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Self-described SAG “middle-class actor” John Cygan, who maintains he doesn’t belong to any of the infighting Guild factions, breaks down the AFTRA contract vis a vis SAG:
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Something needs to be cleared up that ALWAYS seems to be misrepresented whenever this is discussed, and I’m surprised so many people get it wrong -
The WGA and the DGA did NOT sign the same deal. People say “well, they were virtually identical”.
Do you know what the key difference was?
The difference is that in the DGA deal the internet is not union, and in the WGA deal it is.
That’s huge.
And since that’s a bit of an oversimplification, I’ll break it down for you: The DGA deal allowed a budget threshold for made for internet productions (which John mentions in the video above). This threshold is higher than nearly every webisode that has been made so far. Which essentially means that internet productions will rarely meet the threshold and will nearly always be non-union.
The studios wouldn’t budge on that threshold number after the DGA signed off on it, so what the WGA negotiated was “okay, you can have that number, but whenever a professional writer works on an internet production that number does not apply. When a professional writer works on it, it’s union. Period. And retroactively.”
See the difference? It’s essentially the difference between the internet being a union or a non-union place for writers. That’s what we won and it often gets lost in the fine print. John says in his video (and rightly so) that no union should ever agree that work be non-union. And we didn’t. Now, the fact that there are some other parts of our deal that aren’t great is another discussion, but people need to stop acting as if the WGA signed off on a non-union internet. If they were truly offering a version of our deal to SAG it would mean that anytime a SAG actor worked on a non-union webisode, it would become union. Feel free to look it up in our deal. And now you can call bullsh*t anytime someone says that SAG is being offered the same deal as the WGA.
Good video…one thought — There is NO way you can get around NOT Thanking Rosenberg and Allen, they are the main reason we didn’t sign this contract. Anyone else would have caved in and just taken the AFTRA deal!
These two Pioneers (Alan & Doug) are fighting the good fight and have taken a lot of heat because of it. I applaud them!!
If anyone has harmed SAG’s position in Television it’s AFTRA — they single handedly sold us Actor’s down the river and they must be held accountable. It’s interesting in your discussion about above you defend AFTRA’s actions and never hold them accountable for selling us off cheap. BTW – SAG already has a program for low budget internet content and it’s ALL UNION!
Keep educating yourselves people — the Truth will prevail! Great Video!
Hey Nikki – Thank you. I am really glad that you moved this to a main entry on your page. It’s a must see for everyone in SAG, and anyone who has an opinion one way or the other on this whole situation. John has taken thousands of words written over the last eight months and created a picture that speaks volumes. Thank you John for your effort.
@Mike D – You are supposed to believe this because it’s been a plan in the works for over a decade by the powers that be in the entertainment world. This plan is essentially global in scope and is going to allow the entertainment conglomerates to regain a greater control over what and how the public consumes their entertainment in the years to come. It will be shrouded in the freedom of self-expression a la youtube, but the major producers are using it to clamp down on the costs of production while being able to gain ultimate profits from an ever growing revenue generator.
We are at the crux of the digital convergence that I saw becoming reality when I worked as a media producer at a software company in 1999-2000. We were creating interactive spherical video and had talks and presentations to high level people at CBS, Turner, and many other interested parties who were looking at ways to take advantage of the burgeoning internet delivery mechanism. Then the dot bomb hit and everybody had to regroup. But the plans did not go away to make the convergence of your TV and computer happen.
There will always be the slow adopters of whatever technology comes along, people are still using rotary dial phones in some places, but you have to look at what the early adopters already have to see what will be commonplace in a few short years. Your observation about the switchover in the household is just a minor part of the whole equation.
This practice of webisodes is not going to go away and if we want to protect all the work that we do in all the crafts, makeup to grips to editing to actors and directors, we need to state our outrage and stake our position in regards to what the AMPTP is trying to get us to give up. And that is basically the future of this business and our ability to make a decent living from the industry.
“Finally, great video, made a lot of sense. But the thanking of Rosenberg and Allen though is not helpful. They universally and irreparably harmed SAG.”
Rosenberg and Allen aren’t the ones to blame for the damage done to SAG.
The infighting, bitching, whining and political power games between the factions within SAG, and the failure of the rest of SAG’s members to put at stop to it, is the reason it’s crippled.
SAG is broken. And every member of SAG is to blame.
You’ve all either helped to break SAG, or you’ve stood by and let others break it.
Thank you, John Cygan. Thanks, Nikki Finke. This is information we’ve been trying to get the membership to understand for MONTHS. And this video does it in a simple, strong, concise and persuasive manner.
Hopefully, my fellow SAG members will pay attention.
We stand together or we fall apart.
I hate to point it out to you all, but there is no way everyeone is just going to toss their tv’s and go buy new “internet ready” versions. I think the thing that people are missing when they talk about the fact that everyone they know has DVR’s, Apple TV, etc. that that we are all involved in this business daily so its part of our survival to watch our medium. Go to any non industry town and ask how many people watch Hulu or have DVRs. Country wide on 30% of the population has DVD’s currently and nielsen estimates that 5-6% of the population still uses bunny ears. Trust me internet on TV is long, long away! Research it yourselves!
Uhm… it’s all built on the fact that there are 100 projects A DAY? A DAY????!! And that 300 Actors A DAY are hired from webisodes????? Really??? Hell, any actor in LA knows that’s just impossible. THINK PEOPLE!
Guess what, that’s not even CLOSE. It’s a complete lie.
Look at the clip where he’s show “all the non-union webisodes”. Then look at the DATES. They span a couple of MONTHS and that’s ONE PAGE.
Fact – Actor Access had about 1 webisode a day for the last WEEK or so. And ONE WAS SAG. Now Casting had around 10 (if you count Internet as webisode so I’m being generous) and TWO WERE SAG. Odds are the was some overlap so you are looking at MAYBE one non-union webisode a day. Check it out yourself and you’ll see.
So, if you KNOW that his initial projection is off by about 98% (give him the benefit of the doubt) and that he LIED about it (I just can’t believe it’s an honest mistake), then the rest of his video is meaningless.
And that brings up the question – What does he have to gain to lie about this issue?
Think about it.
Bogosian’s right but it’s not just teenagers watching Hulu…it’s a whole lot of people older than that
Check out the latest from the Pew Internet & American Life’s Generations Online 2009 Report
“Over half of the adult internet population is between 18 and 44 years old. But larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online, according to surveys taken from 2006-2008.
Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the “Net Generation,” internet users in their 20s do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people).”
More importantly for the entertainment business is this:
Downloading videos is now being done more equally across all generations under 73 years old.
31% of Generation X (ages 33-44)claim to download videos
38% of Generation Y (ages 18-32) downloaded videos
13% of G.I. Generation internet users (age 73+) reported downloading videos, up from 1% in 2005
13% of the online Silent Generation (ages 64-72) say they download videos, up from 8% in 2005
Full report is here:
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/275/report_display.asp
You would have to be certifiable and/or independently wealthy to not secure some kind of payment for new media right now while it’s still possible to get in on the ground floor.
Great video! Eye opening! Disinfo. is rampant and John goes right to where the productions are casting.
Once agreements are in place for low, low budget web content, those budgets will expand but the agreement will remain.
Does anyone else see the irony in this video?
Did the gentleman get a SAG form to produce and star in this production?
Did he hire a guild editor at normal day rates to cut it? IATSE Crew to film and light it?
How much is he going to get paid from ads and other derivative income?
Is he going to take the video down after six months, or maybe he’ll opt to pay himself for another window of use.
Most new media productions are done by people with less than no money and a dream. They want to take care of their talent, but also are trying to create something.
When you take the distributors out of the chain, you change the whole business model.
Not sure what the answer is, but I do know that those 100 productions a day are not replacing high paying gigs, they have been created because it’s now so easy to distribute without gatekeepers.
Excellent representation of one person’s opinion.
But he skips right over a huge assumption… Around 2:50, he says “everybody pretty much agrees it’s all gonna be webisodes. pisodes are gonna be called webisodes once everyone’s tv’s are internet ready, right?”
Wrong. Internet series are currently developing separately from tv. People are using the web to make spec pilots. Networks are using it to test the waters for tv series. Webisodes are being used the same way digital film has been used in recent years – and to supplement tv and film, the way dvd’s have been, with special additional content around an existing product. They are not replacing network and cable tv.
And the digital conversion does NOT mean everyone’s tv is internet ready. We are a LONG way from the bulk of the public switching to internet tv. I’m a working actor too, been out here 13 years. I am not seeing production moving from tv and film to webisodes. I’m seeing reruns move from network and cable to streaming internet. THAT’s my big concern.
I’m not saying AFTRA made a good deal, or that we should sign it. But I also think a strike right now is the worst idea I’ve ever heard floated by SAG. Since the last offer, the studios have all gone into spending freezes. No raises, bonuses, conferences, travel, expensed meals, there have been layoffs… There is NO chance we’d get more from them by striking now than we got before. And in the process of finding that out, we’d earn the wrath of the rest of the industry – crew, production, etc. – who are fighting to keep food on the table in this economy… AND it would be a PR nightmare. All the studios would have to do is put out a press release saying ‘just when we’re doing everything we can to keep people in their jobs, SAG decided to put thousands of people out of work.’ The AFTRA contract is not the right answer – but neither is a strike.
PLEASE PEOPLE – get this video out there. Circulate it virally. Send it to everyone in your email list – EVERYONE. If people are educated – they won’t make the monumental mistake of voting this trash into action. Please – for the sake of our industry – send it to everyone you possibly can.
My two cents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6enaBTW9iU
The video from John Cygan, despite the nit-picking of the appeasers, is a demonstration every SAG actor should watch. The nitpicking is “forest for the trees” – as in, well, he got the hour info wrong, or not EVERY TV set is web ready, or,some other detail (in fact he gets it mostly right) to take away from the overall point: we MUST have a fair deal NOW, because the alternative, however different it is from the DGA or WGA deals, is the same in that – SAG NEEDS TO SCRAP THE ENTIRE TEMPLATE. Regardless of the inside baseball takes on what he’s done, he has CLEARLY laid out a NOW scenario that shows how punitive this contract will be for middle-class SAG actors.
EVERY SAG actor should see it.
Of any option SAG has? An SAV, and if necessary, a strike, is our best option – by far. Everything else allows the AMPTP to lock this contract in, and exactly as he says – it’s NEVER coming back once we put it in writing. There is NO precedent for the producers making anything NEAR that kind of giveback, and we will NOT be going out on strike with other unions that have different agendas in 2011.
SAG needs to look out for itself, get what we need – a fair contract, and then move IMMEDIATELY to consolidating all actors under one roof – SAG. We MUST get rid of EVERYTHING being viewed through the prism of merger with AFTRA. We need to take bold, decisive action and make SAG THE actors union for TV and movies.
Has somebody looked at the data?
This is LA:
http://www.actorsaccess.com/projects/?view=breakdowns®ion=1
I’ve looked the first ten pages and webisodes are roughly around 10% of the work if not less. Is this a boom in webisodes?
And what percentage of the money do you think they represent?
Consider that youtube is losing money and google doesn’t expect it to make any money any time soon, revver is almost broke, hulu is barely breaking even and apple considers the AppleTV a hobby…
“Middleclassactor”, you’re awesome. This is what we have been trying to tell the membership ever since we saw the DGA deal and knew how that would translate to us actors. And YES, the networks and studios will do all their pilots NON-UNION. Of course they will. Only about 10% of pilots are picked up, so even if they pick a pilot up to air on Broadcast, they will simply shove the actors to the side who shot the pilot for $100 (did you know that that is about $8 per hour, the California State Minimum Wage? YOU CAN MAKE MORE MONEY WORKING AT IN AND OUT BURGERS.) They will then re-cast the show with “names”. Now that is your BEST-case scenario.
In actuality, you can buy TV’s right now with internet connections built-in so the audiences will NOT KNOW if they are watching ABC or ABC.com. So really, they could pick up your “webisode pilot” and they could keep you on and it could be a huge hit and you could get something like 6 million hits a week and NEVER GET ONE PENNY IN RESIDUALS. Meanwhile the rate at which the sites charge advertising time and placement of the sponsors INCREASES EVERYDAY.
I think it would be especially unforgivable if someone like me, who has greatly enjoyed the minimum provisions (RESIDUALS) and protections through the Screen Actors Guild for many years, did not do everything I could to insure that other members and particularly future generations had the same financial opportunity as I’ve had under the Guild.
How could I possibly have taken all those years of broadcast residuals for which OLDER MEMBERS STRUCK AND SACRIFICED and not defend this contract when it’s MY turn.
It would be positively disgraceful of me.
By the way, in that AFTRA contract for New Media, THE PRODUCERS decide whether or not you’re a Union-covered performer. In other words, you can be an AFTRA member, but not meet the “covered performer criteria” and work on a non-union production with no repercussions from AFTRA. On the other hand, if the PRODUCERS decide for you that you are a “Union-covered performer” based on this list of credit-types they have made up (is your head spinning yet?), then YOU CANNOT AUDITION FOR THESE UNDER-15K-PER-MINUTE-NEW-MEDIA JOBS.
“Union performers need not apply” will be something you will see AGAIN AND AGAIN.
Listen to a radio interview I did recently for the GOOD news about the future of entertainment: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/REEL-Ladies/2009/02/10/REEL-Ladies.
Sincerely, Justine Bateman
What the guy doesn’t mention is that all of these non-union webisodes have ZERO enforceable contracts with SAG, because SAG has yet to sign any sort of contract with our employers regarding webisodes. Simply put, SAG doesn’t have any BINDING jurisdiciton in new media yet! AFTRA does, and all those webisodes IMMEDIATELY go union once they use a single “covered performer” – defined as someone with more than one legit SAG, AFTRA and/or EQUITY credit. Appropriate that this non-union webisode (he’s creating exactly what he’s complaining about) is called the SAG Elephant. The TRUE elephant in the room is that, whether we like it or not, AFTRA’s already agreed to these terms! Any benefits that SAG can negotiate are meaningless, as AFTRA has shared jurisdiction in new media. That’s the bottom line which should make it even more obvious why we must merge and not compete in the future round of negotiations. If these non-union webisodes actually begin to make money in the future, we must be united to secure fair compensation.
This talk of “loss of residuals” and “end of life as we know it” is all cribbed from the months of Doug/Alan/MF propaganda being shoved out at the members. I would suggest asking the getleman to answer the following questions for himself –
What makes him think that after 8 months of working without a contract SAG would have the leverage to get any improvement over the AFTRA deal?
What good would it do to get “a better” deal than AFTRA’s in New Media when any producer can work under AFTRA’s deal, and therefore would never choose our “better” deal?
Doesn’t he know that there is a sunset clause in the AFTRA NM deal which means that the entire thing MUST be renegotiated in 2011? So how could any deal we make now mean any permanent change in residuals, or anything else?
Finally, does he realize that members have lost over $50 million in unrealized gains since July 1st — money they would have earned under the terms of the AFTRA agreement, which they have now lost forever? And does he realize that all the money earned in New Media under SAG contracts since 2001 amounts to less than $1 million? And does he realize that (as we have just determined) any deal SAG makes that is richer than the AFTRA NM deal will simply result in all work being done under the AFTRA contract until at least 2011? So even if SAG could make that richer deal, the members would still be out $50 million (and counting) from unrealized increases, and to what purpose? Why have we waited all this time to make a deal when no member would have benefited from an increase in NM terms? Then ask him if he might want to rethink repeating the swill he’s been fed for the past 10 months…
He makes a strong point, but is there really such a direct connection between the AFTRA contract and the blossoming of webisodes? Seems to me webisodes were increasing in popularity rapidly before the AFTRA deal…if i am wrong, please let me know!
Also, while i agree a union should never say it is ok to work non-union, if only for the integrity of the union, what does this video have to say about residuals and P&W for non-internet work? Doesn’t seem to be addressed at all, and rather than make this a one-issue decision, shouldn’t the rest of the contract be scrutinized?
@ Rebecca:
You miss the point — current tv series will be relabeled “webisodes” in order to screw actors out of residuals.
B.S.
A whole lotta nothin’.
people arguing about “how many webisodes,” and “tv ain’t goin’ away;” are out ta lunch. the point is; all things recorded, delivered and watched under the “new media” new contract, is designed to eliminate residuals and to go non-union under $1.8 mil per two hours or anything under $15k a minute. stop pontificating about things you don’t know; and while you’re at it get somebody with a brain to read the july 11,2007 article in the NY Times by michael cieply, to you. i’ll give you the header here, they won’t give me the space to fit all in;THE NEW YORK TIMES
July 11, 2007
Hollywood Executives Call for End to Residual Payments
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
edix …
consider that william morris just made a deal with youtube to represent its clients in made-for-internet original content.
the sunset clause is a ruse. once the amptp takes a benefit away, nobody EVER gets it back. nothing will be recouped in 2011. get real.
sag actors need to be covered in new media from DOLLAR ONE.
What’s the average budget of a Network or Cable episode of television? What’s the average ad sales for a network show?
What’s the average budget of a webisode? What’s the average ad sales for a webisode?
Apples to oranges.
This will get you nowhere.
Awesome video!!! Thanks middle class actor. I have passed this video on to all my SAG friends. I am also sending it to family members so they can better understand our fight!
Explain to me why actors deserve a different world than the rest of us. The rest of us have to fight for ourselves, and convince the gate-keepers what we’re worth based on experience, drive and skills. Why should actors not have survive in the supply and demand world that everybody else lives in? If $100 or $150/day is what these webisodes are offering, then they won’t get the top tier actors, but that kind of pay may also reduce the numbers of actors out there thus reducing competition for actors. You may not like it but someone who makes a webisode has to risk all the money involved to make it, and if they can’t monetize their work, they lose their money. The actors get paid whether the thing ever sees the light of day or not. Why should actors be rewarded when they aren’t taking the risk?