THE ANGELS –
Hollywood created a spectacle of happiness and achieved some semblance of normality as it struggles to shake off the effects of the actors’ and writers’ strikes and one of the most tumultuous years in the industry’s history.
However, last weekend’s Academy Awards did not avoid the labor conflict that halted production for most of 2023. The recognition of the strikes, which came on the biggest night in cinema after an awards season in the that was evaded, comes when technical and blue-collar workers could be next to challenge studios, and video game actors could be weeks away from their own strike.
Live for the world, Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel spent part of his opening monologue promising union members and those working behind the scenes that Hollywood stars would support them, in solidarity with the workers who supported to the actors during last year’s strike.
“We support them fully, obviously, as they did with us,” Fran Drescher, president of the actors’ union, told The Associated Press on the Oscars red carpet.
Kimmel took the opportunity to shed even more light on the matter.
“For five months, this group of writers, actors, directors, the people who actually make the movies said, ‘We’re not going to take a deal’… well, not the directors, you guys gave up right away,” Kimmel said during the show. , mixing a little humor. “But the rest of us said we wouldn’t accept a deal without protections against artificial intelligence (AI).”
He then thanked the Hollywood workers who are now embroiled in their own labor struggle, bringing dozens of drivers, lighting workers, set riggers and more to the stage as a thank you.
“Thank you for being with us,” Kimmel said. “And also, we want you to know that, in your next negotiations, we will also be with you.”
In other times the Academy Awards would have been the last place for an expression of solidarity like Kimmel’s. The guilds in the midst of today’s labor struggles were formed in the 1930s largely over fears that the newly founded Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would become a studio organization to keep wages low. Actors, directors, screenwriters and other workers would eventually exert greater control over the film academy, with threats to boycott the Oscars among their strategies.
The same fears of being replaced by artificial intelligence that fueled the actors’ and writers’ strikes may lead to a strike by video game actors, who are also represented by SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio Artists). and Television).
At a panel at the SXSW Film and TV Festival a day before the Oscars, SAG-AFTRA CEO and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said a strike could happen in a matter of four to six weeks.
“Right now it is at least 50/50, if not more likely, that we will end up going on strike,” Crabtree-Ireland said, “due to the inability to overcome these basic AI problems.”
Actors who work in video games range from voice actors to acrobats. His long-term contract expired more than a year ago, and there has been little progress in months of negotiations. In September, video game players overwhelmingly gave their leaders the authority to call a strike against the collective of companies that hire them. The last time they went on strike was for six months in 2016 and 2017.
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), whose members include directors of photography, camera operators, set designers, carpenters, hair and makeup artists and other technical workers, plans to resume negotiations next week with the studios of Hollywood, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the same group with which the actors and screenwriters negotiated.
Negotiations over wage increases and overwork protections, which began last week, will affect about 50,000 workers in the Los Angeles area, IATSE said.
Three years ago, negotiations came to the brink of a strike before the current contract was reached. It was a harbinger of the massive disruption that occurred last year.
“I think this is a very dynamic year because everyone is affected by the significant changes that have occurred in our industry, especially AI,” Drescher said. “It’s a left punch and a right hook, the AMPTP is receiving it from all sides. But it should have been done a long time ago.”
2024-03-13 22:16:34
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