevant as a "Space" agency that has not put a man beyond Low Earth Orbit since the 1970's.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are well on their way towards their stated goals of an orbiting space station and going (back) to the Moon - having already launched their first successful mission (Chang'e 1) which returned the first complete map of the lunar surface, published just over a week ago. They plan on landing on that surface around 2012 and sending a "return" (ie manned) mission there around 2017.

Again, those running one show (I'm not talking about NASA's engineers here) are stuck in the PAST and getting left behind by those looking at the FUTURE...

Hell they even make the fucking CD and DVD BURNERS used to rattle off the millions of cheap pirate COPIES and the devices that play THAT shit - so they got a piece of THAT pie as well...

Surely somewhere in all that there's gotta be at least SOME small modicum of blame in there at some level, no?

relax - I kid...

the "Radiohead" model wasn't invented by that band - it's been around for a while now and it works for video as well as music (maybe you've heard of YouTube) - yes it's a model that depended on the record label model that came before, as opposed to an entirely new system because that's how evolution works...

it IS possible to get movies with high production values without involving a studio - here's an example I came across just last week:

http://tinyurl.com/5tf8e4

It's called Hunter Prey and it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with reality TV - which is still made by studios, I believe?

You know, he cops a lot of flack around here (including from me) since he raped a lot of childhoods and all, but George Lucas envisioned once upon a time a completely digital movie experience - this from the man who popularised Dolby 6-track stereo with a little film of his back in 1977 and forced a lot of theatres to update their MONO sound systems from the 1950's.

This digital movie experience is, simply put: shot digitally, edited and finished digitally, then DISTRIBUTED digitally (ie uploaded) to movie theatres with digital projectors. Obviously we're not there yet but does anyone seriously believe this is NOT the future of movies?

So let me ask you, do you suppose there's any chance such a digitally distributed movie might be considered to fall into the same category as a "webisode" instead of a "film" - thus giving producers an excuse to screw actors, writers, directors, shit maybe even MOVIE THEATRES out of their FAIR SHARE of the profits?

This is IMPORTANT and it needs to be worked out NOW - shit, this should have been worked out YEARS AGO - the time for burying your head in the sand and saying "it's too hard, let's just stick with the 20th century studio system" has PASSED

Please strike, SAG. We need a good sequel to the "Canada On Strike" episode of SOUTH PARK.

The fact that they even have the ability to ask for royalties is kind of ridiculous. If you actually manage to talk some fool into taking that deal, then for goodness sake, milk it for all it's worth. But don't bitch when it doesn't happen.

Actors, however, are performing artist and as such they create a performance. A performance is not originally intended for people to be able to enjoy whenever they wanted, but to be seen in person. Technology obviously has now changed that where people can enjoy actors, dancers and musicians at their convenience, but that doesn’t change the fundamental nature of those types of art: they are based on someone’s performance and that the performers intention is not to create something he or she can walk away from, but instead create something he or she is immediately identified with. A performer is always identified by his work, and is given residuals in the belief that every time someone is watching it (or in this case every time the studio is showing it) is considered a new performance by the actor. It is also a form of compensation for the what is looked as lost, work, performances maybe people would have paid to see if he hadn’t been viewed on film or TV.

While there are obviously arguments that can be made against this (the easiest being “so fucking what if that’s what actors believe”) this is the stance actors and others have for wanting residuals for their work.

However, I wholeheartedly agree with your point about creative accounting and how it is an uphill battle to get them.

Just look at how badly treated porn actors and actresses and the rest of the people who work in the porn industry to see what kind of world would exist in Hollywood if there was no Unions or Guild (minus the fucking of course).

So as a producer who cast Paris, you can now afford to pay your star, the rest of the cast and crew, and pay yourself your producing fees (plus about %15 more of the budget to your bank account if your are creative enough) for a movie that was probably never going to make a dime no matter who was in it, while your investor never sees a dime back but gets to play Hollywood big shot for a short time and hang out with a celebretard and some hot actresses, and maybe go to Les Duex. So, yes, I can see why they make shitty movies with Paris Hilton.

That should just about cover the entire length of the strike.

As for the B-Movie actresses predicament, I do agree with you that is one of the problems with SAG. There is far to few Union films made per year to provide work for SAG actors/actresses and no amount of pressure is going to make many of the non-union productions go union. Therefore there has to be some kind of leeway for the actors to operate – you can’t expect them to starve. Plus, I think I know one of the actresses you are talking about (does her first name start with “M”?).

Everytime an actor puts on a performance, he should get paid.

When someone sells a copy of that performance, he should get paid.

You painted a mural? Great!

Should you get paid anytime someone sees it? No.

Should you get paid everytime someone sells a print of it? Yes.

Its that simple. I'm out. *drops microphone*

And your comic artist example isn't the same. That's a different problem entirely and ignores the elephant in the room: comic artists are often fully employed, unlike actors. But again, different problem. Not a good example.

Secondly, acting is a creative effort, and as such is granted certain privileges. While a grip might figure out a better way to lay dolly track or an boom mike operator figures out a better way to hold a boom mike, you won’t necessarily know that just by watching a film. However, with actors, writers and directors you can watch a film and see something you can steal for yourself, with no compensation for the originator. In fact, if a grip did invent a better dolly track or if a boom operator invented a better mike, they could copy-write the technology and make money from anyone who makes a product using his discovery; not so an artist. The Brando family isn’t getting royalties checks from all the actors who started aping him, just as Scorsese isn’t getting any money from all the directors he has influenced.

all this talk about "oh the grip is just as important as the actor" is BULLSHIT. if a grip or a boom op or the fucking runner does a bad job NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT because they're not ON THE SCREEN for everyone to look at - and that is what separates the cast from the crew.

surely we have ALL here seen enough films to be able to spot GOOD acting from SHITTY acting from a mile away, right?

am I right?

so how many people have been able to spot shitty FOCUS PULLING?

anyone?

anyone spot the shitty job the fucking COFFEE BOY did on Tropic Thunder? No, because nobody has ANY FUCKING CLUE what kind of a job he did on that movie...

the guy who works in software - CG right? Bobman is it? Personally I think you DO deserve residuals and you SHOULD be represented at these meetings - for the same reason -

we've all seen crap CG and THAT can ruin a film just as easily as crap acting...

there is also this idea that the studios are putting up the money to MAKE the films so therefore they deserve their cut. p> OK firstly yes, nobody is saying the guy who put up the money doesn't deserve a cut, or even that they don't deserve the BIGGEST cut - but they DO NOT deserve the WHOLE FUCKING PIE.

secondly, yes sometimes the studio puts up the money but often (usually) they DO NOT - that's what the PRODUCER does and they haven't put up JACK SHIT to make the film, they've just agreed to SELL the film AFTER it gets made - in other words the ONLY thing the studio has committed is its BRAND. They have agreed to ALLOW the film to be one of then maybe ten films they "release" in a year - hence the slew of films "sitting on the shelf" (which they know they have up their sleeve if there is a strike)...

...and you know what helps them SELL that film better than a great cinematographer or location scout? An ACTOR with a reputation for being good - a NAME actor that will GUARANTEE bums on theatre seats no matter what.

but again, we are talking about how it's all worked IN THE PAST and this is all about how things will work IN THE FUTURE - and Samuel is right, the FIRST thing that needs to go is this dodgy "creative accounting" practice! get it out there, how much it REALLY cost to make, to advertise, and how much it ACTUALLY sold (not adjusted for fucking ANYTHING)