One way I’ve stayed in tune with the impact of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes is through podcasts.
I wanted to share several selections from podcasts I’ve listened to recently that stress the necessity for the strikes in the spotlight. I’m on the crew side, so hearing from writers and actors helps put things in perspective.
I listen through Audible, but I imagine you can find most if not all of these on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Scam Goddess -“The Film that Hid Fraud”
Laci Mosley (Lopez vs Lopez) and her guests started this episode talking about the insanity of the markup on wedding things – also known as the wedding tax — and it ended up making commentary on film worker’s lives.
Naomi Ekperigin (actor Mythic Quest and writer Mrs. Fletcher): “Someone’s like ‘Oh yeah, I’ve seen you on TV.’ Just because I’m on TV… doesn’t mean I want to spend all the money I have on this. You don’t know my life. You don’t know my circumstance. We work in a business too where — okay yeah, it was a good year but we don’t know if it will be next year.”
Mosley: “We up on a whole strike right now! It’s up and down. You never know how long you’re gonna need to save your money.”
The episode then covered an interesting story about the fraudulent film production of A Landscape of Lies, so check out that episode. Laci and her guests are very entertaining.
Listen here.
Deadline Strike Talk – Week Sixteen with guests Gale Anne Hurd and Glen Basner
On this episode, host Billy Ray talked with producer Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator) and Glen Basner (FilmNation CEO), and the talk inevitably turned to the problem of AI.
Gale Anne Hurd pointed out that the concept of AI (like ChatGPT) writing scripts would be just a rehashing of what’s been done before. AI can “theoretically formulate box office successes” that are just copies of what was popular before. “The great age of cinema and television series,” Hurd stated, “was always when there was innovation.”
Basner: “If you look at a distributor like A24, Neon, Bleeker Street — they may be great theatrical distributors and there may be an audience at the theatrical level for those movies, but if they can’t sell their movies to paid TV or streamers, at the levels that they currently are, then the whole economic model upends itself and we have to readjust to say well creatively these may make sense but we may need to make them for 60% of the cost that we have been beforehand and that’s not sustainable in the long term to keep reducing the cost structure of each film.”
Hurd: “There’s gonna be continued consolidation.”
Billy: “If streamers add ads, wouldn’t they have to be transparent about their numbers with their advertisers?”
Hurd: “There have been lawsuits about fake data. About just how many people are actually seeing ads on those platforms. I’m always concerned that metrics will not be reliable. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to sue for profits on my films. Some of my most successful films are still not profitable. If they’re not sharing that data with us accurately, I think they will share unreliable data with advertisers.”
Listen here.
Scam Goddess – The Fake Film for… Feminism?
Laci Mosley’s podcast gets a second mention because of her episode with Abbott Elementary writer Brittani Nichols.
Mosley: “I think that regular everyday people look at the strike and think ‘Oh these are Hollywood writers who live in Hollywood mansions and then have millions of dollars and they want even more?! They’re so greedy!’ Where in truth most writers aren’t super duper rich.”
Nichols: “Correct. Our guild is largely working class.”
Mosley: “And the middle class has been shrinking all our guilds because in SAG you used to make residuals and now streaming’s like ‘We’re not going to tell you how many people watched it.’ “
Nichols: “The entire industry has shifted. Streaming has put a squeeze on the middle class writer and made it harder to move up the ranks. Made it harder for people to have a sustainable career.”
Mosley made the example of an actor who did a voiceover line for Friends and still gets a $300 check each month as it re-airs. with streaming, it’s $0.
Their talk then shifted to AI, another major sticking point for both actors and writers during strike negotiations.
Mosley: “We get paid for ADR [sessions] but with AI, they could do it without us.”
Nichols also countered that the AMPTP (or at least streamers like Netflix) doesn’t want a traditional writer’s room. They want to pay the bare minimum and make it a freelance, gig based environment.
The pay for writers and actors may look high at first glance, but it also takes into account the fact that they might not work again for a very long time. It’s the nature of the business, so if a line isn’t drawn in the sand now, it’ll only get harder for that shrinking middle class actor/writer to survive.
Listen here.
Movies in Focus – $34. Filmmaker Joe Russo Gives Insight Into the WGA Strike
Podcast host Niall Browne invited writer/director Joe Russo (Au Pair Nightmare, Nightmare Cinema) onto the podcast to talk about how streamers treat their libraries, and therefore impact the discussion of residuals. Have you ever wondered why a show just up and disappears? Why a show gets canceled for seemingly no reason?
Russo: “What’s happening with streamers is they’ll run a show for one, two, three seasons maybe and as soon as they decide, as soon as that algorithm decides that show is not bringing in new subscribers, they cancel it. And so the chance to make those residual payments over dozens and dozens of episodes, that’s gone away. They’ll replace it with a new show, a new shiny bauble, to try to bring in new subscriber growth.”
Joe Russo went on to describe that the idea of any long term success is fleeting when streamers can just delete a show off their platform like this. Sometimes they barely get a release.
Russo: “They’ve been pulling things off the platform. There was a Disney movie that was released on Disney+ in May and it came down June 30th. It was on the platform 6 weeks. That’s hundreds of people’s labor, time, 1-2 years of their life invested into this thing for 6 whole weeks. And who knows if it’ll ever be seen again.”
Listen here.
Feel free to check out these podcasts and others to learn more about the strike from the perspective of those walking the picket line.
Bridget LaMonica 