SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland On Need For CEOs To “Step Up” & Make A Fair Deal, Getting Hollywood Back To Work – Guest Column

Hollywood’s potential misuse of artificial intelligence is a “deadly cocktail” and a “poison” that needs to be strictly regulated, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in the guild’s latest strike podcast.

News broadcasters aren’t on strike, but their SAG-AFTRA steering committee is standing behind the actors and performers who are. “The world is watching,” the committee said in a statement Wednesday, and urged a “quick and productive resolution to the strike.”

Luc Besson’s DogMan has become one of the first films to receive a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement that will allow talent to do press during the upcoming festival season. Actors will be allowed to promote the pic at its upcoming premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

EXCLUSIVE: With such big 2023 movies such as Kraven the Hunter, the next Ghostbusters, the Zendaya romance Challengers and more moving into 2024 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, exhibition is facing another possible recession should stars remain unable to promote.

Will Smith is speaking out about the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike.

It’s been 87 days since the writers hit the picket lines and 14 days since the actors joined them, yet the divisions between the guilds and the studios remain as deep as ever. 

UPDATED with video: Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, blasted the AMPTP at a strike rally Tuesday in Times Square, saying that the companies’ response to the guild’s proposals before contract talks broke off and the actors’ strike began 12 days ago was “No. No. No.”

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Prince Royal, an actor in Los Angeles, was working as an extra on “The Flash” when he was directed to a tractor trailer to “take pictures.” Inside were hundreds of cameras. He stood with his arms up as the operators took a 3-D scan, which he was told would be used for continuity and special effects. “We were told if we didn’t do it, we’d be sent home without pay,” he said.

SAG-AFTRA will hold a mass rally in Times Square on Tuesday morning. It’s expected to be the biggest rally in NYC since the strike began on July 14. Celebs scheduled to attend the “Rock the City for a Fair Contract” rally include Bryan Cranston, Steve Buscemi, Christian Slater, Lauren Ambrose, Christine Baranski, Matt Bomer, Tituss Burgess, Liza Colón-Zayas, Gregory Diaz, Jennifer Ehle, Nancy Giles, Danai Gurrira, Jill Hennessy, Marin Hinkle, Stephen Lang, Arian Moayed, Wendell Pierce, Corey Stoll and Merritt Wever.

SAG-AFTRA has granted more waivers in recent days that give permission to indie projects to shoot during the current strike, including the independent film The Summer Book starring Glenn Close. Other recent projects that will be allowed to shoot include the TV series Underdeveloped and Sight Unseen.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer The perils of artificial intelligence to the entertainment industry came to San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, with SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland joining a panel of voice actors organized by NAVA, the National Association of Voice Actors, to discuss the specific hazards AI is already posing to the profession. “We’ve got to reject the idea that this is just something that’s going to happen to us and we can’t say anything about it,” Crabtree-Ireland said at the outset of the panel, about whether AI could devastate the entertainment industry. “I think it definitely could, the question is whether we’re going to let that happen.”

EXCLUSIVE: For those awards strategists wondering whether stars from indie U.S. films can promote at the fall film festival troika, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland says “We’re looking at that issue.”

Following SAG-AFTRA’s clearance of AppleTV+’s Israeli spy series Tehran and New Line’s horror movie Watchers –prolific projects from AMPTP studios that the guild remains in talks with– in their interim agreement process, some producers and filmmakers in town have been miffed.

EXCLUSIVE: SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator is weighing on AMPTP’s just-released statement that rebuts the guild’s recent claims about the studios’ final offer before the strike.

Striking actors weren’t here at San Diego Comic-Con, however, the guild’s National Executive Director and Chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland was, side-by-side with voiceover actors to talk about the threat of A.I. in their profession for the National Association of Voiceover Actors panel “AI in Entertainment: The Performer’s Perspective Panel.”

SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland will be here at San Diego Comic-Con this Friday as a panelist on the National Association of Voice Actors’ session “AI in Entertainment: The Performers’ Perspective panel”.

It’s Day 6 of the SAG-AFTRA strike and Day 79 of the WGA strike.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis held a packed union meeting at their Beverly Hills home. Desi Arnaz poured his heart out in an open letter to the industry while Lew Wasserman worked the numbers quietly behind the scenes. And it was none other than future Oval Office occupant Ronald Reagan who led the Screen Actors Guild through the war in 1960, the last time that Hollywood experienced such a season of labor strife with actors and the Writers Guild of America on strike at the same time. And it was already a tumultuous time for the industry. In 1959, Congress and the Justice Department were deep into their investigation of “payola” corruption involving music labels and radio station owners. Congress also held hearings that year on the notorious TV quiz show scandals (see 1994’s “Quiz Show” for a primer).

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA and the major studios remain at odds on a dizzying array of issues, as film and TV actors hit the picket lines Friday for the first time since 1980. According to sources on both sides, the biggest sticking point is the union’s demand for 2% of the revenue generated by streaming shows. The two sides also remain far apart on basic increases in minimum rates, with the studios offering 5%, 4% and 3.5% across the three years of the contract, while the union is demanding 11%, 4% and 4%. But that only scratches the surface. The parties are at odds on dozens of issues, only a handful of which have been publicly reported.

proposed to use artificial intelligence to scan the faces of extras and use their likeness in perpetuity.On Thursday, the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) officially declared its intention to go on strike, with one of the many areas of concern for the union being the use of AI within the industry.During a press conference, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) had made a so-called “groundbreaking” proposal that, with the use of AI, would allow the likenesses of film and television background performers to be used indefinitely.Sharing his anger at the proposal on Twitter, Cusack said: “Studios wanna have extras work one day, scan them — own their likeness forever — and eliminate them from the business.“Do you think they will stop with extras? That’s what AI is — a giant Copywrite identity theft [and] criminal enterprise.”Studios wanna have extras work one day Scan them – own their likeness forever – and eliminate them from the business – & do you think they will stop with extras – ? That’s what AI is – a giant Copywrite identity theft – criminal Enterprise / we had no idea this would…— John Cusack (@johncusack) July 14, 2023“We had no idea this would happen… they will say in 10 years when the scope and scale of the plunder is revealed,” he added.