Speaker 1: This is the most traumatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1: Chris Harrison and Lauren Zema coming to you from the
Speaker 1: home office in Austin, Texas. But all eyes these days
Speaker 1: are pointed out west to Hollywood and the sag Aftra
Speaker 1: union strike that has crippled and shut down Hollywood. This
Speaker 1: is much publicized, been talked about quite a bit, and
Speaker 1: the reason we are opening up the playbook for this
Speaker 1: special episode of the most dramatic podcast ever is some
Speaker 1: of you reached out to us and said, hey, can
Speaker 1: LZ get on and do what she does best? She's brilliant, beautiful.
Speaker 1: I added a couple of those things. But the way
Speaker 1: you break things down people really appreciate it. I know
Speaker 1: you dove into this topic on your Instagram and a
Speaker 1: lot of people responded, just how good you can kind
Speaker 1: of put this into bite sized little nuggets for us.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
Speaker 3: That makes me feel like I'm like doing a little
Speaker 3: journalism again. It's been a minute for.
Speaker 2: Me taking a break. Is that what I do? God, Babe,
Speaker 2: I thought I made you last.
Speaker 1: Well, you do a lot of things really well, and
Speaker 1: full disclosure, this is something near and dear to our hearts.
Speaker 1: Laura and I are both card carrying members of the
Speaker 1: SAG After a.
Speaker 3: Guilt, Yes, And look, the part of the reason we
Speaker 3: wanted to do this is because, look, when I watch CNBC,
Speaker 3: I'm confused. I don't know what's going on in the
Speaker 3: stock market, Like I don't understand the world of finance.
Speaker 3: If a doctor tries to explain something to me, I say,
Speaker 3: can you give it to me in layman's terms. So
Speaker 3: we all have our own fields and industries, but this
Speaker 3: strike is historic. I'll explain why it's making national and
Speaker 3: international news. And I think it's so important for everybody
Speaker 3: to understand why, because I actually think what happens in
Speaker 3: this strike could very much affect and set precedent in
Speaker 3: other industries.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure, in huge.
Speaker 3: Part because and we'll get into it, but one of
Speaker 3: the major issues here is AI artificial intelligence and how
Speaker 3: it could potentially take jobs.
Speaker 2: So we're going to get into it all.
Speaker 3: I also want to point out you said, look, we
Speaker 3: are SAG After members, but specifically what the union is
Speaker 3: striking about right now is a certain type of contract.
Speaker 3: Like some people have wondered, you know, how this will
Speaker 3: affect the TV and movies they see.
Speaker 2: It will affect network's fall shows.
Speaker 3: You know, the writer's guild is on strike as well,
Speaker 3: and you're not going to see some of those maybe
Speaker 3: new TV shows in the fall. Things like Euphoria is
Speaker 3: probably delayed, huge show for HBO, probably delayed well into
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six by now, because the writers are on strike.
Speaker 3: They can't write it. Now, the actors are on strike,
Speaker 3: they can't act in it. But because of the specific
Speaker 3: contract that's being struck striked over, reality shows, for example,
Speaker 3: can still happen. So you and I you know we
Speaker 3: mostly do hosting or I was in news news organizations
Speaker 3: are still going.
Speaker 2: Reality shows can still happen this way.
Speaker 1: I think Love Island is in production right now, it's
Speaker 1: okay to move forward. That deal I think has another
Speaker 1: year for variety slash reality.
Speaker 2: Shows and that'll come up.
Speaker 3: So there's specific contracts because our union does encompass so
Speaker 3: many people. Sag after is radio hosts and TV and
Speaker 3: actors and actresses and background actors and commercial actors and
Speaker 3: movie stars.
Speaker 2: So it's a lot of people now here. It is
Speaker 2: simple terms.
Speaker 3: Breaking it down, I would say there's three major things
Speaker 3: that we're striking over. One residuals. Two just our wages
Speaker 3: period and three AI. I'm going to start with residuals
Speaker 3: because part of the reason this is historic is do
Speaker 3: you know the last time that sag After Babe and
Speaker 3: the Writer's Guild, the Writer's Guild have been striking about
Speaker 3: two months and so now it's a huge deal that
Speaker 3: sag After has joined and is also striking. Do you
Speaker 3: know the last time we went on strike together?
Speaker 1: It was a while ago before I was born.
Speaker 2: Since I think nineteen sixty three, the sixties.
Speaker 1: Okay, that was by the way, I'm old, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not that old.
Speaker 3: Back then, a guy named Ronald Reagan was the president
Speaker 3: of sag AF getting it done for us.
Speaker 2: Ronnie.
Speaker 1: Another great orator is we're going to talk about fran Dresher,
Speaker 1: the current president, who is really on point and really
Speaker 1: emotional and passionate and fantastic.
Speaker 2: If you haven't, I would go watch her entire speech.
Speaker 2: We'll play a clip of it later.
Speaker 3: But Franny the Nanny, that's my president. Yes, the president
Speaker 3: of the sag After Screen Actors Guild Union is fran Dresher,
Speaker 3: known as the Nanny, and she even referenced the Nanny
Speaker 3: and her speech announcing the strike.
Speaker 2: So number one residuals.
Speaker 3: Back in the sixties, we both unions went on strike
Speaker 3: in large part for something called residuals. Now, what a
Speaker 3: residual means basically is like at that time, we were
Speaker 3: getting frustrated because networks and studios were selling and reselling
Speaker 3: TV shows and movies and they were continuing to make money.
Speaker 3: Like picture that a TV show goes into reruns.
Speaker 1: You had Gunsmoke on at the time. Yeah, Gunsmoke was
Speaker 1: the most popular show in the world, I think definitely
Speaker 1: in the United States, probably the world, and you could
Speaker 1: just air that over and over and the cowboys would
Speaker 1: only get paid that.
Speaker 3: One time, right, So you know, think about how many
Speaker 3: times shows like when I was younger on Nick at Night,
Speaker 3: I watched Laverne and Shirley that was still in black,
Speaker 3: that was in black and white. That show was decades
Speaker 3: old already at that point, but Nick at Knights airing
Speaker 3: and over and over again with commercials making money. So
Speaker 3: actors said, hey, if you're going to reuse our work,
Speaker 3: we should get a little portion of that money. A
Speaker 3: thing called a residual. Do you get residuals checks for
Speaker 3: anything I do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for Bachelor bachelorette. Still who wants to be a millionaire?
Speaker 1: A bunch I did a bunch of movies back in
Speaker 1: the day. Still get little checks for that. And it's funny.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get like a fourteen cent check. Seriously, and
Speaker 1: I think to myself, it cost more to mail me
Speaker 1: this fourteen cent check. Their needs. We'll get to that
Speaker 1: and the other negotiation of all they just if it's
Speaker 1: under a dollar, just keep it and put it in
Speaker 1: a big pool for I don't know, a lottery or something.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's probably not worth the people's printed on.
Speaker 1: But I do get residuals, and they are important.
Speaker 3: Well, back then we fought for residuals on the networks.
Speaker 3: Now streaming the streamers have changed everything. Obviously, I'm talking
Speaker 3: about Netflix and Who.
Speaker 2: And all that.
Speaker 3: And the thing is many networks have created their own streamers, right,
Speaker 3: NBC now has Peacock. So the business model has changed now.
Speaker 3: I think I could be wrong, but I think Hulu
Speaker 3: is or has at some point aired old seasons of
Speaker 3: The Bachelor. Yeah, have you gotten residuals checks for that?
Speaker 1: I don't think specifically I have. I would get it
Speaker 1: when Hulu bought it, say say they bought it for
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars. I would get a little small portion
Speaker 1: of that, Okay, but I think what you're alluding to
Speaker 1: is what happens when that is aired a million times exactly.
Speaker 3: Actually, one of the stars, Sean Gunn, who played Kirk
Speaker 3: on Gilmour Girls, Okay, one of our faves.
Speaker 2: You and I have watched Taylor.
Speaker 3: Yes, So he was on the picket line and he said, look,
Speaker 3: Gilmore Girls. Netflix bought the rights to air Gilmore Girls
Speaker 3: to have it on Netflix. He said, it's probably one
Speaker 3: of their top shows. And think about that. The streamers
Speaker 3: don't release their data, so when a TV shows and reruns,
Speaker 3: you could know, oh hey, I know exactly how many
Speaker 3: times it might the show I was on re ran
Speaker 3: and I'm going to get a check for every time
Speaker 3: it was aired and every time that network made money from.
Speaker 2: Commercials on it.
Speaker 3: But the streamers don't release their data, so Gilmore Girls
Speaker 3: could be I mean, new generations have discovered Gilmore Girls
Speaker 3: on Netflix, binge watching it. It's probably watched over and
Speaker 3: over and over and over again. But Sean Gunn, the
Speaker 3: actor who played Kirk, all these people are watching him,
Speaker 3: but he's not seeing any of that, and the streamers
Speaker 3: won't tell you how many times people are watching, and.
Speaker 1: They are very protective of those numbers and those metrics,
Speaker 1: and you have no idea. And when it was ABC, NBCCBS,
Speaker 1: Fox and you know cable, we all use the same.
Speaker 2: System, Nielsen ratings.
Speaker 1: Everyone uses Nielsen. So you know, okay, our show did
Speaker 1: a point eight, it did three million viewers. What have
Speaker 1: you know exactly what you're doing. You know, we can
Speaker 1: argue if those Nielsen numbers are correct or not, but
Speaker 1: they at least use the same metric. Nobody has any
Speaker 1: idea what's going on at Amazon, Netflix and the line.
Speaker 3: So when it comes to this, it's like in the
Speaker 3: sixties we fought for residuals.
Speaker 2: Now we're fighting for it again.
Speaker 3: But because streaming has changed everything, and the union representatives
Speaker 3: for sag AFTRA have made this point many times. You've
Speaker 3: changed the entire model of our business. You got to
Speaker 3: change our contract that goes with it. You can't sit
Speaker 3: here and say that like everything's different, but you want
Speaker 3: us to operate in an old way.
Speaker 2: And I completely agree with that.
Speaker 3: And look, I think one good point is I've seen
Speaker 3: some people in the comments on social media be like Oh, okay, Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Look, here's the thing.
Speaker 3: There's one hundred and sixty thousand members of Sagaftra. Most
Speaker 3: of those people are not the Angelina Jolie's and the
Speaker 3: Jennifer Lall.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. We have to kind of making millions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you think Brad Pitt, George Clooney as soon as we
Speaker 1: say Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence making twenty million dollars
Speaker 1: in her last film. No, like, that's the point. Oh
Speaker 1: oh one percent. You're not seeing ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: that iceberg that is underwater, which is a bunch of
Speaker 1: people grinding it out, just making rent, just like everybody
Speaker 1: else in the world. They just love what they do
Speaker 1: and they've chosen this profession.
Speaker 2: Right, background actors, commercial actors.
Speaker 1: And just bit part actors.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, And then look, it's a difficult job.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of rejection.
Speaker 3: And part of the reason we have to have a
Speaker 3: union and be protective is it's an inconsistent job. It's
Speaker 3: not a nine to five you can work and being
Speaker 3: like a great you know movie. Literally, you could be
Speaker 3: in a star in a movie one year and then
Speaker 3: not work again for two or three years. So I
Speaker 3: think the residuals thing is really important. And basically, you know,
Speaker 3: these dreamers don't want it to They don't want to
Speaker 3: tell you how much your work is being used. Like
Speaker 3: think about that. It's kind of crazy when you think
Speaker 3: about it. Like a lawyer can have billable hours and
Speaker 3: tell you, here's exactly how many hours I worked, and
Speaker 3: I want to be paid for that. Actors are saying,
Speaker 3: we want to know how many hours people are enjoying
Speaker 3: our work and we want.
Speaker 2: To get paid for that.
Speaker 3: So from residuals to point number two, which is wages,
Speaker 3: simple living wages. On that note, this is pretty short
Speaker 3: and sweet. What the union representatives are saying is that.
Speaker 3: And keep in mind, you guys, the unions tried to
Speaker 3: negotiate with They tried to negotiate with the Let me
Speaker 3: get this n acronym right, the AMPTM.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not going to get it right. Help me, babe.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is the AMPTP, which is the Alliance of
Speaker 1: Motion Pictures and Television Producers. That is who essentially seg
Speaker 1: After is striking against.
Speaker 2: Because we've been negotiating with them.
Speaker 3: Should point out the unions had been trying to negotiate
Speaker 3: with them on a new contract for weeks on weeks,
Speaker 3: if not months. We were actually supposed to negotiate our
Speaker 3: contract before COVID hit, if you remember. And then COVID
Speaker 3: hit and we said, okay, look, we'll allow a pause
Speaker 3: on this. It's a wild time, it's unprecedented. We don't
Speaker 3: know what's happen, so we'll delay. Well, then COVID change
Speaker 3: the industry even more, right, like people aren't going to
Speaker 3: the movies as much, so all the more reason to
Speaker 3: now strike because even more's changed. So we have tried
Speaker 3: to negotiate with them, and the whole living wages thing
Speaker 3: of it is. Per our union chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree, Ireland,
Speaker 3: he said that they wanted actors to make less money
Speaker 3: in the future than they have in the past.
Speaker 2: He put it that simply.
Speaker 3: He said, no, we would not agree that we would
Speaker 3: agree to a wage that in the future our union
Speaker 3: members we're going to be making more money than they
Speaker 3: are now. We wanted them to factor in a little
Speaker 3: thing called inflation. So just basic labor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, desires.
Speaker 1: But it's this third point that I think is really
Speaker 1: at the crux of this and really at the middle,
Speaker 1: and I have to. Can I introduce it please? It's AI.
Speaker 1: Artificial intelligence is really a big part of this negotiation
Speaker 1: and strike, and you broke this down very eloquently when
Speaker 1: we were.
Speaker 2: Talking about it, well really, I almost.
Speaker 3: I was paraphrasing what our chief negotiator, Duncan said. Let's
Speaker 3: play a little piece from the press conference where he
Speaker 3: and the other negotiating team announced that we'd be striking.
Speaker 2: Here's what he said.
Speaker 3: That the that the studios and networks potentially want to
Speaker 3: do in the future with artificial intelligence and actors.
Speaker 4: They proposed that our background performers should be able to
Speaker 4: be scanned, get paid for one day's pay, and their
Speaker 4: company should own that scan, their image, their likeness, and
Speaker 4: should be able to use it for the rest of
Speaker 4: eternity in any project they want, with no consent and
Speaker 4: no compensation.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 3: I thought he explained it perfectly, and I got to
Speaker 3: give a shout out to him and to fran Dresher.
Speaker 3: They killed it in that press conference. They have broken
Speaker 3: things down in such clear terms for people to understand.
Speaker 2: And how scary is that.
Speaker 1: I went into that. I listened to that press conference
Speaker 1: with you, and I thought Okay, look, I would like
Speaker 1: to be open minded and see both sides of this situation.
Speaker 1: And I thought, in the coming days, I want to
Speaker 1: hear how the Alliance Motion Picture and Television kind of
Speaker 1: rebut this whole thing. What is their take on it?
Speaker 1: They have not, like no one's denied anything that they
Speaker 1: have said from this press conference that all of this
Speaker 1: was what was trying to be kind of forced down
Speaker 1: the union's throat. I was shocked that, right, you.
Speaker 2: Thought, maybe there's a miscommunication.
Speaker 1: Well maybe they're maybe they're Yeah, maybe they're trying to
Speaker 1: exaggerate a little bit to make our case seem a
Speaker 1: little stronger. You know, it's what you would do.
Speaker 3: No, I actually it's not a podcast Duncan did. He
Speaker 3: did our friend Matt Bellan's podcast The Town, and he
Speaker 3: doubled down on that because Matt asked him about it
Speaker 3: and he said, no, no, no, I was like quoting
Speaker 3: a document there. They want to scan an actor, pay
Speaker 3: that actor for a day's work, and then use that
Speaker 3: actor in perpetuity as art via artificial intelligence. So if
Speaker 3: that doesn't scare everybody at home, I don't know what
Speaker 3: does that scares me? That scares me, not just as
Speaker 3: a performer. But we all have to be aware of
Speaker 3: how these companies because I think something critical that's happened
Speaker 3: is studios kind of used to be run by creative people,
Speaker 3: people who valued the art form, who wanted to make
Speaker 3: good movies. In recent years, like many industries, studios have
Speaker 3: gotten bought by bigger companies and now it's like numbers
Speaker 3: cruncher money people at the top who are very focused
Speaker 3: on their stock price and their bottom line. They're going
Speaker 3: to want to go for what's cheap, for the cheaper chicken.
Speaker 3: How can they make a movie cheaper? How can they
Speaker 3: make more money? And I'm not saying that makes them
Speaker 3: like villains, but I am saying that we have to
Speaker 3: stand up because no, you can't get paid for a
Speaker 3: day's work.
Speaker 2: And think about that.
Speaker 3: They're saying they want to use your likeness in perpetuity,
Speaker 3: So they're really what they're saying is potentially just eliminating
Speaker 3: the job of the background actor. They're only going to
Speaker 3: have artificial intelligence playing background actors in every movie.
Speaker 1: And that and that's enough, by the way, that's enough
Speaker 1: to be scary, and that's enough to fight for. But
Speaker 1: I see that going any even further. And just just
Speaker 1: for reference. Background acting that day work is vital to
Speaker 1: the economy of Hollywood and to so many people getting
Speaker 1: their start in this business. Getting your hours up, getting
Speaker 1: your numbers up, being a part of the union, sometimes
Speaker 1: leading to a speaking part that can change your life
Speaker 1: in your career. That is what happens. I have never
Speaker 1: been on a movie set, and I was luckily lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be in several movies that didn't have extras.
Speaker 1: I was the night of the strike. I was watching
Speaker 1: one of my favorite shows on one of the streamers,
Speaker 1: and there was a court scene and my immediate thought was,
Speaker 1: they'll never have to fill a courtroom again. They'll fill
Speaker 1: it with AI figures and you'll only pay the three
Speaker 1: lawyer people that you know, the people that are the
Speaker 1: main characters in this You'll never pay the background. Take
Speaker 1: a you know one of my favorite movies, Moneyball. You
Speaker 1: can fill up a stadium a great movie like Rudy.
Speaker 1: You can fill that stadium up. You don't have to
Speaker 1: pay people anymore, and that is big work.
Speaker 3: I will say the union is not saying. The union
Speaker 3: is actually not saying you can't use AI at all.
Speaker 3: The sag after isn't saying that. But they're saying, we
Speaker 3: can't allow you to pay someone for a day and
Speaker 3: then you own their likeness and perpetuity.
Speaker 2: That is wild.
Speaker 3: Like, look, I'm sure they've cgid big crowds of people
Speaker 3: at this point. That's not that different than artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3: If you think about, like how much CGI is done
Speaker 3: in movies. Now, I'm not saying you got to you know,
Speaker 3: pay a million background actors, but you can't own someone's likenesses.
Speaker 1: You can't use you, and you can't use me, and
Speaker 1: you can't use my Yeah, you can't use my expression,
Speaker 1: my likeness. That's that's very different. And am Gary, what's
Speaker 1: scarier is when you come in. I forget the actress
Speaker 1: that came out and said, oh yeah, they they scanned
Speaker 1: our likeness and face when we came in, and our expressions,
Speaker 1: and you can use that. You could use that for
Speaker 1: an entire new show, you could use it for a movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, think of this. This is on a crazy
Speaker 1: scale of AI. Daniel Craig could be James Bond forever. Well,
Speaker 1: he'll never age out of it. We'll just keep him
Speaker 1: at this age now.
Speaker 2: And by the way, I think that's very real.
Speaker 3: I mean, you've heard the recording New Beatles Music using
Speaker 3: AI to recreate John Lennon's voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, I think what our union is saying is we
Speaker 3: know that's coming. We're not rejecting the.
Speaker 1: Future, we're embracing it.
Speaker 2: Actually, but you have to.
Speaker 3: Pay people for their skills, for their talents for them
Speaker 3: and I you know, and if you look at it
Speaker 3: from the writer's perspective, the Writer's Guild is actually being
Speaker 3: a little more intense about it. They say, we want
Speaker 3: to promise in our contract that AI is not going
Speaker 3: to write scripts because like, one thing I didn't realize was,
Speaker 3: for example, there's no like copyright law on AI right now,
Speaker 3: or at least very little right So what a studio
Speaker 3: could say is, like all movie, if you've seen a movie,
Speaker 3: the script's available to find online. I could google Bridesmaid
Speaker 3: script right now and I'd get the entire script in
Speaker 3: a second. So what a studio could say is, we're
Speaker 3: gonna have AI read all of Aaron Sorkin's scripts and
Speaker 3: then we're going to tell that artificial intelligence to write
Speaker 3: a movie in this style of Aaron Sorkin. So where's
Speaker 3: the copyright protection there? Because you're kind of almost plagiarizing
Speaker 3: Aron Sorkin in a way. But they're going to try
Speaker 3: to have the AI do it because it's cheaper there,
Speaker 3: and then.
Speaker 1: You could bring in maybe a writer or two to
Speaker 1: punch it up and make it worthy for the network.
Speaker 3: And so there's copyright issues there, and also from the
Speaker 3: writer's perspective, I mean, they could just and I worry,
Speaker 3: like for just the quality of I mean, I think
Speaker 3: about think about how much we quote movie lines or
Speaker 3: we quote TV shows, and how a TV show or
Speaker 3: a movie emotionally connected you. I mean, I mentioned Bride,
Speaker 3: which as your soul. I still quote Bride's Maid's probably
Speaker 3: once a week. I'll be like, there's something, there's someone
Speaker 3: on the wings, she's churning butter on the wing or
Speaker 3: ready to party.
Speaker 2: So I quote that movie all the time.
Speaker 3: I'm sure Studio intend to have AI straight up just
Speaker 3: write scripts, even if you're not trying to do it
Speaker 3: in the style of someone They're gonna want AI to
Speaker 3: just write scripts. And I can't even think of the
Speaker 3: quality that we're going to start to get. We're going
Speaker 3: to become dumber as a society, I think, and really
Speaker 3: living like I don't want to I'm not trying to
Speaker 3: reject the future, but I don't want to live in
Speaker 3: a world that's lacking the human experience.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest point out of this to go
Speaker 1: back to the actual strike that you hit the nail
Speaker 1: on the head for and Dresser, the president of the
Speaker 1: union as well as the chief negotiator, said, the union
Speaker 1: is encouraging AI. They believe in AI. They know that
Speaker 1: that's where the future lies. It just can't be unfettered
Speaker 1: and unchecked. We need some checks and balances, we need
Speaker 1: some precautions taken. And you got to do it now
Speaker 1: because if you don't, the cat's out of the bag,
Speaker 1: and or, as we like to say, the toothpaste is
Speaker 1: out of the tube and this thing's over. And so
Speaker 1: you got to make this stand now and doing it
Speaker 1: with the Writer's Guild is the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: But I like the fact they're not fighting it, they're
Speaker 1: encouraging it. Just let's all put our arms together and
Speaker 1: do this.
Speaker 3: Right. You're seeing this, and this is why I bring
Speaker 3: it up because again we're seeing this across industries right.
Speaker 3: I mean, just in May of this year, it was
Speaker 3: the headline everywhere that like three hundred and fifty of
Speaker 3: the top experts on AI published a letter warning that
Speaker 3: they think AI is potentially what you said at Pandora's
Speaker 3: Box and could quote poseate an extinction to humans. When
Speaker 3: are we going to set up and take this seriously?
Speaker 3: By the way, you know, an industry called all this
Speaker 3: out the movies, I mean, the matrix and the terminator,
Speaker 3: and like, when are we gonna say we need to
Speaker 3: put some regulations on this, because the problem is if
Speaker 3: it goes unregulated, and if at any point somebody takes
Speaker 3: it too far and experiments too much, we have a
Speaker 3: serious problem on our hands. Probably in some small ways
Speaker 3: that's already happened, like in government stuff that we don't
Speaker 3: even know about.
Speaker 1: Okay, So those are kind of the three pillars of
Speaker 1: what everybody's fighting for.
Speaker 3: And I want to point out we are striking because
Speaker 3: we couldn't I mean, per our union. They tried, and
Speaker 3: the studios and the networks just wouldn't give on things.
Speaker 3: And you got to meet in the middles at some point,
Speaker 3: or if you don't, that's how a strike.
Speaker 1: And the studios walked away, and that's what caused this resk.
Speaker 3: You you've been in this business longer than me, you
Speaker 3: know not since you weren't born in the sixties, but.
Speaker 1: I remember working with John Wayne.
Speaker 2: Did do you ever do anything with Reagan? You and
Speaker 2: Reagan hitting it up together?
Speaker 3: What do you think knowing you know some of these
Speaker 3: big wigs and stuff like that. Oh well, and I
Speaker 3: should point out a huge part of the reason people
Speaker 3: are frustrated. I'm sorry for backtracking, but just the amounts
Speaker 3: of money. I mean, you and I have dealt with
Speaker 3: this every time go to negotiate, and everybody deals with
Speaker 3: this at work. But for your job, for your contract,
Speaker 3: you're told, you know, money's tight right now, gosh, COVID
Speaker 3: made it hard and all that. But then how do
Speaker 3: you argue with some of these CEOs making tens of millions.
Speaker 1: Hundreds No, no, hundreds of millions.
Speaker 2: I'm not good at math.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these CEOs are making hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker 3: And so I think the unions are frustrated because they're like,
Speaker 3: our people can't make a living wage. And you've got
Speaker 3: one person in your company, and if you could just
Speaker 3: rearrange some of the money, reallocating be a little bit,
Speaker 3: it would.
Speaker 1: Be a rounding error on your tax return. To fix
Speaker 1: this problem.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think about Amazon, and I'd look no
Speaker 3: hate to the people who work at Amazon, but they
Speaker 3: made that show is the most expensive show ever, the
Speaker 3: Lord of the Rings show. That show costs like four
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million dollars or something, and who really
Speaker 3: wanted You.
Speaker 1: Might as well have just burned it at the bottom
Speaker 1: of a canyon.
Speaker 3: If you took that four hundred and fifty million and
Speaker 3: paid the writer's better.
Speaker 2: Some of their hit shows like Jury Duty was a
Speaker 2: big hit for Amazon.
Speaker 3: I mean, just realitate, just be a bit smarter about
Speaker 3: how you're spending your money.
Speaker 1: So we are in right now, we are at an impasse.
Speaker 3: And I was going to ask you, knowing these CEOs
Speaker 3: and such, what do you think could happen from here?
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's That's what I was going to get
Speaker 1: to with you of where we are and all this
Speaker 1: there are, And again this is I mean, you're you're
Speaker 1: basically betting on a coin flip here. Is this going
Speaker 1: to go longer? Yes? I mean my guess is the
Speaker 1: the studio will back away and use the cover of summer,
Speaker 1: which is the doldrums of production.
Speaker 2: Anyway, there's usually not new TV shows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Network, you're not in production, you're not really doing
Speaker 1: much so and there's no new TV shows, so you're
Speaker 1: not going to really notice anything. So let's just let
Speaker 1: this go a little bit longer, maybe into September October
Speaker 1: when everybody has to re engage, because that's when we're
Speaker 1: going to start feeling the heat. And I say we
Speaker 1: television viewers, people that want to see their shows will
Speaker 1: start feeling this. But I think we're going to get
Speaker 1: a couple of months of let's just see how this goes.
Speaker 1: And that's what that's again totally guessing. This is a
Speaker 1: coin flip. They could come back tomorrow and this whole
Speaker 1: thing could be solved, but I don't think it's gonna
Speaker 1: happen either.
Speaker 3: Well, we've seen Speak you know, we love drama here
Speaker 3: at the most dramatic podcast ever. This is also bringing
Speaker 3: some big time like Hollywood Insider drama. There was an
Speaker 3: article in Deadline, which is just an industry news publication,
Speaker 3: and they quoted an executive anonymously, not on the record,
Speaker 3: but this person said that the goal of the amp mother,
Speaker 3: what is it, the AMPTM, the alliance, Oh.
Speaker 2: God of the alliance. That sounds that makes it sound
Speaker 2: like a Star.
Speaker 1: Wars stars the Alliance. We're against the Alliance.
Speaker 3: They quoted an executive who said that they their goal
Speaker 3: was to hold out and to make the writers suffer
Speaker 3: so much that they would become homeless.
Speaker 1: A really silly thing to say. And I know the
Speaker 1: Bob Eiger interview from Sun Valley was not a great
Speaker 1: look either.
Speaker 3: He was even the interview from sun Valley, Idaho against
Speaker 3: the Mountains, talking about how their lowly writers aren't being reasonable.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it hasn't been a good look. And so
Speaker 1: far the Alliance has not done a good job of
Speaker 1: getting their ducks in a row. And that's what's difficult
Speaker 1: about this is it's not just this small group, as
Speaker 1: you said anymore. There are so many massive industries. When
Speaker 1: you're dealing with Amazon, Apple, Netflix.
Speaker 3: Andy is with different motives in different financial situations. NBC,
Speaker 3: even though they have a streamer in Peacock, they're in
Speaker 3: a very different financial model than Apple.
Speaker 2: Apple makes their money from iPhones.
Speaker 1: Amazon wants you to buy underwear and Clorox.
Speaker 3: Apple could sit with this strike forever because they're beyond
Speaker 3: cash positive for iPhones. Their main product is not TV
Speaker 3: shows and movies. They have different priorities, and I think
Speaker 3: that's going to create drama and infighting within the Alliance
Speaker 3: because I think they're going to get to the point
Speaker 3: where the networks are like, we need new TV shows
Speaker 3: and Apple's like, oh, we don't really care.
Speaker 1: And I think there is already that in fighting. I
Speaker 1: think there were people that were very unhappy that that
Speaker 1: one quote about people being hauled.
Speaker 2: Yes the problem.
Speaker 3: Apparently there were allegedly reportedly phone calls back and forth
Speaker 3: who said this, this isn't how we're supposed to be
Speaker 3: presenting ourselves. But here's one thing I don't think that
Speaker 3: the Alliance was prepared for.
Speaker 1: We need music done.
Speaker 2: They were not.
Speaker 3: You know what the music we need is the Nanny
Speaker 3: theme song. They were not prepared for. Fran our Union
Speaker 3: president Fran Dresher. Listen to just a snippet of the
Speaker 3: speech that she gave after hours of negotiating.
Speaker 2: The woman is exhausted.
Speaker 3: And here is the fiery speech she gave at the
Speaker 3: press conference announcing the strike.
Speaker 5: How they plead comedy that they're losing money left and
Speaker 5: right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their ceohs,
Speaker 5: it is disgusting shame on them. They stand on the
Speaker 5: wrong side of history at this very moment. You cannot
Speaker 5: change the business model as much as it has changed
Speaker 5: and not expect the contract to change too. We're not
Speaker 5: going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that
Speaker 5: no longer honors.
Speaker 2: What is happening right.
Speaker 5: Now with this business model that was foisted upon us.
Speaker 5: What are we doing moving around furniture on the Titanic?
Speaker 4: It's crazy.
Speaker 5: So the jig is up, AMPTP.
Speaker 4: We stand tall.
Speaker 5: You have to wake up and smell the coffee. We
Speaker 5: are labor and we stand tall.
Speaker 2: She killed it.
Speaker 3: And I don't think what the studios realized is like,
Speaker 3: that's somebody people know. You know, our president isn't someone
Speaker 3: you've never heard of. And I will say it's different.
Speaker 3: No shade to the Writer's Guild, but they're they're eleven
Speaker 3: thousand people, SAG afters one hundred and sixty thousand people
Speaker 3: and some very recognizable faces.
Speaker 2: And look, I know the nanny.
Speaker 3: I care about the nanny, and I think people are
Speaker 3: gonna listen and sit up and pay attention. And I
Speaker 3: would definitely listen to the Nanny before I'd listened to
Speaker 3: this studio executive who makes hundreds of millions sitting on
Speaker 3: their private jet.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things that you can't do when
Speaker 1: you are in this strike and a part of this union,
Speaker 1: is you can't go out and promote your work. You
Speaker 1: can't promote your movie. So this dropped, This news dropped
Speaker 1: when they were doing the premiere of Oppenheimer in London
Speaker 1: and the actors walked off the red carpet. They left,
Speaker 1: And so you will start to feel this your late
Speaker 1: night shows when you see your favorite actors and actresses.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna be on. They can't come on and
Speaker 1: talk about their new movie. They talk about their new
Speaker 1: TV show. So it'll affect the late night shows. Those
Speaker 1: will probably go dark and the writers. So the ripple
Speaker 1: effects are already being felt as Oppenheimer and Barbie are
Speaker 1: about to release and Mission Impossible and you're not going
Speaker 1: to see these stars out doing the talk shows anymore.
Speaker 3: Well, and what that might mean is they're taking too
Speaker 3: Instagram and hopefully the picket lines and talking about the
Speaker 3: issues in a way that people understand and will listen.
Speaker 3: And you know, I say, a fran Dresser, that's my president.
Speaker 3: I really I love her. I think she's very relatable,
Speaker 3: and I think she made all this really easy to understand,
Speaker 3: and I hope we've made it easy to understand today.
Speaker 1: Fran we want you on that wall. We need you
Speaker 1: on that wall. See plagiarizing a great movie again.
Speaker 3: I think that this is going to potentially set precedent
Speaker 3: for lots of industries, especially like I said on the
Speaker 3: AI thing, and certainly everybody understands right now inflation, how
Speaker 3: hard it is to make a living today, and that
Speaker 3: you know, we're fighting for our future.
Speaker 2: That's really I agree with.
Speaker 3: I hate that striking, and Franz said this, Look, we
Speaker 3: don't want to be striking because we don't want people
Speaker 3: to be out to work. We don't want to negatively
Speaker 3: affect the economy of Hollywood and many places abroad. But
Speaker 3: we have to fight for our future because otherwise it's
Speaker 3: only going to get worse from here. And so this
Speaker 3: is a historic moment, just like the residuals thing was
Speaker 3: in the sixties, Just like when the Internet first started
Speaker 3: and writers had to first fight to get paid for
Speaker 3: you know, their work being used on the internet and
Speaker 3: that kind of thing. This is another one of those
Speaker 3: mile marker moments where we have to stand up.
Speaker 1: I hope this helped. I hope you understand a little
Speaker 1: bit more of why this is going on and maybe
Speaker 1: what's to come. And we'll follow this and if you know,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear your comments, leave them in the
Speaker 1: comment section below or shoot us a DM at the
Speaker 1: Most Dramatic Pod Ever. But thank you so much, and Elsie,
Speaker 1: thank you for doing this.
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you Fran for doing this.
Speaker 1: Thank you Fran, and I hope you enjoyed us opening
Speaker 1: up the playbook once again. We'll talk to you next
Speaker 1: time because we have a lot more to talk about.
Speaker 1: Thanks for at Follow us on Instagram at the Most
Speaker 1: Dramatic Pod Ever and make sure to write us a
Speaker 1: review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: next time.