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I have been asked to post the following press release this morning:
On Thanksgiving Day (November 22), a group of Writers Guild Of America members will begin posting Public Service Announcements featuring A-list Screen Actors Guild talent as part of an independent WGA membership’s “Speechless” campaign conceived by director/writer George Hickenlooper and writer Alan Sereboff. For the first time in the TV and movie industry, high-profile SAG actors will be taking their talents directly and exclusively to the Internet — the very medium which is at the center of the current WGA labor strike against the Alliance Of Motion Picture & Television Producers.
The spots will begin appearing on Thursday morning which will begin posting Thanksgiving Day and run exclusively on DeadlineHollywood.com through Sunday night. Beginning Monday, they can be found on SpeechlessWithoutWriters.com with links on UnitedHollywood.com and every day thereafter during the duration of the strike.
Included are SAG talent such as Sean Penn, Holly Hunter, Laura Linney, Alan Cumming, Jay Leno, Harvey Keitel, Kate Beckinsale, Tina Fey, Tim Robbins, Gary Marshall, David Schwimmer, Patricia Clarkson, James Franco, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Martin Sheen, Josh Brolin, Susan Sarandon, Andre 3000, Chazz Palminteri, Jason Bateman, Christine Lahti, Patricia Arquette, Jenna Elfman, Olivia Wilde, Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss, Eva Longoria, Justine Bateman, Joshua Jackson, Rosanna Arquette, Diane Ladd, Rebecca Romjin, Minnie Driver, Nicollette Sheridan, Robert Patrick, Matthew Perry, Ed Asner, and America Ferrera and the cast of Ugly Betty. Arrangements have been made to also shoot Woody Allen, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jane Fonda, Marisa Tomei, Ethan Hawke, Jason Alexander, Charlize Therone, Minnie Driver, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Many, many more are also in the works.
Here’s how the PSAs came about: During the first day of the strike, director/writer George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl) and writer Alan Sereboff (The Red House) were struck by the talent surrounding them on the picket line. Hickenlooper suggested to Sereboff that they focus their energies on a creative campaign. That night, they met at WGA Headquarters with writers Ian Deitchman (Life As We Know It), Justin Zakham (The Bucket List) and director Josh Marston (Maria Full of Grace). After conferring, the team came to an agreement: What better way to bring attention to the issues regarding the Internet then to use the Internet itself?
Hickenlooper, evoking the style of Factory Girl, suggested shooting Warhol-esque screen tests of major SAG talent not saying anything on camera, thus showing their solidarity with the WGA. And Sereboff offered the concept “Speechless,” where prominent SAG actors stood silently in front of the camera, ultimately writing and holding up a sign that simply read, “Speechless”. Campaigns combined under one name, Hickenlooper and Sereboff joined with WGA/SAG member Kamala Lopez (I Heart Huckabees) and began reaching out to fellow creatives. Within a few days, Hickenlooper/Sereboff had recruited fellow DGA members Wayne Kramer (The Cooler), Paul Haggis (The Valley of Ellah), Rod Lurie (The Contender), WGA writers Steve Pink (Gross Pointe Blank), Jordan Mechner (Prince of Persia), two-time Emmy winning writer Jill Kushner (Ellen), Chic Eglee (Executive Producer, The Shield) in addition to the writing staff of The Tonight Show. SAG board member/actress Justine Bateman became involved and was instrumental in recruiting many of her fellow SAG actors to participate.
The “Speechless” idea quickly took off and, after a single day of filming, the team learned that the support of major A-list SAG talent was so overwhelming that many wanted to do more than just a screen test. After extensive conversations with various actors, it was decided that the screen tests might be expanded to improvisational scene work that would be done to entertain those of the public who might not be aware of the importance of the writer, and at the same time create mystery and intrigue surrounding the UnitedHollywood.com website.
On the second day of filming, the screen tests quickly evolved into actual short moments and sometimes full-fledged scenes. The result is a unique series of PSAs bringing together talent in solidarity. The “Speechless” campaign has thus far stockpiled several dozen very creative and innovative spots in black & white, ranging in length from 15 seconds to 4 minutes long.
The “Speechless” campaign support team includes music composer Anthony Marinelli, who is dedicating his time to scoring the spots; Clint Bennett, sound engineer; Joel Marshall, technical advisor; Jill Kushner production manager; Kamala Lopez and Melissa Cochran, editors; Mical shemesh, editor; Justin Schumacher, production sound; and Ian Deitchman who is putting together the website.
For more information regarding the “Speechless” campaign contact SpeechlessWithoutWriters@gmail.com.
In the interest of fairness and objectivity, I would be more than pleased to announce and initially host a similar campaign conceived by members of AMPTP. But, as a journalist with a journalism outlet, I couldn’t pass up any opportunity to have an exclusive.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Clooney has definitely been visible. He just gave $25000 to a fund to help people in the industry (non-writers) who are out of work because of the strike.
I bet these actors won’t be speechless when they cross the picket lines to work on movies and collect their paychecks in the next few months.
Nikki, you are far and away my favorite industry reporter, but you have really lost all sense of context with your strike coverage lately. The fact that you continually allow, if not encourage, the WGA to couch their strike in terms of the broader labor movement provides a huge disservice to both your readers and, more importantly, the millions of people who stand to gain from that dying movement. As much as the shameless attempts to portray it as such, this is not some garment workers’ strike where people are trying to protect a living wage. My fear is that it is doing damage to those efforts by being misconstrued as such.
While there are undoubtedly benefits to middle and lower class writers receiving residuals, their well-being is obviously not the focus of THIS strike. This strike is quite clearly about greedy people negotiating with other greedy people over money. Now I mostly agree with the WGA’s positions, but have serious issues with their tactics. If the WGA really wanted to help middle and lower class writers, there are about a hundred better ways they could do it other than what they are currently proposing. Writers keep saying using the $200,00 average salary of working writers is unfair since the actual median income is $5,000. But it is also unfair to point the finger at the AMPTP for that inequity, when the WGA is in a much better position to reduce the disparity. These writers (and actors and directors) are operating in a free market; there is no inherent cap on the amount they can earn for their services (only a minimum). Unless you are claiming collusion (which may only be one or two FCC rulings away), the market dictates the aggregate amount paid to writers, residuals or no residuals. Why not have the WGA tax the biggest earners 25% and put it into the health fund so that all those $5,000 a year writers can get adequate health care? Could it be…I don’t know…greed? And what exactly is the difference between Peter Chernin making $34m a year and Matt Groening making $34m a year other than the fact that they are both ridiculously overpaid, somewhat talented people that seem to have had a few lucky breaks?
Trust me, if there ever is a strike to reduce the growing income disparity in this country, I will be first on the picket line, but it would look pretty funny to be standing next to Larry David. So please, enough with the rhetoric over showrunners, etc. being “brave” for acting in ways that mainly benefit themselves (if anything, some hyphenates in both TV and film are borderline unethical since they often allow the studios to pay them in ways that minimize the WGA fringe) and please mention to actors that if they really want to help fight greedy corporations, they should call their agents and tell them they plan on helping organize Walmart workers. Now that would be a conversation worth reporting.
Dear, “You’re losing me”
Uh, we can’t lose you because you were never on board. Classic message board tactic. Act like you are a member of a group who is criticizing from the inside, then post something that is so obviously biased from the other side.
Using the term “free market” will give you away every time. Isn’t there a Ron Paul board for you to post on somewhere?
Solidarity. It really works!
I think this is a wonderful effort. Im also thinking maybe it would be more effective if 10-20 of the biggest stars got together (dont they talk to each other ever?) you know, Jack, 2 Toms, Leo, Julia, and make a little video of their own initiative, without necessarily being backed by an organization. Wouldnt that be more direct and powerful?
Yes, “You’re losing me…,” you do seem to be lost here. This is very much an issue of worker minimums, not worker maximums. Those writers with power can already negotiate much of what the WGA is designing for the broader membership into their contracts. The point is that this is a fight for maintaining a middle-ground, whereby creative talent can emerge and prosper, and yes, make a living above the poverty- level. That is actually very congruous with the labor movement, and should be supported at every level. If they could, an AMPTP-alligned studio would pay an A-lister $5 for a script instead of $5 million (and yes, Matt Groening makes a lot more than Peter Chernin) — if studios had their way, there’d be 4-percent of writers making outstanding livings, while the remaining pool of talent would be treated as day-players, fighting for $1000-a-year jobs, temping at Walmart. This is exactly why SAG supports this strike — they see in their membership very talented artists struggling for a living wage, when an ideal would be to support the broader base. The fact that powerful show-runners and notable actors are supporting this shows to the public that artists are unified and willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary for that goal.
You are worried that you are not giving the AMPTP equal time…but you already have…because without the producers and the crews of camera operators, set audio mixers, lighting people, post production teams, office staff, PA’s, etc., nothing would be filmed, recorded, seen or heard… therefore, “nothing” is a fitting representation.
I think you writers should just go straight to the internet. Start your own production companies, pay for your bandwidth, pay for your servers, pay for you online advertisements, and post YOUR shows on the internet.
After doing that maybe you will see why the studios keep so much of their money and why they fight you all tooth and nail to keep it. You may write a script, but that is no different than an architect designing a house. Once I buy that plan, that architect is useless I incur all the cost to make the house, my ass is on the line.
Maybe if you all stopped being so short sighted an selfish you could see that.
Judging from the quality of DavidMac’s post (run-on sentence, “an” for “and”), I’d say he’s just proved the importance of writers.
David G. wrote; “It’s all bull. If either side cared to get this resolved, they wouldn’t be meeting 10 days after annnouncing they’d return to the table.”
But he’s wrong about the “either side.” When the AMPTP said they would come back to the negotations, our team said, fine, how about tomorrow? They balked and said, “no, no, we need some time.” What they need is time to organize their collective thoughts. They are not as well oiled a machine as some would think.
I was actually walking (marching) directly in front of Larry David on the picket line on Tuesday. He was there and looking inconspicuous and pretty, pretty good! In fact there were plenty of A listers on the line just being everyday people. Where are the A-listers? Probably waiting for the SAG strike – what they need to know is, as we say at Legendary Bingo at Hamburger Mary’s on Wednesday nights – IT’S ON!!! Come out of the closet A-Listers and strike a resounding chord for your status as WGA members and/or your commitment to the WGA. We are truly from the A-lister to the BTLers all being screwed by the MONOPOLIZERS!
Let’s end this MONDAY afternoon and go back to work on Tuesday!
SEMPER FI
What the hell does opening a movie have anything to do with supporting the WGA? These actors are doing nothing but supporting the writers who don’t get enough money for thier work. Who cares if reese or whoever isn’t doing it! these actors are doing what they feel is the right to do. Back off and stop being superficial.
I don’t understand why this can’t be done in a way that promises them more as time goes on. For example how about 8 cents now for dvds or hell 10 cents now and a small deal this year for online media and next year re-negotiate and the following year re-negotiate. They don’t have to decide now an end all be all, just decide to keep upping their pay yearly because the writers deserve it!
Home Entertainment Center is nothing less than one of the most amazing one- man variety shows of all time. Besides being hysterically funny, Banks in the course of an hour, sings and plays banjo, flute, bass, drums, harmonica, and both electric and acoustic guitar. He’s not an impersonator, but that doesn’t stop him from doing brief tributes to Elvis, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Van Morrison.