Hello, and welcome to the Scene 2 Seen Podcast!
15.11.2023 - 02:03 / variety.com
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Two members of the SAG-AFTRA board said they voted against the new contract because it does not do enough to protect actors against artificial intelligence. The negotiating committee unanimously approved the deal last Wednesday, ending the 118-day strike. The national board approved the deal on Friday, with 86% of the weighted vote in favor, and sent it to members for ratification.
Shaan Sharma and Anne-Marie Johnson were among at least eight dissenters on the 80-member board. Both said that AI was key to their opposition, though they also had other reservations. “There should be no AI.
Only human beings should be used in what we create for public consumption,” Johnson said. “Without staving off AI, everything we achieved is for naught. It’s a waste of time.” Sharma, who also served as an alternate member of the negotiating committee, said he was concerned about “significant loopholes” in the AI language that left “existential threats to some of our categories of work.” SAG-AFTRA released an 18-page summary of the agreement on Sunday.
The deal establishes consent and compensation requirements for use of AI to generate “digital doubles.” But it does not prohibit AI, and it does relatively little to stop studios from training on actors’ performances to create “synthetic” performers. If an AI-generated synthetic character has a recognizable facial feature of a real actor, and that actor’s name was used in the prompt to generate that character, then the producer must get the actor’s consent. But Sharma said that limitation does not add up to much.
Hello, and welcome to the Scene 2 Seen Podcast!
Matthew Modine voted against SAG-AFTRA’s tentative agreement with the studios once, and he’s damn sure going to vote against it again.
Matthew Modine voted against SAG-AFTRA’s tentative agreement with the studios once, and he’s going to vote against it again.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher on Monday scolded “naysayers” and “contrarians” who have criticized the union’s new contract. Drescher defended the agreement during a Zoom meeting for SAG-AFTRA members on Monday morning. “Sadly there have been some naysayers who have exploited this momentum of ours,” Drescher said, appearing in a bathrobe from her home.
The studios wasted no time Friday responding to the SAG-AFTRA National Board’s vote to approve the new tentative agreement between the guild and the AMPTP.
SAG-AFTRA national board approved its new contract with the major studios with an 86% approval vote, sending it to membership for ratification. The official approval was announced by the guild at a press conference Friday afternoon, which finally got started at around 3:20 p.m. after an 80-minute delay.
The actors are set to vote on the tentative agreement with the studios after the SAG-AFTRA national board approved the deal.
ended on Wednesday, Nov. 8. SAG-AFTRA won protections on a range of issues from pay to health benefits – but the most controversial issue was zombies.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA had settled dozens of issues, ranging from pension and health contributions, to page limits for self-taped auditions, to pay for background actors. But there was still the small matter of zombies. The union was worried that studios could use artificial intelligence to reanimate dead actors, or to create a digital Frankenstein out of the body parts of real actors.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA‘s new contract is worth more than $1 billion over three years. But the union did not get one of its top priorities: a share of revenue from each streaming platform. Fran Drescher, the union president, made that her top priority, arguing it was essential to transform the contract to keep up with a transformed industry.
Ellise Shafer U.K. entertainment unions Bectu and Equity are celebrating the tentative agreement between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP that is set to end the longest actors strike in Hollywood history. In an announcement on Wednesday, SAG-AFTRA said that the 118-day strike would officially end on Thursday at 12:01 a.m.
actors’ strike that first began in July.SAG-AFTRA took to social media to announce the end of the strike, writing: “Our TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee voted unanimously to approve a tentative agreement with the AMPTP [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers]. As of 12:01 a.m.
Selome Hailu Hollywood may soon be back in business. SAG-AFTRA has reached a tentative deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). If ratified, the new contract would end the actors union’s historic 118-day strike.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA negotiators have approved a tentative agreement that will end the longest actors strike against the film and TV studios in Hollywood history. In an announcement Wednesday, the union said the 118-day strike would officially end at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday.
Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav opened the company’s quarterly earnings presentation with remarks on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, remaining “hopeful” that the work stoppage will end “soon” following the Hollywood studios’ move to adjust AI language in its “last, best and final offer” to the actors union. “We are hopeful we will reach a resolution to the SAG-AFTRA strike soon,” Zaslav said during WBD’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA‘s top negotiator has never done this before. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland has worked for the union for most of his adult life. In that time, he has become a master of the details.
Sunday did not see a lot of action between SAG-AFTRA and the studios as the actors guild strike hit its 115th day.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA may take another day to respond to the studios’ “last, best and final” offer, as the union’s negotiating committee continues to weigh its next move. The studios last talked to union leadership on Saturday afternoon, when a large group of CEOs sought to make clear that they will not make further concessions. After that meeting, some members of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee expressed dissatisfaction with the studios’ offer.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The studios told SAG-AFTRA on Saturday that they have made their “last, best and final” offer, as they seek an end to the 114-day actors strike. The offer includes an enhanced residual bonus for high-performing streaming shows. Under the proposal, actors who appear on the most-watched shows on each platform will see their standard streaming residual doubled.
Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Hollywood’s major studios are preparing to make an offer to SAG-AFTRA on Friday that they hope will end the 113-day actors strike. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers had previously warned the actors union that if a deal could not be reached by the end of this week, the networks would have to cancel certain TV shows and there would be further delays in 2024 summer theatrical releases. The talks could well go into the weekend, especially if the two sides see that a tentative agreement is within reach.