Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season two ninety six,
Speaker 1: episode one of Derdly's Guysay production of My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
Speaker 1: into america shared consciousness. And it is Tuesday, July eighteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, very oh yeah, some great. It's it's Nelson
Speaker 2: Mandela International Day, the National Sour Candy Day, World Listening Day,
Speaker 2: because you're doing that right now, National Tropical Fruit Day,
Speaker 2: and actually good topic or at least related to the
Speaker 2: top of we're talking about today, or at least tangentially.
Speaker 2: It's National caviard Day as well, so just imagine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, I just have to act like I didn't
Speaker 1: know most celebrating to seem like a man of the people.
Speaker 2: I had no dripping down your face.
Speaker 1: So much caveat off. Have the seven layered dip that's
Speaker 1: just seven different types of caviare, dude.
Speaker 2: But the good stuff in the bottom there, it's all
Speaker 2: premit precires.
Speaker 1: To top claimed flesh. Huh. Well, my name is Jack
Speaker 1: O'Brien aka Barbenheimer, Girl, Destroyer of your WORDLDS melt like plastic,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic, louse your golden hair destruction everywhere. Radiation life
Speaker 1: ends by your creation. Barbenheimer, Lake of Fire. Oh oh yeah, Barbenheimer,
Speaker 1: Lake of Fire. Oh yeah uh. That is courtesy of
Speaker 1: Discorduroy on the Discord. M hmm, thank you, Michael, Barbara,
Speaker 1: and I'm thrilled to be joined as always by my
Speaker 1: co host, mister Miles.
Speaker 2: Gram Miles Gray.
Speaker 3: Akay, in the gravy, you can up your podcast ease
Speaker 3: in the gravy. You can host mad bousies in the gravy.
Speaker 3: You can smoke mad please in the gravy.
Speaker 2: Okay, shout out to me, because I still have Village
Speaker 2: people on the brain. Yeah. And you know what's wild,
Speaker 2: I didn't mention the when we're talking about it, Like
Speaker 2: half of their songs are like derivations of the hits.
Speaker 2: So like these other songs I'd never heard of had
Speaker 2: like almost sad like nearly the same structure and like
Speaker 2: key changes or like three choruses were in your mind.
Speaker 2: You're like, wait, hold on, this is my show man,
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, no, it's not. They're saying something
Speaker 2: completely different. Anyway, shout out them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to give a shout out to Zeke
Speaker 1: Gangage's listener smooth Lou, I believe is the name smooth
Speaker 1: Lou who solved the mystery? Did you see this on Twitter?
Speaker 4: Wait?
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 1: Grand Puba? It's a Grand Puba track from nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: And did you go back and you checked it out?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely that's the song.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, wasn't it It's just a track called two thousand?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know why it took us so long. I
Speaker 1: guess it like didn't didn't really hit that much?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: Wow wow, Yeah, check out that song. It's okay, kind
Speaker 1: of it's kind of good. I wow, stand to buy
Speaker 1: my reference two thousand?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still love it. Okay, the energy is still there. Wow,
Speaker 2: shout out hiking. Honestly, you guys, fucking between all of y'all,
Speaker 2: we don't need Google, and we could have googled it,
Speaker 2: but it was hard to just google two thousand song
Speaker 2: lyric really.
Speaker 1: So Smooth Lou great, great Twitter handle, even better at
Speaker 1: saving my ass from making it seem like I was
Speaker 1: referencing a Billy Joel's song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Smooth Lou, we owe you a hamburger.
Speaker 1: Yes, smooth Lou came through with that, said I got
Speaker 1: you fan, thanks for all you do. And then somebody
Speaker 1: else came through and vouch for smooth Lou. Was like,
Speaker 1: pretty cool, dude. I miss you, smooth Lous like forever
Speaker 1: so much. Love to Smooth Lou. Wow, this one goes
Speaker 1: out to you. All right, Miles, it's a special episode.
Speaker 1: We're talking labor.
Speaker 2: I'm talking. I'm still blown away that smoothly put. I mean,
Speaker 2: did you hear it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I started playing a little a second ago and I'm
Speaker 2: like this speaks Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, big poopa head over here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, damn all right, anyway, sorry, anyway, back to you
Speaker 2: Jack and back to you Miles. Yep, no, back to you,
Speaker 2: to you fam.
Speaker 1: This episode we are no and I'm still gonna go
Speaker 1: back to you, pal. We're talking the writer strike, the
Speaker 1: actor strike, ultimately the labor movement in general. And researching
Speaker 1: this and reading about unions and hearing people talk about
Speaker 1: the history of Hollywood. I guess a thing that I
Speaker 1: knew but hadn't really thought that much about is that
Speaker 1: Hollywood is like one of the most consistently unionized industries
Speaker 1: left in this country.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, then with that kind of visibility, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: When I think union's like I think, you know, guys
Speaker 1: on Dog like Jimmy Hoffa, you know.
Speaker 2: In the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You don't think about Hollywood. You don't think
Speaker 1: about the glitz and glamb. But I also spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time just thinking about I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a movie guy. I think the movies are just
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it gave us Star Wars, it gave us Jaws,
Speaker 2: it gave us some other movies probably, But I.
Speaker 1: Just when you look at the the history of the industry,
Speaker 1: like across the one hundred years that it has been unionized,
Speaker 1: like it's it's a pretty it's hit some pretty high highs,
Speaker 1: like an entertainment industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: For some reason, I kept thinking about this time I
Speaker 1: went over to Ireland, like in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1: I know, and I know I always talk about it.
Speaker 1: I always talk about the cuisine, brag about the cuisine.
Speaker 1: But everybody. First of all, the only thing on TV
Speaker 1: was The Simpsons, which, thank you, that was wonderful. I
Speaker 1: will take that. And also the Rachel like I'd say
Speaker 1: forty percent of the girls were rocking the Rachel from Friends,
Speaker 1: Like just the the level of like Hollywood's influence is
Speaker 1: you know, can't be overstated, especially like what's that.
Speaker 2: No I said? I mean, it's I mean. And also
Speaker 2: you kind of date everyone had the Rachel back then. Yeah,
Speaker 2: how old are you then?
Speaker 1: I was twenty like I was twenty one, I was
Speaker 1: like seven years old.
Speaker 2: Oh but I guess so too, Like Europe also had
Speaker 2: that delay of like American trends hitting about like four
Speaker 2: years later.
Speaker 1: For sure, exactly, but just I don't know, Like we
Speaker 1: talked a lot of shit about movies and TV, but
Speaker 1: like across just viewing the body of work across like
Speaker 1: it has created a great deal of iconic lasting art
Speaker 1: that like breaks through to the mainstream. And I think,
Speaker 1: I think you can draw like you would never hear
Speaker 1: these two things connected. But just in thinking about the history,
Speaker 1: like it it really is, we have that history because
Speaker 1: of unions, and we're going to talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit. And like just the fact that the creative people,
Speaker 1: the artists who drive the actual original creative ideas that
Speaker 1: like get turned into movies that like define generations, you know,
Speaker 1: like those people are protected by a union and when
Speaker 1: they're not, like you see, what we'll talk about what
Speaker 1: studios want to do with them what these streaming companies
Speaker 1: are trying to do with them. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: an interesting conversation that I think kind of stretches the
Speaker 1: brain in a lot of different directions. And also you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's an important moment.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. And I mean I think, and we talked
Speaker 2: about this off mic before of like, you know, when
Speaker 2: else have you seen in like union members with the
Speaker 2: kind of visibility that the WGA or SAG does, right,
Speaker 2: you know, And I think there's a lot of attention
Speaker 2: on this obviously because of like the nature of the
Speaker 2: work that people do, but I think there's there's something
Speaker 2: that I'd imagine a lot of other industries are looking
Speaker 2: at to see how this has resolved, whether like they
Speaker 2: you know, they go the cynical route like we've heard
Speaker 2: in like leaked quotes where they're like, yeah, wait till
Speaker 2: they start getting evicted and then they'll start you know,
Speaker 2: like we'll use the loss of housing as a negotiating tactic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll see how cynical it goes, or if you know,
Speaker 2: I think I have a feeling that after these studios
Speaker 2: see just how devoid of talent and energy some of
Speaker 2: their like marketing things have been without the people that
Speaker 2: you know, make the shit come to life. Yea that
Speaker 2: they may, they may come around, but hey, we shall see.
Speaker 2: And I think that's where we have a great.
Speaker 1: I think we're also going to end up talking about
Speaker 1: we haven't had the conversation yet, We're about to have it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think we'll end up talking about AI
Speaker 1: because I think it's also revealing about just where their
Speaker 1: priorities are on the studio side, that that that the
Speaker 1: AI side is so important. Like yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: if they're fooled by the chat GPT or if they
Speaker 1: think that the chat GPT is going to be good
Speaker 1: enough to fool audiences, but I.
Speaker 2: Think they think it's like if they can just get
Speaker 2: that domino to fall, then all their problems are solved.
Speaker 2: They can reap all the benefits. But it like sounds
Speaker 2: like someone who's like trying to get like an English
Speaker 2: Lit PhD or something. He's like, we should be allowed
Speaker 2: to use spark notes in the exams, and whenever we'd
Speaker 2: like I'm being serious and they're like, no, I think
Speaker 2: you found a shortcut that's you need.
Speaker 1: All right, Well we are thrilled to be joined by
Speaker 1: someone with a seat at the table during the liberations.
Speaker 1: Adam Conover. So we'll be right back with Adam. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back, and we're back, and we are thrilled
Speaker 1: to be joined in our third sea by a very
Speaker 1: friend of comedian, writer, executive producer, TV host and labor
Speaker 1: organizer who you know from Adam Ruins everything his podcast
Speaker 1: factually and being out in these streets picketing, acting as
Speaker 1: member of the negotiating committee, serving on the WGA West
Speaker 1: Board of Directors. It's Adam Connor and it's love to
Speaker 1: be here.
Speaker 4: Was that was all my credits? I have a lot
Speaker 4: of titles now having those things I'm not doing now
Speaker 4: because I'm on strike. I'm not a TV host right now.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean that things nascent.
Speaker 4: When it's all over, I'll be back on your screens,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: There you go, yes, yes, yes, Well thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine this is a busy time for you
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was just sounds like I got nothing going on.
Speaker 4: I was just out on the street, you know, for
Speaker 4: for three four hours ninety degree heat with a sign,
Speaker 4: talking to people. It's a blast, man, it's I'm having
Speaker 4: so much fun out there. The solidarity feels so good.
Speaker 4: It's just it's great.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean people are making sacrifices, you know, but
Speaker 4: there's our political directors, wonderful woman Rachel Torres. She's brilliant.
Speaker 4: She told me, uh, you know, if you're smiling while
Speaker 4: you're sacrificing, if you're having a good time while you're
Speaker 4: making the sacrifice, then they can't beat you. And I
Speaker 4: think that that is really true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, big cheerleader smiles out there on the Yeah, people,
Speaker 1: it's it's a party.
Speaker 4: A guy brought a sound system to Netflix, and now
Speaker 4: he's playing like sort of mid tempo like dance music.
Speaker 4: You know. It feels like kind of that kind of
Speaker 4: that outdoor day club like pool club kind of people
Speaker 4: almost feel like they should be having frozen cocktails walking
Speaker 4: around like it's just the vibes are good. And then
Speaker 4: he's like remixed like people giving speeches like fran Dresser's speech.
Speaker 4: Someone told me he like remixed one of my tiktoks
Speaker 4: into a song of like, you know, so you want
Speaker 4: to pick a line, line, line, line line, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: You sent him a takedown notice immediately, I'm yeah, better
Speaker 1: who signed off? But yeah, I mean we were talking
Speaker 1: with this feels like a huge moment for labor. These
Speaker 1: are you know, with the w g A some of
Speaker 1: the most influential, like union eye as union protected workers
Speaker 1: on the planet. But with with actors, with the Screen
Speaker 1: Actors Guild, you know, the.
Speaker 4: Faces, the beauty, beauty and brains coming together, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know, just kind of thinking about this,
Speaker 1: think about the history of labor and unions in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: It feels like Hollywood to this point. The fact that
Speaker 1: unions have been a presence in Hollywood for as long
Speaker 1: as they have. It's a great learning moment for why
Speaker 1: capitalism doesn't work without unions.
Speaker 4: Basically, yeah, well it's an open question whether capitalism works
Speaker 4: at all, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think you're arguing, yeah, like unions are the
Speaker 2: thing that keep people from being like, oh, Marx was
Speaker 2: definitely right, just right, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I sort of don't get into Marxism socialism.
Speaker 4: I don't do iss. I just know that the union
Speaker 4: and the union structure is the only way to fight back, right,
Speaker 4: and so you know, the union is a hammer, and
Speaker 4: I grabbed the hammer and I start smashing shit and
Speaker 4: it's really fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, the only reason people even think of writing, acting,
Speaker 4: directing as being lucrative jobs. You know, like if you say, oh,
Speaker 4: my cousin's a actor in LA, you might be, oh,
Speaker 4: he's if he's working, he's making good money. Right, That's
Speaker 4: what an assumption is. That's only because we've had strong
Speaker 4: unions in this town for ninety years. The Writers School
Speaker 4: was founded ninety years ago, and it's only because those
Speaker 4: unions went on strike. The last time the writers and
Speaker 4: actors went on strike together was nineteen sixty and in
Speaker 4: that negotiation, we won our health and pension plans, and
Speaker 4: we won the existence of residual payments, which are the
Speaker 4: payments we get every time the product is aired. Right,
Speaker 4: And that's why I have a health and pension today
Speaker 4: is because they went on strike. Then that's why I've
Speaker 4: gotten residuals to help tide me through the slow periods
Speaker 4: of my career is because of those and writers going
Speaker 4: on strike. And so now it's our turn to do
Speaker 4: the same thing. And that's why we're out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. As a thought experiment, I was trying to think of, like,
Speaker 1: what do we think the last ninety years of movies
Speaker 1: and TV look like if the industries were never unionized.
Speaker 4: YouTube looks on YouTube, Yeah, you know, people barely scraping by.
Speaker 4: Or it looks like I mean, look at Korea for instance,
Speaker 4: there was or the anime industry. Right, those are two
Speaker 4: extremely popular. You know, they make a lot of media
Speaker 4: that's consumed by a lot of people, and the people
Speaker 4: who make the media aren't able to make a living.
Speaker 4: There was a great piece in the La Times a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks ago about how the guy who created
Speaker 4: Squid Game. You know, they and Netflix trotted this guy's
Speaker 4: story out as a hero story. You know, Oh, he
Speaker 4: tried to make the show for ten years and he
Speaker 4: couldn't make it until Netflix gave him a chance. They
Speaker 4: became a worldwide hit. Right, that guy made from the
Speaker 4: first season, which was a again worldwide smash like Game
Speaker 4: of Thrones level. You know, people watching it, he made
Speaker 4: two hundred thousand. Yeah, that's you know, that's a good living. Right.
Speaker 4: That's not what you should get if you made the
Speaker 4: most popular show ever, right, And that's the guy who
Speaker 4: created the show, the people who worked on the shows,
Speaker 4: and the people who create you know, your more average
Speaker 4: K dramas right that you know, you know, I hear
Speaker 4: about one or two k K dramas or K comedies
Speaker 4: a year, but you know the ones that are a
Speaker 4: little further down the down the pipe, that that the
Speaker 4: real the real fans watch. Those people are literally not
Speaker 4: making a living making television. They are writing those shows
Speaker 4: in between their day jobs, or they're working eighteen hour
Speaker 4: days and then when the show ends, they're just like, well,
Speaker 4: back to my day job. Right. And this this article.
Speaker 4: You can look up LA Times, you know, squid Game Korean.
Speaker 4: Google that and you'll find the article goes into really
Speaker 4: long detail on that. And the reason is there's no
Speaker 4: unions and Netflix is exploiting that. I mean, they talk
Speaker 4: about Netflix came into that market and said, oh, we
Speaker 4: want to you know, spread Korean content around the world, right,
Speaker 4: and they created a lot of work, They created a
Speaker 4: lot of shows, but no one's being paid because the
Speaker 4: stand the work standards are so abysmal. It's sweatshop media. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I had no idea that that was the thing.
Speaker 2: I mean again, obviously because a lot of Koreat media
Speaker 2: is so good that I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 2: a natural progression of things, and then I remember, oh,
Speaker 2: Netflix is going in like but there was a moment
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, they're going in like to the
Speaker 2: point where I was like, oh, they might. They're really
Speaker 2: trying to put their foot down in Korea. I had
Speaker 2: no ideas because they're like, yeah, man, you can get
Speaker 2: away with anything over here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, it's just like it's
Speaker 4: a car company, you know, moving to Mexico right, or
Speaker 4: to any other or you know Nike in Bangladesh, right,
Speaker 4: it's there. They are taking advantage of poor work standards
Speaker 4: to get the product a lot cheaper. And you know,
Speaker 4: why do the companies love anime? You know, it's awesome
Speaker 4: as an American you know, someone who grew up you know,
Speaker 4: trading VHS tapes of anime that it's like popular in
Speaker 4: the US now it's popular around the world. That's great.
Speaker 4: But I mean, you guys know horrible conditions that anime
Speaker 4: has made it. I mean people, people die in that.
Speaker 2: Industry, symptoms make jokes about it. I remember, and I
Speaker 2: was like, is that a joke or is that one
Speaker 2: of those Simpsons jokes? So they're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: that's real.
Speaker 4: It's awful. It's awful. And that's one of the reasons
Speaker 4: they're pumping it out, is they is they feel that
Speaker 4: they can, you know, get more content for less dollars. Now.
Speaker 4: The thing about that, though, is that American American media
Speaker 4: is still the most popular valuable media in the world.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: It's still what people want to watch, like from a
Speaker 4: big budget thing like Avatar too, right to you know,
Speaker 4: even you know, reruns of old sitcoms. Right, people are
Speaker 4: still watching Friends in Australia, you know, and Ireland, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and new shows as well. Right, that is what people
Speaker 4: want to watch more than anything else, both in America
Speaker 4: and around the world. And one of the reasons for
Speaker 4: that is because the entertainment industry has been the only
Speaker 4: place that paid creators fairly for the last hundred years.
Speaker 4: You know, if you are a great writer and you
Speaker 4: want to make if you want to if you want
Speaker 4: to buy a big house of your writing, you know,
Speaker 4: where are you gonna go? Are you gonna work in journalism?
Speaker 4: Are you gonna work in novels? No, You're gonna go
Speaker 4: try to sell a big movie script. Right. That's been
Speaker 4: the pattern in Hollywood up until basically the early two thousands,
Speaker 4: where you had the best writer. Literally, Faulkner and Fitzgerald
Speaker 4: came to Hollywood right to write movies and you know,
Speaker 4: think about, well they both drank themselves to death, but
Speaker 4: too much money. Yeah, but you know that was that
Speaker 4: was the way it worked. And the companies have broken
Speaker 4: that compact and as a result, the content is getting worse. Unfortunately.
Speaker 4: You know, we're entering this Marvel period where they're trying
Speaker 4: to you know, they saying, oh, the actor doesn't matter,
Speaker 4: the writing doesn't matter. All that matters is Spider Man.
Speaker 4: People will go to see Spider Man no matter what,
Speaker 4: you know, no matter who's in the suit, no matter
Speaker 4: what he's saying. Right, And it's not actually true because
Speaker 4: you know, look at what happened with the Flash, right,
Speaker 4: they realize they can't just cram in superheroes and expect
Speaker 4: people to show up. But you know, all that that
Speaker 4: makes the CEOs think is they need to pump harder.
Speaker 4: They need to you know, get more blood out of
Speaker 4: that stone. But so these companies are destroying the compact.
Speaker 4: And why did the compact work because of the unions.
Speaker 4: We had strong unions here that that you know, meant
Speaker 4: we had good working nditions that meant people wanted to
Speaker 4: move here to Los Angeles or to New York to
Speaker 4: make the content, and we're fighting to change that, to
Speaker 4: make it the way it should be.
Speaker 1: I feel like The Flash is a good example of
Speaker 1: you know, the Flash recently came out. Indiana Jones recently
Speaker 1: came out and the primary complaint that you heard from
Speaker 1: them is creepy CGI, like terrible, weird CGI that take
Speaker 1: takes you out of it, and like effects are a
Speaker 1: frequent complaint, and you hear people like wonder why, like
Speaker 1: how this happens on some of these movies. They spent
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars in effects, and it's at least
Speaker 1: partially because the effects houses are not union, that is
Speaker 1: not a part of the industry that is protected, and
Speaker 1: so you have situations where the effects house that won
Speaker 1: the Oscar for Life of Pie is out of business
Speaker 1: by the time they get the award.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, if you talk to I've talked to
Speaker 4: people who work at effects houses from Marvel, and they're
Speaker 4: treated terribly. You know, they're they're asked to do impossible
Speaker 4: things on impossible turnarounds that you know, well, we want
Speaker 4: we want it like this, No, we want it like this,
Speaker 4: you have to change everything, but we're not going to
Speaker 4: pay you more, and you have hal so much time
Speaker 4: to do it. You know that kind of request. The
Speaker 4: people who work at these companies, you know that their
Speaker 4: careers last five years and then they burn out because
Speaker 4: they can't do it anymore. It's not like video games.
Speaker 4: And you know the proof is in the pudding. But
Speaker 4: also you know we're on we're in a new era
Speaker 4: of the special effects.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: It used to be that the special effects, the CGI
Speaker 4: was there to impress and delight the audience. Right, Oh
Speaker 4: my god, look at the terminator and terminator too. Right,
Speaker 4: he's melting. He's the melting man. It's look how cool?
Speaker 4: Or toy story? Right, look how great it looks. Now
Speaker 4: they you it as a cost cutting device. They use
Speaker 4: it in order to they're like, oh, if we just
Speaker 4: like send it all to a VFX house that's not
Speaker 4: union and make them do all the work, it's a
Speaker 4: lot cheaper. You know, if you look at the difference
Speaker 4: between look the new Mission Impossible, right, I saw it.
Speaker 4: Look it's not a good movie, but.
Speaker 1: You don't think it's an accurate depiction of AI.
Speaker 4: It is interesting that the villain is AI. Right, but
Speaker 4: the script is I don't want to get into it, right,
Speaker 4: but the action scenes, right, it's got these two incredible
Speaker 4: action sequences that are totally worth seeing in a theater.
Speaker 4: Had people hooting and hollering, great time. And why did
Speaker 4: they work so well? Because they fucking happened in real life,
Speaker 4: because they put in the effort and the craft and
Speaker 4: the time to you know, go to the place and
Speaker 4: do the stunt and shoot the thing, or to build
Speaker 4: the set, or to buy the car, or to put
Speaker 4: the person in the place right. And for movies like
Speaker 4: The Flash, they're like, just have the guys stand in
Speaker 4: front of a green screen and will make some underpaid
Speaker 4: couple bosos. Yeah you know, sorry, they're not bosos. They're
Speaker 4: great artists, but they're underpaid. They don't have enough time
Speaker 4: bring in terrible conditions. Yeah, so it's cut rate. It's
Speaker 4: sweatshop content, you know.
Speaker 1: And about another lightning portal in the sky, what if
Speaker 1: we did so it was.
Speaker 4: Coming out of portals and yeah, yeah there's portals. I'm
Speaker 4: as stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Adam, I got to ask though, right, like these
Speaker 2: costs they got to the studios, gotta cut costs because
Speaker 2: I've heard it straight from their mouths, times are tough.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah for studios. I heard Bobby Jay I'll say
Speaker 2: Igre in a very fancy way. Uh, you know, really
Speaker 2: be out here being like, you know, their their demands
Speaker 2: are unrealistic or other people. I've heard that. I've heard
Speaker 2: the thing over and over that times are hard for studios.
Speaker 2: And we've talked a lot about this, where you know,
Speaker 2: Iger's pay was what approaching twenty seven million for the year,
Speaker 2: and like people like what David Zaslov almost be like
Speaker 2: a quarter of a billion dollars in twenty twenty one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what how would you define from their perspective, It's that
Speaker 2: they're trying to inaccurately describe a problem that they maybe
Speaker 2: they have created through their own business decisions. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a wonderful answer to your own question.
Speaker 4: That's a great way to put it. I mean, look,
Speaker 4: these guys are raking it in. And let's be really clear.
Speaker 4: So writer producer pay has fallen by twenty three percent
Speaker 4: at the median over the last ten years. That's the
Speaker 4: Writer's Guild's own figures. That's total pay. Over the same time,
Speaker 4: show budgets have gone up by fifty percent. Revenue has
Speaker 4: gone up, profits have gone up for these companies, just
Speaker 4: their entertainment divisions. I'm not even talking about you know,
Speaker 4: Disney's got sports, They've got theme parks. We're not talking
Speaker 4: about that. We're just talking about literally the entertainment divisions
Speaker 4: of the companies. Revenue, profits, budgets all up while our
Speaker 4: salaries go down. At the same time, they're paying these companies,
Speaker 4: these CEOs massive, massive amounts of money. I mean, Bob
Speaker 4: Iger when he made those comments, he had just negotiated
Speaker 4: for himself an additional two years and he's making an
Speaker 4: extra fifty million by a year. That guy doesn't fucking
Speaker 4: need that money. He's already incredibly wealthy if you look
Speaker 4: at the aggregate he's made over the last ten years.
Speaker 4: How dare he go on television and plead poverty while
Speaker 4: the rest of us are not able to make a living,
Speaker 4: while his workforce is not able to make health insurance
Speaker 4: or you know, make a living anymore.
Speaker 1: It's revolting, but it's line goes up shit right. It's
Speaker 1: the their answering to the Wall Street and for Wall Street,
Speaker 1: it's never enough, like when you have a good year,
Speaker 1: that that that you should keep being better years, Like
Speaker 1: that's what we want to consistently see that line also.
Speaker 4: These But but it's not just that, because growth is
Speaker 4: growth is possible, right if you do you can do
Speaker 4: it the right way. You can pay everybody properly and
Speaker 4: make good shit that people actually like and make more money.
Speaker 4: That's my belief in life. And there's companies that fucking
Speaker 4: do it right. And also it's what the entertainment industry did.
Speaker 4: For a long time. A lot of people were paid
Speaker 4: shitty in the entertainment industry, you know, like the unions
Speaker 4: are the ones that you know that protected us pas.
Speaker 4: We have always been paid shittily. There's a lot of
Speaker 4: bad shit in Hollywood. But like you know, from the
Speaker 4: eighties through the two thousands, everybody liked the product. Right,
Speaker 4: We had peak TV, right, everyone had cable, We were
Speaker 4: watching ads. We were fine with it. We could watch
Speaker 4: on demand or use DVR if we needed to. You
Speaker 4: know what I mean. Everything was people were making so
Speaker 4: much money. People were going to the movie theater. The
Speaker 4: content was good, you know, and the people who made
Speaker 4: it were paid. And now what's happening. People don't like
Speaker 4: the product anymore. You know. The Netflix revolution was a lie.
Speaker 4: That they you know, the idea that you could pay
Speaker 4: fifteen dollars a month and never have to pay another
Speaker 4: penny and never watch an ad and watch every show
Speaker 4: ever made. They were lying to the public that that
Speaker 4: was possible. They destroyed a profitable business model in order
Speaker 4: to find a new one, but at the same time
Speaker 4: they kept enough of the money for themselves that the
Speaker 4: people at the top are doing better. Well, everyone else
Speaker 4: does worse, But the companies would grow more if they
Speaker 4: if they did it the right way. Period.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Golden Age of TV is a great example
Speaker 1: of the WGA working because you know, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: like the WGA, and like the things that the WGA
Speaker 1: has provided, like writers with like the ability to make
Speaker 1: a living during dry periods or whatever, like helps writers,
Speaker 1: you know, remain writers. And a lot of the best
Speaker 1: TV is created by people with the long time experience
Speaker 1: in like past successful and unsuccessful TV shows like Breaking
Speaker 1: Bad is created by a former X Files writer, like
Speaker 1: there's a big break between these Sopranos comes from a
Speaker 1: writer on Northern Exposure, like Matthew Weiner cut his teeth
Speaker 1: on Becker and in Laws before he got on sopranos.
Speaker 1: Sh Yeah, but like the you know on your episode
Speaker 1: where like where you were talking about the strike, you
Speaker 1: were talking to I think David Goodman, Yeah who and
Speaker 1: you know his family guy writer who all told a
Speaker 1: story about how he almost quit the industry but like
Speaker 1: a residual check for a show he wrote on in
Speaker 1: the past that he said like wasn't very good, but
Speaker 1: it got him through so that he could keep being
Speaker 1: a writer. And there's just all this all this information
Speaker 1: that gets passed down, Like iveryget where I heard it,
Speaker 1: but somebody was saying that like the family tree of
Speaker 1: all of the Golden Age TV shows, it all like
Speaker 1: traces back to Colombo and like that show then like
Speaker 1: created all like all the writers on that became showrunners
Speaker 1: on other shows and it just like branched down. So
Speaker 1: we magically have this period of Golden era TV. But
Speaker 1: like that doesn't happen if the television industry works the
Speaker 1: way like the industry that I think all three of
Speaker 1: us have a background in is like creating content for
Speaker 1: the Internet.
Speaker 4: And yeah, like just the.
Speaker 1: Way that we've seen that devolve over the past fifteen.
Speaker 4: Years, it doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: It doesn't exist, Like there are no guardrails and there
Speaker 2: were no ways to, you know, like ensure good outcomes
Speaker 2: for the people that were contributing to that environment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because they the company has decided to pull them,
Speaker 4: sell them for part for parts, you know. I mean,
Speaker 4: look at look, I like I play video games, right,
Speaker 4: so I like reading video game websites. There's no such
Speaker 4: thing as video game websites anymore. I mean there's sites
Speaker 4: where people upload it for free, like YouTube right right,
Speaker 4: where people put in all the work and all the
Speaker 4: risk themselves of putting up work, and then you know,
Speaker 4: if you're lucky, you get paid by YouTube if you
Speaker 4: happen to hit right right. But in terms of being
Speaker 4: somebody who's like a journalist who covers video games goes
Speaker 4: to E three interviews, people break stories right there literally
Speaker 4: are not outlets left that pay people to do this
Speaker 4: because they've been stripping them for parts. One of them
Speaker 4: that I read is Kotaku. I've read it for years.
Speaker 4: They're trying to replace those writers with AI. They're trying
Speaker 4: to like and like, what's what's the fucking point of that?
Speaker 4: Do they do? They think I'm gonna go to taku
Speaker 4: dot com to read AI generated articles. I also have
Speaker 4: chat GPT I can just ask chat GPT if I
Speaker 4: want an AI answer, why are you hiring someone to
Speaker 4: copy paste from chat GPT? What the fuck is the
Speaker 4: point of that? Why destroy your own industry? People go
Speaker 4: because they like the people.
Speaker 2: Right right, And I guess there's like that that's just
Speaker 2: like that disconnect we see like in every industry where again,
Speaker 2: there's like a motive to make sure that like you
Speaker 2: provide value to shareholders while completely like missing sight of
Speaker 2: like the actual products that are being made and like
Speaker 2: if consumers are gonna be savvy enough, because look, I
Speaker 2: love bullshit reality TV, but I like like actually well
Speaker 2: written television also, and I can already see like you
Speaker 2: like just that that shift to MAX was like sort
Speaker 2: of like a preview of like the worlds we're looking at.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, remember HBO, there's that, and then there's
Speaker 2: just all this other unscripted nonsense that fucking also is
Speaker 2: really cheap to make, and like you know, kind of
Speaker 2: maybe where things should be going if writers and actors
Speaker 2: don't get off their shit.
Speaker 4: Max is such an antithesis of the last you know
Speaker 4: of how you build a successful media company, right like HBO.
Speaker 4: There's a wonderful book about HBO. I read it this
Speaker 4: year called It's not TV, It's it's a history of HBO.
Speaker 4: From the beginning, what you realize HBO is like this,
Speaker 4: you know, starts out as just a cable company that
Speaker 4: you know, you pay extra and you can watch fights
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, right, right, and then they find
Speaker 4: this niche of oh, we can make content that doesn't
Speaker 4: exist on broadcast. Right, we can make something that's edgy.
Speaker 4: We can da da da da, Right, and they build
Speaker 4: it on exactly dream on right, this show with a
Speaker 4: price to watch that because there was boobs in it, right.
Speaker 4: But you know, they did the Larry Sanders show, they
Speaker 4: did the Sopranos, right, and they sort of create prestige.
Speaker 4: TV is created by HBO to the point where you know,
Speaker 4: by by up to you know, three or four years ago.
Speaker 4: You know, if a show comes out on HBO, you're like,
Speaker 4: I'm going to assume this show is good, right, because
Speaker 4: you know that their creative culture is HBO is putting
Speaker 4: their muscle behind that. It's got to be good. There's exceptions.
Speaker 4: There's stinkers, of course, yes, like like you know the
Speaker 4: idol or whatever. But that's the it's the cathedral of
Speaker 4: television and people know that, right, And so when Netflix
Speaker 4: comes along and all these other channels starting their streamers,
Speaker 4: what would have been the easiest thing in the world.
Speaker 4: Call the streamer HBO. Yes, people are already subscribed to
Speaker 4: HBO for fifteen bucks a month. There's a streaming service
Speaker 4: called HBO. Have HBO make more shows, keep the brand
Speaker 4: that people know, the thing people care about. They actually
Speaker 4: like HBO. It's for adults. It means something to people.
Speaker 4: It's not TV, it's HBO instead. Now HBO is a
Speaker 4: vertical underneath this mystery meat thing Max that no one's
Speaker 4: ever hurt. That's not a brand. That was literally what
Speaker 4: they called it instead of Plus. They're like, should we
Speaker 4: call it HBO Plus? No, too small, We'll call it
Speaker 4: HBO Max. Right, it's extreme HBO. And then like, but
Speaker 4: then they got rid of the part that people fucking
Speaker 4: knew and just called it Max. That's like if Disney
Speaker 4: Plus just called itself plus, right, people are there for
Speaker 4: the Disney you're not there for the Plus.
Speaker 1: I'm so mouse and then the Max ads. We're all
Speaker 1: trading on these like icons of film, Like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: things that like are completely outside of the model that
Speaker 1: they're trying to force things in the direction.
Speaker 4: Or called it fucking Warner Brothers. People know Warner Brothers,
Speaker 4: call it Warner Max. People love the people. People have
Speaker 4: been watching Warner Brothers in this country for one hundred years.
Speaker 4: Like just call it that. But instead, you know, Zoslav
Speaker 4: treats this company it's like a stock portfolio to him, right,
Speaker 4: He's like, oh, I put this in, I put that in,
Speaker 4: I put that and that's my tranch of content. That's
Speaker 4: my big batch of content. I don't give a shit
Speaker 4: what it's called, right, yeah, because his plan is to
Speaker 4: sell it or whatever he wants to do. He's he's
Speaker 4: financialized it. But that's not that's not how you build
Speaker 4: a media brand. And you know, it's it's a shame.
Speaker 4: Like it often feels stupid to say, why don't these
Speaker 4: companies like respect these old time values of having like
Speaker 4: a good media brand that people actually care about. You know,
Speaker 4: that means something to people, But like I feel stupid
Speaker 4: saying that because they don't care. They only care about money.
Speaker 4: But like they lose money by doing this, you know, like, people,
Speaker 4: how have we forgotten the lessons of the last hundred
Speaker 4: years of capitalism? Did these people go to fucking marketing school,
Speaker 4: Like it's just basic brand shit. Sorry no, but it's true.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's so reactionary, and it's everything about
Speaker 2: like whatever is good in the short term with no
Speaker 2: long term thinking. Like everybody's getting into streaming. I guess
Speaker 2: we're getting into streaming too. Wait what does it take
Speaker 2: to do that? And now we see like I mean,
Speaker 2: like with HBO Max, we saw half of the shit
Speaker 2: that was like interesting to people get absolutely vaporized. Yeah
Speaker 2: it's hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll
Speaker 1: be right back to talk more about this and AI
Speaker 1: and we're back and like big, like a movie that
Speaker 1: comes through and is like a visionary work that like
Speaker 1: that that's not that interesting to wall Street and to
Speaker 1: David's aslov because it's not something that you can replicate,
Speaker 1: and like scale is the word they use, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: and so they like the HBO of it is not
Speaker 1: interesting to him. He wants to create something where he
Speaker 1: can just churn out shit, which is I think why
Speaker 1: AI is so interesting to him.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think you can scale creativity because all
Speaker 4: you have to do is cultivate a culture of the
Speaker 4: most creative people. And have them come in the door
Speaker 4: and give them, you know, pay them appropriately, give them
Speaker 4: the right guidance they might need. And a great example
Speaker 4: of that is HBO. Right, it was a for in
Speaker 4: its pinnacle period. It was a hit factory, you know.
Speaker 4: Or you could look at something like Comedy cent right,
Speaker 4: which in its heyday really dominated comedy in America and
Speaker 4: did a good job. Like they would take comics and
Speaker 4: they would give them an album and then a uh,
Speaker 4: you know, a half hour, and or they'll give them
Speaker 4: a spot on TV, then a half hour than an hour,
Speaker 4: then maybe they get a TV show, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. It was like a whole pipeline and it
Speaker 4: made the comedy better. And they did it by just
Speaker 4: you know, saying, well, we're gonna we're gonna go find
Speaker 4: people right right. But the reason we stopped having that
Speaker 4: is because I think partially these guys wanted more control
Speaker 4: because if they were making original ideas, you know, if
Speaker 4: you look at all the biggest so so many of
Speaker 4: the movies that we're watching now a reboots of the
Speaker 4: fertile period where they actually did this right in the
Speaker 4: eighties or nineties, where stuff like Indiana Jones back to
Speaker 4: the future the Matrix, like you know these things where
Speaker 4: these movies would come out of nowhere. They would be
Speaker 4: completely original in ways that nobody had ever seen, and
Speaker 4: they would make a huge amount of money. And then
Speaker 4: they would you know, inspire other creativity. Right look at
Speaker 4: look at how the Matrix affected so much else. Right, So, uh,
Speaker 4: they but they decide they don't want to do that
Speaker 4: because it gives the creators too much power. Right then
Speaker 4: you as the executive, you're having to like give all
Speaker 4: these other people money and do what they say. Right.
Speaker 4: Then then George Lucas, right, can become the big the
Speaker 4: big executive, and you're not, right, You're just the guy
Speaker 4: who pays George Lucas. And so they don't like that.
Speaker 4: What they like is IP. The reason they like IP
Speaker 4: is because they can own it. They don't own you know,
Speaker 4: Toby Maguire. They don't own who directed the first Spider Man.
Speaker 2: What's what Sam Raimi?
Speaker 4: Thank you? And he did a great job, right, Sam
Speaker 4: Raimi was a wonderful director on those movies. They don't
Speaker 4: own either of those people, but they own Spider Man,
Speaker 4: and so they can make it that it doesn't matter
Speaker 4: who's in the suit, right, And Actually, I think that's
Speaker 4: part of why they ran with the Flash, or they
Speaker 4: didn't boot Ezra Miller out of there, because who gives
Speaker 4: a shit. People are just gonna come see the flash, right,
Speaker 4: and it's wrong. People don't like it as much. People
Speaker 4: don't enjoy this content, but that's what they're going with
Speaker 4: because it gives them the control over the business.
Speaker 2: And is that like, and you brought up AI and
Speaker 2: I'm curious, you know, just from the WGA's perspective, what
Speaker 2: that intersection is, you know, the existential threat of AI?
Speaker 2: How much of that is an existential threat because I
Speaker 2: think human taste also counts for a lot. Just like
Speaker 2: you're in your example of Kotaku and like, I'm not
Speaker 2: really looking for AI generated articles, but can you talk
Speaker 2: to that sort of what that sort of what what
Speaker 2: is sort of seen in the horizon for you know,
Speaker 2: what this how the studios really want to integrate artificial
Speaker 2: intelligence in terms of like how that could enter the
Speaker 2: creative process.
Speaker 4: So I don't give a shit about the technology, you know,
Speaker 4: I think the technology is bullshit. I think it's does
Speaker 4: some interesting things. You know. And by the way, we're
Speaker 4: talking about different types of technology that are being labeled
Speaker 4: as AI, which is a marketing term. Right, Like large
Speaker 4: language models and the ability to create a deep fake
Speaker 4: of somebody right of a dead actor are both being
Speaker 4: called AI being called AI. They're not that similar of technologies, right,
Speaker 4: but that's what we're calling them. So whatever, I'll say AI,
Speaker 4: I just want to like point that out for generating AI. Yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 4: but people are saying that, like, oh, generative AI is
Speaker 4: going to take over and replace everybody, and I don't
Speaker 4: buy this, Like, large language models are good at one thing,
Speaker 4: and that thing does not apply to nearly as much
Speaker 4: stuff as people think that it does, right.
Speaker 1: Right, the creating the illusion that the thing you're talking
Speaker 1: to or the thing that's generating the text is thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what it's caught into it. But it's just recombining shit,
Speaker 1: which is what the studios identified. Like, That's that's why
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me that they were so scared
Speaker 1: of like taking away AI, because they're like, this thing
Speaker 1: works like us, It's just recombined shit until you get
Speaker 1: something that kind of looks like the previous thing and
Speaker 1: is good enough to kind of trick people into buying
Speaker 1: a ticket.
Speaker 4: We often joke that I could replace their jobs more
Speaker 4: easily than ours. But you know the reality is that
Speaker 4: this is this technology is nothing like artificial intelligence. Like
Speaker 4: because every job in television involves talking to other people, right,
Speaker 4: reading the paper, learning about the world around you, responding
Speaker 4: to recent events, right, having conversations. None of these are
Speaker 4: things that so called AI can do. What a large
Speaker 4: language model does is you put text in one end,
Speaker 4: and it gives you text that would plausibly be a
Speaker 4: response to the first text out the other end. And
Speaker 4: it does that based on everything else that it's read. Right,
Speaker 4: that's not intelligence. That's recombining words in an interesting way
Speaker 4: that in some cases could be useful. Right, But you
Speaker 4: know it's it's the same as you know you've seen
Speaker 4: the now here's the problem. These companies might use this
Speaker 4: technology to try to undermine our wages and working conditions,
Speaker 4: and that's what we're trying to get them to stop.
Speaker 4: So I'll give you an example of this. Writing is
Speaker 4: much more than outputting text. You'd have to be stupid
Speaker 4: to think it was. Writing means not just coming up
Speaker 4: with an idea, not just writing it down. It means
Speaker 4: talking to the network guy on the phone and understanding
Speaker 4: what his needs are taking the note in a way
Speaker 4: that is smarter than what he could even think of,
Speaker 4: because that guy's actually kind of dumb, right, But you're like, okay,
Speaker 4: the note behind the note is the actually wants it
Speaker 4: like this, So that's what I'll do. Right. Then you
Speaker 4: go talk to the actor. Oh, the actor doesn't really
Speaker 4: like their lines that much because you know they're a
Speaker 4: little you know, Tom Cruise, a little bit worried. It
Speaker 4: makes them look kind of wimpy. So we have to
Speaker 4: adjust that a little bit. We have to like go
Speaker 4: have drinks with him and then like change the script.
Speaker 4: Right then, it means talking to the director and like
Speaker 4: adjusting it to fit his vision. It means understanding how
Speaker 4: much a particular scene might cost so that you can say,
Speaker 4: you know what, they're never going to be able to
Speaker 4: shoot that. Let me, you know, combine these two scenes
Speaker 4: and that way it'll be cheaper and the line producer
Speaker 4: won't yell at me. Right, and then the line producer
Speaker 4: comes and yells at you anyway, you have changed the
Speaker 4: scene again, blah blah blah blah. Then you go to
Speaker 4: set and you watch the actor and you say, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, the actually this line the way you're saying,
Speaker 4: it doesn't mean what you think it means, Like, it's
Speaker 4: gonna be confusing. So could you, like, let's adjust the
Speaker 4: line a little bit, you know, et cetera. Doing that
Speaker 4: on set, then it means going to the edit, going
Speaker 4: to post production and watching the episode and saying, oh, man,
Speaker 4: this episode's five minutes too long. We have to cut something.
Speaker 4: What can we cut without losing anything important? Oh, here's
Speaker 4: a creative fix. Let's have the actor like say this
Speaker 4: little line of adr dialogue and it will bring him
Speaker 4: back in and that'll solve the problem. Right. All of
Speaker 4: those things are writing. That's what it means to be
Speaker 4: a writer in Hollywood. Okay, it's not outputting text. However,
Speaker 4: the people who run these companies are stupid and ignorant
Speaker 4: enough to think that all out writing is is outputting
Speaker 4: text because they never work with us or talk to us. Right.
Speaker 4: Ted Sarandos has not spoken with a writer in ten years. Right,
Speaker 4: So they are likely to be sold a bill of
Speaker 4: goods by some tech company. Some tech company coming to
Speaker 4: them and saying, hey, guess what we made a super AI.
Speaker 4: You just input all your old scripts and we'll output
Speaker 4: new movies for you. And then you won't need writers anymore.
Speaker 4: And so what they'll do is they'll say, Okay, here's
Speaker 4: the really great script that the AI wrote. We just
Speaker 4: need somebody to punch it up, take our notes, go
Speaker 4: talk to the actor, go to set, go to post.
Speaker 4: Oh but none of that's writing. That's just producing. So
Speaker 4: you're not going to get paid as a writer. You're
Speaker 4: not a writer, you're a producer. Like no, the human
Speaker 4: who does all that is still doing all of the writing.
Speaker 4: They're just going to take some piece of shit and
Speaker 4: make it work. But they but they may not be
Speaker 4: paid as a writer. And that is what we are
Speaker 4: fighting to prevent now. That's in writing. Actors have different
Speaker 4: issues where they're worried about their likenesses and that's an
Speaker 4: immediate threat that could happen with them. The AMPTP literally
Speaker 4: proposed that for background actors. These are the people who
Speaker 4: are in the background of scenes. And it's not a
Speaker 4: highly paid job, but it is a professional job that
Speaker 4: people who do it are good at it, and it's
Speaker 4: something you should be able to earn a living at
Speaker 4: because it takes a full day, you know, and people
Speaker 4: do it, you know, every day of the week. It's
Speaker 4: something that they need to make to make movies and TV.
Speaker 4: So the AMPTP, who are negotiating against literally proposed that
Speaker 4: background actors would be paid one day's wages, they would
Speaker 4: be scanned in to an AI on their first day,
Speaker 4: and then the company would then own that likeness in
Speaker 4: perpetuity and could do whatever they wanted to with it. Now,
Speaker 4: I want to be really clear, this is not some
Speaker 4: fancy new technology. This is something they could have done
Speaker 4: two years ago. Right. It's just like digital scanning, Like
Speaker 4: any actor who's worked in a movie on vfxkift digitally scanned.
Speaker 4: The difference is they want to steal our likenesses right
Speaker 4: and own them in perpetuity. It's the business practice that's
Speaker 4: the problem, and that like incense, the sag after negotiating committee,
Speaker 4: and that's why they're on strike.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean makes sense. My grandparents were. They they
Speaker 2: made a living off of background acting, like in the
Speaker 2: nineties after they were retired, because my uncle was like
Speaker 2: in the industry and he's like, man, they need to
Speaker 2: get out of the house, they need something to do,
Speaker 2: and like I talk about it on the show all
Speaker 2: the time, they were like playing like the old black
Speaker 2: couple and like so many movies in nineties, things like
Speaker 2: Jerry Maguire Deep Impact and things like that, and I
Speaker 2: saw firsthand for them like that it gave them all
Speaker 2: kinds of benefits. And they're not even the people that
Speaker 2: are like the stars, you know what I mean that
Speaker 2: there's still a way to even have a living from
Speaker 2: just being you know, like being available and wanting to
Speaker 2: participate in these productions. So yet to hear then that
Speaker 2: they just want to reduce human beings to basically like
Speaker 2: reusable facial fonts that they can just replicate willy nilly
Speaker 2: like is Yeah, it's it's definitely disconcerting. And I think
Speaker 2: there's similar things even happening with podcasting too, where you
Speaker 2: hear so much too about being like creating like vocal
Speaker 2: models to be able to like transpose things into all
Speaker 2: kinds of different languages or things like that, and then
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, that's you begin to see the stickiness there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can do that now with like one
Speaker 1: minute's worth of talking, and I think we have given
Speaker 1: them millions of minutes worth talking, so we're pretty fucked the.
Speaker 2: Language that that model better be fucking good based on material.
Speaker 4: The idea, but just the fundamental idea that people would
Speaker 4: listen or watch AI generated content is moronic.
Speaker 1: But it will, Like that's the thing with the media,
Speaker 1: like the online media world, Like it will like they
Speaker 1: don't give a shit the people who are making it.
Speaker 1: Like there's this tweet that screencap from Ashley Clark at
Speaker 1: Underscore ash Underscore Clark, that's just a screen cap of
Speaker 1: this like outbrain article and it says it's a picture
Speaker 1: of Vince Vaughan and it says it's no big secret
Speaker 1: why Van vaught isn't around anymore sponsored van but it's
Speaker 1: it's just the AI misfiring. But it's enough to like,
Speaker 1: you know that that used to Like it's just been
Speaker 1: a slow degradation as they fucked the people out of
Speaker 1: creating that sort of content that had any talent or
Speaker 1: you know, interest in making it good. And that I think,
Speaker 1: like the union, this strike is what is standing between
Speaker 1: us and just a world of fucking mediocrity, like just
Speaker 1: the studios getting their way. Like so just from the
Speaker 1: consumer's perspective, like even if you don't understand that, like
Speaker 1: the you know, labor is incredibly important and increasingly so
Speaker 1: going forward, Like just from what you're going to be
Speaker 1: seeing like the movies and TV shows you're going to
Speaker 1: be streaming, Like this is what is standing between you
Speaker 1: and a future of like turning on Netflix and seeing
Speaker 1: like some shit like Van.
Speaker 2: Vaught like in Love Is Born, the dating reality show. Huh,
Speaker 2: like these scripts that make sense, Like that's what the
Speaker 2: AI did. They know better than us. Yeah, we're not
Speaker 2: really good with the written word.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, and it's and by the way, it's like
Speaker 4: it's getting better so fast soon it's gonna be good.
Speaker 4: I'll believe it when I fucking see it, right, Like
Speaker 4: they're trying to give you Van Vaught right now. Yeah
Speaker 4: you know, uh, give me a give me a like
Speaker 4: miss me with the with the like oh you you
Speaker 4: have to bow down before AI, because I'm pretty sure
Speaker 4: it's gonna be great later, like fuck off, Like that's.
Speaker 2: Let's preemptively fail like full before it.
Speaker 1: Huh really And yeah, to your point, I think we've
Speaker 1: seen like the degradation happening as it's gone more like
Speaker 1: I do think there's a huge overlap with what these
Speaker 1: chat gpt like AI like quote unquote AIS are doing
Speaker 1: and what like studio executives do with the combination and
Speaker 1: recombination of shit. And it's like for the past, we
Speaker 1: have seen things trend toward mediocrity in the world of movies,
Speaker 1: and you're just seeing, like, you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: eventually they could get to a world where an AI
Speaker 1: chat GPT variety could shit out something similar to like
Speaker 1: Jurassic World or Star Trek, the Star Trek that was
Speaker 1: basically like mapping the plot of Star Wars onto Star
Speaker 1: Trek characters, or you know, the The Lion King live action,
Speaker 1: And like, these are movies that make money and fool
Speaker 1: you enough to buy the ticket, but then like it
Speaker 1: just doesn't have a cultural imprint. It's like a copy
Speaker 1: of a copy that just sort of tails off.
Speaker 4: And I mean the fact that they even call those
Speaker 4: Lion King movies live action. They're not live action, their
Speaker 4: computer animated. You think they got a real lion to talk.
Speaker 4: It's an animated movie. Yeah, it's animated, just like the
Speaker 4: last one. What the fuck.
Speaker 2: Are they right?
Speaker 4: And yes, it's chum right. It's like, hey, we can
Speaker 4: pay like a bunch of overworked VFX people nothing to
Speaker 4: turn this shit out rather than make a real movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they'll never come up with Jurassic Park. Or
Speaker 1: you know, the original Star Trek or the original Star Wars,
Speaker 1: and so this will be what we will have. We'll
Speaker 1: just have pastiche will have just you know, a flat,
Speaker 1: flattened out version of mediocrity, and like we will have
Speaker 1: lost one of the great things that America ever created.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and look, that's why I believe the Enderdament industry
Speaker 4: is one of the great things in America has ever created.
Speaker 4: It's it's popular art. A lot of it is direk
Speaker 4: but you know, you watch the reason people love it
Speaker 4: is they watch it and they go, that's fucking art.
Speaker 4: It's art to speaks to me, you know what, And
Speaker 4: it's it's great art. And some of it, you know,
Speaker 4: films are Film is one of the great American art
Speaker 4: forms that we invented here. It's like right fucking next
Speaker 4: to jazz, right in terms of great American art forms
Speaker 4: that were invented in America. And the reason we're on
Speaker 4: strike is not to save the art form. It's not
Speaker 4: to save movies. We're on strike to save our careers.
Speaker 4: And it's an economic struggle, but it's it's something we
Speaker 4: all give a shit about, and it's it's something that
Speaker 4: I hope we can help reverse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you just like in your long view? Right?
Speaker 2: I mean, like we talked about the up top that
Speaker 2: you know, there's the more cynical strategy seem to be
Speaker 2: some studio executors are like, well, let's just see if
Speaker 2: we can wait them out until they lose their housing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, what's your long view of how obviously I
Speaker 2: see how can did the writers are and now actors
Speaker 2: are to making like ensuring that things are better not
Speaker 2: just for themselves but for future people that take this path.
Speaker 2: But I mean, how are you looking at it? And
Speaker 2: obviously I can see how energized you are, so I
Speaker 2: know that, like you, there's optimism, But what is it
Speaker 2: like from that end to hear the fucking people that
Speaker 2: you're trying to negotiate and hear such like cynical bullshit
Speaker 2: like that that they're like, well, we have more money
Speaker 2: honestly in the end, and we'll just drive them out
Speaker 2: of dollars maybe as a negotiating time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's it's all we did. This one
Speaker 4: is laugh I mean in deadline, the people for the
Speaker 4: companies literally said they were gonna starve us out until
Speaker 4: we lose our homes like right, And it was the
Speaker 4: dumbest thing to say, because it was like an old
Speaker 4: playbook where they used to try to like slip stuff
Speaker 4: into the trades to scare us. You know, that's that's
Speaker 4: was their playbook was. You know, we'll we'll try to
Speaker 4: convince the writers to fold because we're gonna last longer
Speaker 4: than them. It was tough talk. They didn't realize that
Speaker 4: they said it on the Internet and that like the
Speaker 4: whole world could see it and it would result in
Speaker 4: an out pouring of support because they literally they're they're
Speaker 4: saying they're gonna put their make they're gonna make their
Speaker 4: writers homeless, like what the fuck? Right, Like it's reprehensible,
Speaker 4: It's no one could hear this and be on the
Speaker 4: side of the person who said that, Like, what the
Speaker 4: fuck are they talking about? And it's it's evil to
Speaker 4: say that. It's on the face of it evil and
Speaker 4: it's a it's against every American value and so you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's ludicrous that they said this. Multiple people from
Speaker 4: multiple streamers and studios said this to a reporter multiple times,
Speaker 4: like go read the article, he's source a rag. But
Speaker 4: they do their reporting, you know, so you know, all
Speaker 4: we can really do is laugh. I mean and also
Speaker 4: by the way show that they were panicking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think it's kind of everywhere right now.
Speaker 2: I mean, like this whole moment, it's not just you,
Speaker 2: it's Ups, it's waffle House, it's Starbucks, it's Amazon. We're
Speaker 2: really like at this this real inflection point where like
Speaker 2: the greed and disconnect of like C suites to like
Speaker 2: actual how like people do a job like is now
Speaker 2: really bubbling up to the surface. And now like they're
Speaker 2: kind of confused like wait, wait, oh, it's that bad.
Speaker 2: And I hope that this you know that you know,
Speaker 2: all of you are successful like in this battle, because
Speaker 2: I think it's it's really important, and I have a
Speaker 2: feeling that it'll affect a lot of other things happening
Speaker 2: in the country too.
Speaker 4: Look, it's the same battle that everyone in America is facing.
Speaker 4: Right What's happened to us is over the last twenty years,
Speaker 4: the companies have figured out how to take the money
Speaker 4: from our pockets that came from our labor and keep
Speaker 4: it for themselves. That's it. Yeah, So why is it
Speaker 4: that in America right now we have a record low
Speaker 4: on employment rate and people can't afford homes, they can't
Speaker 4: afford school for the kids, they can't afford medical care.
Speaker 4: Why is that. It's because the same thing has happened
Speaker 4: to everybody. This is what capitalism has done to us all,
Speaker 4: and so we're fighting back against it, and they're you know,
Speaker 4: we're going to win, and we're gonna save our industry
Speaker 4: and we're going to show everyone that this is how
Speaker 4: you can do it. You can do it with a union.
Speaker 4: And it's hard to form a union. We're lucky because
Speaker 4: we already have strong unions, as we have for ninety years.
Speaker 4: But why do we have them because workers started them
Speaker 4: and the conditions in which they started, the conditions in
Speaker 4: which the Writers Guild was founded ninety years ago were
Speaker 4: far more inimical than the conditions are today. You know,
Speaker 4: we had people who writers who never talked to each
Speaker 4: other it working for these giant companies that you know,
Speaker 4: hired and fired them constantly. They had no credit, nobody
Speaker 4: thought they mattered at all, and they just talked to
Speaker 4: each other and built a community and started a union.
Speaker 4: Took them ten years to get the union recognized, took
Speaker 4: years past that to get a contract. But because they
Speaker 4: put in that time and effort for years when nobody
Speaker 4: thought it was possible. All their friends said, you're stupid,
Speaker 4: they said, is this going to work? I don't feel right.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I'm kind of worried, you know, like
Speaker 4: all that shit happened to them, just like what happened
Speaker 4: to you if you started a union in your workplace,
Speaker 4: because they did it. I have a health intention plan, yeah,
Speaker 4: and one of the best in the country that I'm
Speaker 4: very proud to have, although I'm going to lose it
Speaker 4: in a couple of months because I have worked in
Speaker 4: a little while. So hopefully the strike, when the strike
Speaker 4: is over, I'll get it. I'll get a job so
Speaker 4: I can keep getting that reimbursement for my therapist.
Speaker 1: There you go. Well, Adam, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time during what I'm assuming it's a crazy
Speaker 1: busy period. We really appreciate you talking to us and
Speaker 1: fighting the good fight. Mans.
Speaker 4: Keep doing it, guys, It's so wonderful to be here,
Speaker 4: and thanks for your support. And oh, let me plug
Speaker 4: by the way. Two things. First of all, I am
Speaker 4: not working for television and film right now. I got
Speaker 4: to make a living somehow. I'm on tour as a
Speaker 4: stand up comic. So if you live in Buffalo, Providence,
Speaker 4: Rhode Island, Saint Louis, or oh god, what's the last one? Baltimore,
Speaker 4: please go to Adam Conover dot net. You can find
Speaker 4: tickets and tour dates there. I've got a brand new
Speaker 4: hour stand up. If you want to support the strike,
Speaker 4: you can donate to the Entertainment Community Fund. This is
Speaker 4: a fund that gives money to film television workers, you know, writers, actors,
Speaker 4: crew members, ununionized people who are PAS, people like that
Speaker 4: who are not able to pay their rent or their
Speaker 4: medical costs, whether because of the strike or for some
Speaker 4: other reason. So if you go to Entertainmentcommunity dot org
Speaker 4: and click donate to Film and TV Workers, you can, uh,
Speaker 4: you can directly support not just the strike but all
Speaker 4: film and TV workers, and and donating money of that
Speaker 4: does help us stay on the picket line longer. So
Speaker 4: we we really appreciate.
Speaker 1: You amazing, well, thanks so much.
Speaker 4: Man, awesome, thank you guys.
Speaker 1: All right, that was our conversation with Adam khan Over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was really going hard on David Aslov.
Speaker 1: I know, I didn't like that part, and we were
Speaker 1: kind of cowards, Loki.
Speaker 2: We were kind of cowards from should have pushed back.
Speaker 1: Very nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 1: I had all these questions about, like if he feels
Speaker 1: guilty because the billionaire guy who owns Cardier like talked
Speaker 1: about how he's losing scared, he's scared man like think
Speaker 1: about his sleep.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, it's so again it's we're this is
Speaker 2: fucking everywhere. I think that's what's really wild is that, Like,
Speaker 2: it's human beings are just reaching that natural limit where
Speaker 2: you can only toil for so long and not get
Speaker 2: what is o to you to just live, to be
Speaker 2: able to put a roof over your head, eat, support
Speaker 2: a family, all that. And yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 2: right now it's it's a huge lot of eyes on
Speaker 2: them because again, these are probably the most visible union
Speaker 2: members yeah on the planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hey man, like I said, it's no big secret
Speaker 1: why Van Bought isn't around anymore. Oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: what we're facing. That is what we're facing.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: Wait till people start listening to the Dolly ze get.
Speaker 1: That's like I kept thinking about when we were talking.
Speaker 1: I kept thinking about the sixty minutes thing where Scott
Speaker 1: Pelly was like and the chet GPT finished Ernest Hemingway's
Speaker 1: story the like six words baby shoes for sale, never worn,
Speaker 1: and like added like a parent, a mother and a
Speaker 1: father character and a third character was like, so it
Speaker 1: like ruined the fucking thing that you're talking about, but
Speaker 1: it's just like churned out more and be right pressed
Speaker 1: by that. Yeah, it added on to it created a
Speaker 1: whole baby shoes for Sale universe, shared cinematic universe. Anyways,
Speaker 1: good conversation. I feel like I know more about AI.
Speaker 1: I feel like I know more about this moment in
Speaker 1: the labor struggle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just yeah, one dimension of a very large one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: across the fucking world basically, And yeah, make sure you
Speaker 2: guys check. We will have in the foot and oaks.
Speaker 2: You know, Adam's tour dates and stuff like that, so
Speaker 2: be sure to catch him on the road because he's
Speaker 2: it's actually it's actually really funny.
Speaker 1: Turns out is actually really funny.
Speaker 2: God damn all right, people find you at Miles of
Speaker 2: Gray wherever they got at symbols, I'm there. And then also,
Speaker 2: thank you to everybody who started listening and subscribing to
Speaker 2: The Good Thief the new podcast. Please continue to subscribe.
Speaker 2: I've been listening and reviewing all that. Episode two comes
Speaker 2: out tomorrow Wednesday, where we go even deeper into the
Speaker 2: mystery that is Vasili's Body of Ghostash and also I'll
Speaker 2: just check out Mad.
Speaker 1: Boosties worth the price of admission. But here, dude, it's
Speaker 1: so good.
Speaker 2: I can't I'm actually like, I like, I know, I
Speaker 2: recorded it. I was like hosting stuff like that, but
Speaker 2: hearing it all come together, I'm so blown away what
Speaker 2: they did. The kaleidoscope shout out man, guess, shout out
Speaker 2: Oz and everybody over there. Yeah. Yeah, like it moves
Speaker 2: like a movie baby, so easy to listen to. It's
Speaker 2: like a good gateway pod if you want people to
Speaker 2: dip their toe. So anyway, I'm done. Two in my horn.
Speaker 1: Yep that toe. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Jack Underscore. O'Brien. That's gonna do it for us today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: daily's like as a production by Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the Heart Radio Wrap
Speaker 1: Apple podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows. All right,
Speaker 1: that's gonna do it for us this morning, back this
Speaker 1: afternoon to tell you what's trending. We talk to you
Speaker 1: all day.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye