steve in hollywood

Remember when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike and you had to watch reruns of “24″ instead of new episodes? Well, me neither, since TV watching is way down in America since they invented the internet. Oh, I’m sorry, I mean since Al Gore invented it. Since you’re on the internet right now I think it’s more likely you have seen the new Weezer video, Pork n’ Beans, on YouTube. If you haven’t, that’s what that link is for, sheesh!

So, there are two major unions for actors here in Hollywood:

SAG: Screen Actors Guild

AFTRA: American Film and Television … um… something… Raw Artichokes. I don’t know, that’s what they get for using too many letters.

SAG is mostly for movies (what we in Hollywood call “films”) and AFTRA is mostly TV but also some film. Anyway, SAG is positioning themselves to go on strike. What this means is that a lot of TV and movies will again, come to a screeching halt and you’ll have to go back to watching the Numa Numa guy on Youtube. (Which is still better than a lot of what is on TV.)

See, the evil bad guy (so SAG wants you to think) in all of this, is the producers and studios group: AMPTP. Their reasoning goes like this: since you big producers and studios have all the money, we want more and more for our poor starving actors like Will Farrell. Ok, not really.* The real deal is that AFTRA and SAG usually negotiate together with AMPTP, but they had a fight in the playground and now AFTRA has a deal they negotiated and SAG doesn’t. Not only that but AFTRA’s vote on the deal is set for July 8th, and SAG is trying to encourage its members that are also AFTRA members to vote it down so it can have more leverage to bargain. Either way, it looks like SAG will strike once the results are in on AFTRA.

So, pay attention starting the 8th to see what your TV and movie options are going to be like for the next year. Since it takes months and sometimes years to make films, this potential strike can affect things for quite some time. One thing not affected by the strike: reality TV. It’s not union. So guess what? You will probably get more of it!

But what will happen to Steve?

Well, I’m not a SAG actor. I’m not union yet (no AFTRA either, very sad.) There are always non-union projects but they don’t pay as well, obviously. I have heard that during a strike SAG frowns upon any actors doing any work at all, even if you are non-union, so I don’t know what will happen. It could affect my ability to get into SAG at a future date, which I really, really have to do if I want to be in big movies. So, it may be that I will have to go back more seriously to my previous career in computers, or keep writing screenplays and blogs like this one. Either way, it is probably not good for my future acting career. Some big actors like Tom Hanks are openly campaigning that SAG not go on strike. Let’s hope that they are successful, for Steve’s sake.

Picture of the Day

Heck, I don’t know. Have a boat full of sushi.

*Please, please still let me into SAG!