HollyGeddon

Word of caution before I start: if you don't know what writers, actors, TV networks, or scripts/screenplays are, then this blog post will be a hard read and you're going to get either bored or confused very fast. I'm just going to assume you know what those are.

Yesterday, the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) have joined the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in a strike against Hollywood. For the past two months, movies and TV shows have been able to continue filming with completed scripts, though without any opportunities to change the script on-set, which suffice to say is not good. But now with SAG-AFTRA also on strike, the actors can not film those projects either. Until the studios give what the writers and actors want, Hollywood has shut down. This is what I have coined as HollyGeddon. The purpose of this blog post is to try my best to explain why both of these guilds are currently striking with just my basic understanding of the situations. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll give the best answer my nerd ass can supply.

I'm going to start things off with the TL;DR one sentence explanation: both are striking because of the threat of AI and streaming not paying them enough.
There's a lot more that I'm about to get into, but if the studios give up on AI in the way they want to use it and up the pay on streaming residuals to that of home video or TV reruns, both of these strikes will end before September. This is unlikely.

To my knowledge, there are four central issues that pertain to both strikes. Two of them apply to both, one is for the writers and one is for the actors. There are a lot of smaller ones but I think the studios agreed to the small demands and these big ones that they rejected are the reason no new deals were made.

The first issue, exclusive for the writers, is mini-rooms. I highly recommend watching this video from a WGA member who does a better job explaining than I ever could. Basically, for TV shows, a writer writes a pilot, the TV network decides if they want to greenlight it, and if they do then the writer hires several other writers to make the first season. But now what's happening is that if a network is iffy on whether or not to greenlight a pilot, they'll have the creator hire a couple writers to write 2-3 more episode scripts before deciding to greenlight it. And the kicker is that these "mini-rooms" are getting paid way less because they're uncertain if they'll make it, which is bullshit. The WGA wants these mini-rooms to, at the very least, be paid the same rates as any other script.

The second issue, exclusive for the actors, is self-tape auditions. I'm not very knowledgeable on this so forgive me if I get my facts wrong. When auditioning for a role, what usually happens is the actors go to the studio, read for the part, and then the casting directors and creators decide if they should get the part. When the pandemic happened, actors did self-tape auditions where they and their friends would shoot a scene in their apartments instead of doing the audition over Zoom. Despite the pandemic being over (and before you ask, yes it is over), these self-tapes are still a common practice when most actors want to go back to before because they're a lot to set up and there are even instances where the friends in the self-tapes helping the actor are considered more for the role than the actor submitting the self-tape. I think SAG-AFTRA just wants this more regulated.

The third issue is Artificial Intelligence, or AI. I don't think AI is the harbinger of doom like a lot of people act like it is, but all AI should be treated as is a tool. AI is like a nail. A nail that needs an experienced worker with a hammer to get the nail neatly into the board of wood. What the studios want is they want the option to put the nail into the board without the hammer or the worker. You can put a nail into a board of wood without a hammer, don't think you can't, but the results are not going to be ideal. The nail will get bent and the board might get fucked up in the process. The studios also want to, after causing this mess in the first place, bring the worker in to tidy the board up and fix the glaring issues. The experienced worker's first thought is always going to be "Why did you do that, I could've done a better job doing this from scratch". Point is, the WGA want to prevent the studios from just making AI scripts willy nilly. SAG-AFTRA also want to keep studios from having the option to use their likenesses and voices with AI, which given that there was going to be a movie with an AI James Dean that was announced in 2019, the studios would've absolutely done something like this.

The fourth issue, the biggest one, is streaming. I'm gonna let you in on an open secret: streaming is about to die. Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount+, all of these streaming services have been dumping truckloads of money to make projects to constantly get released in the hopes of increasing subscribers. The big problem is that the increase in subscribers is not happening fast enough to cover the costs of these projects. The studios are not profiting off of streaming like they were with home video and TV reruns.

And if the STUDIOS aren't profiting off of streaming, then the writers/actors certainly aren't.

Residuals are small paychecks that are sent to the actors/writers/directors every time the movie or show they were in gets bought on home video, reran on TV, or SUPPOSEDLY viewed on streaming. But writers and actors are making completely unsustainable amounts on residuals, we're talking pennies per month. To up their pay, the solution WGA/SAG-AFTRA have come up with is that all of these streaming services adopt a "views" section exactly like YouTube. That way, it's completely transparent how popular a movie or show is on a streaming service, and writers/actors can be properly compensated in residuals. This is the last thing the studios want.
If streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ have view counts like YouTube does, first off they can no longer lie about how successful something is on their platforms, everyone will know if it's succeeding or failing. But most importantly: these studios are already losing exuberant amounts of money on these streaming services. If they have to start paying ALL of the writers and ALL of the actors fair residual wages, they're going to go bankrupt.

Studios have to admit that streaming services are a failure and either shut them down or RADICALLY alter them. Getting people to stop using streaming services and go back to home video/cable is a daunting task but with the right marketing it can be done. Until the studios give up, the writers and actors are going to stay on strike and cause a Hollywood shutdown on the same level as the Covid-19 pandemic. The only difference is that the pandemic was because of a virus we didn't have a treatment for yet. This shutdown is entirely because of greed and ego, and can be stopped at any time.

HollyGeddon is upon us.