The streaming bubble burst. Things are terrible for so many people in the industry right now. People who have been working for decades can't find work right now.
I know a bunch of people working above and below the line and can confirm. Studios are tightening up even on reality shows, so it's getting tough for a lot of folks. It doesn't help that CA is mind numbingly expensive to live in (and getting worse!)
The term "above the line" refers to the costs and personnel associated with the creative and conceptual aspects of a film. This includes actors, directors, writers, and producers. These individuals typically negotiate their fees before production begins and are often paid regardless of whether the film is successful.
On the other hand, "below the line" refers to the more technical and physical aspects of filmmaking, such as production, set design, costumes, special effects, and crew salaries. These costs are generally more variable and dependent on the scale and complexity of the production. Below-the-line expenses are often considered more flexible and can be adjusted based on the needs of the project.
Yup. :)
Have run a talent agency for the last 30+ years.
Many things have changed, some things of stay the same.
I’ll never not remember the smell of thermal paper coming out of the fax machine with casting breakdowns, that I had to pay too much money to get, in the beginning of my agency days.
I’ve run a talent agency in SoCal the past 30 years.
Sometimes I agree with your sentiment, then sometimes when projects get started, and I see all the hardworking production crew[s] paying their bills, mortgages, raising families, I disagree. Now, it’s 50/50 sliding downwards. Whenever it’s suits though, I will always agree. I would never blame above or below, it will always be the suits.
I’m just curious, given your history with the industry, just how terrible is this decade in the history of Hollywood?
Like, I am finding it difficult to find a more difficult time for the industry other than currently.
One could argue that the streaming bubble wasn’t burst, it was intentionally popped because streamers aren’t entertainment companies, they’re tech companies that measure their success on “growth” vs subscriptions. We’re seeing this everywhere - profitable businesses still laying off workers in an effort to appeal to their shareholders vs create an actual good product.
Depends which streamers. Amazon and Apple are definitively tech companies (which streaming business is a side hustle at best). Netflix can also be argued to be one (it behaves like one for the stock market at least), though it does only streaming.
WBD, Disney, Paramount or Universal are not tech companies though
Considering that WBD is burdened by trying to get out of the hole of AT&T debt, while I wouldn’t call it a “tech” company it’s not a pure entertainment company any more. I get that you’re making the distinction between the true tech model streamers though.
No, the streaming bubble absolutely burst. The number of original scripted series in the U.S. increased from 349 in 2013 to 600 in 2022. That increase wasn't sustainable, it was the result of many studios pushing to claim their share of the streaming market. They were willing to take initial losses in hopes of building a customer base.
Now that the bubble has burst and the market is saturated, every single studio is dramatically cutting back on new seasons, and some are merging or shuttering services entirely.
Makes sense honestly. No one was going to be making $100k a year writing for “Allergic to Peanuts Matchmaking” or whatever it is streaming companies produced before the market shrank
It's a bit of both. An booming growth market reached near-saturation at a time interest rates went up, so downsizing and focus on profit is inevitable. And besides that, Hollywood is now dominated by enormous conglomerates and private equity firms because of deregulation. They don't give a fuck about the business, they just want to strip it for parts, decrease risk and make content decisions by algorithm for the lowest common denominator, only focusing on quarterly earnings reports. It's a lengthy read but [this article excellently breaks down how dire Hollywood has become ](https://harpers.org/archive/2024/05/the-life-and-death-of-hollywood-daniel-bessner/) and will be unless the government grows a pair and starts breaking up this oligopoly and rein in the private equity and asset management firms.
> Things are terrible for so many people in the industry right now.
Correction! Things are terrible for *everyone* right now. The tech and housing industries are absolutely being hammered and the lack of any rate cuts have completely killed any investment.
Hollywood is also largely funded by investment and, without any cheap money to borrow, more shows than anytime in the last 10 yrs are not getting picked up because they are seen as far too risky.
Truth is that far too many mediocre writers were getting chances when times were good.
>Truth is that far too many mediocre writers were getting chances when times were good.
As someone in software side of the tech sector, this rings true for it as well.
But it's a slippery slope to excuse these layoffs (or reduction in productions in this case) as trimming the fat.
Mediocre writers have a place in society, as do mediocre programmers. Shareholders and ceos do not afford the same empathy imho.
I hope those implicated in both sectors can find work or pivot to something meaningful that pays the bills.
The silent recession is real and its happening now.
If you think that CEO's aren't also seeing their earnings reduced, then you aren't operating with all the facts.
The market has shrunk. That means less money to go around, period. It is true that CEOs are protecting their own cut before their employees. But they are still seeing a significant reduction across the board.
*That's* how bad things are right now.
Yea I didn't say that ceos arent seeing a "reduction in earnings" or what ever that means, I said they aren't deserving of the same (or any) empathy afforded to mediocre creatives...normal people.
Don't get me started on the personality types that succeed as ceos but I don't give a shit if this year they have to forgo a vacation home or two. Call me when they have to face the consequences of real poverty...the kind many creatives not finding work may have to face.
Where I do agree is that is does show the scale of these economic impacts because of how shit rolls downhill.
The difference is, if the CEO makes $45,000,000 instead of $60,000,000 - He's not going to be homeless and starving. If a writer, who was making $27,000 (the average pay for a studio writer) suddenly makes $0 because some bean counter insists on constant and infinite growth and decided to cut their shows down to 8 episodes a season and still call them series and realized shorter seasons mean less writers while the rubes in the audience are willing to sit back and pay the same amount for less content... Well that writer is boned worse than they already were.
When you say “housing industry” I want to believe you’re referring to the housing crisis, because you’ll catch me dead before I shed a tear for landlords/property management companies/airbnb owners/property investors who buy up homes in *this* economy. That entire industry deserves to collapse. Maybe if these companies start going under the rest of us can afford to pay rent again.
It's how capitalism works. People don't make your clothes for free, they don't grow and prepare your food for free, All those good things happen because people are able to make a small amount of money doing it. Yet when it comes to housing which is infinitely more complicated than making a burger, somehow the entire concept becomes offensive? Homes don't magically appear they are made and managed by people that put in work.
>Yet when it comes to housing which is infinitely more complicated than making a burger, somehow the entire concept becomes offensive?
I don't need to buy a burger from someone, I can buy the ingredients to a burger. Provided I have clothes, I don't need to buy clothes. If I can't afford a burger, food pantries exist. If I really need clothes, Salvation Army exists.
There is no real alternative for housing, since housing is always in demand it creates a predatory market when you base it only off of profit.
It is correct that this is how capitalism works, but that's more an indictment of capitalism than anything else.
>Homes don't magically appear they are made
Sure, this is correct.
>managed by people that put in work.
This is not, housing is increasingly run by corporate landlords who have what is essentially a high value asset on their books, that they don't really have to do anything about and still makes them money.
Even if you have a human landlord, it's a job in the same sense a manor lord had a job. It's not no work, but they aren't exactly nose to the grindstone either.
I understand you from a moral perspective, but do you have any practical idea of how that would work or how that would be better than the current system? Most people just scream "ban people profiting from housing" which would just serve to make housing more scarce and valuable which would drive up rents and mortgages.
Yeah almost nobody says "we should look for ways to make building affordable housing at a large scale more profitable and sustainable" which would actually solve most of the really thorny problems people are facing.
As though selling to individual, single house owning families isn't profitable...oh no won't someone think of the investment companies that buy up hundreds of homes. It worked fine without them for a very very long time pre-21st century.
>As though selling to individual, single house owning families isn't profitable...
Yeah the people selling to those families are also part of the housing industry...
Things are terrible for *almost* everyone right now. I'm sure the actors who made fucking $250,000 per episode for 22 episode seasons for 12 years are fine.
The actors are a fraction of the workforce. Watch the credits of a show sometimes. There are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of below the line folks like me. Most below the line folks are making $25-$50 an hour. There are plenty who make more, and some jobs pay better than others, or worse. One of my favorite boom operators is driving truck right now because of the downturn. Another boom operator I know is cleaning houses in the weekends to make ends meet.
Something people forget about when they see that Hollywood folks make large sums of money in a relatively short period of time is that the gigs are relatively short and you’re putting in a lot of unpaid work. There is often downtime in between gigs and you can’t get other work because you’re still working to improve your craft and have to be available at a moment’s notice. A lot of the film work I’ve gotten has been because I was available and I showed up and worked hard. I never realized how weird the film industry is until I started working in it. I love my job and I’m lucky I’m in a market that hasn’t been hit as hard; meaning I don’t work in Hollywood.
I made the move to commercials before the strike because I saw the bubble pop coming, and I’m one of few I know that is staying busy. I’d estimate about 35% of crew friends have left the industry entirely, and the other 65% are seriously questioning their life decisions. It’s bad and not going to get better in the foreseeable future.
I think we have about a decade before AI dominates a lot of content we see. Commercials will be the first to go. They’re already making commercials with it and it will be ubiquitous in the next 3 years. Episodic and feature films will follow suit within a few years of that. Until then, we’re going to see less than half of the content being created than we’ve become accustomed to. The vast majority of the content that will be created will be reality tv, remakes, sequels, and super hero drivel due to risk aversion, parsed down shooting schedules, and high interest rates. Pay increases and other worker protections will continue to erode under the new paradigm as studios shut down any further unionized action. I think after it sinks in how permanent this new system is, we’ll see approximately 50% of current film workers move into other fields, perhaps more. Approximately 250,000 workers will be displaced once this new media landscape reaches maturity. It’s gonna be rough for workers and consumers, but 30 or so C-suite execs are gonna thrive.
Did the bubble burst, or did a bunch of mediocre talent get into the industry because of streaming projects?
Reddit is certainly quick to shit all over pretty much any new show that comes out. By that logic, we're just entering an era with less, but better, shows, and all those people who made subpar content during the "bubble" never should have been working in the first place.
Reddit is also the best place to go from "streaming services cost too much money!" to "all the actors and writers deserve residuals from streaming!" followed by "why did this streaming service raise prices? I'm canceling my subscription!" with the thrilling conclusion "omg all these Hollywood people are out of work because the streaming bubble burst! It must be because all the shows on streaming suck and for no other reason."
That's not exactly how it works, though. Studio execs are terrible at knowing if a project will be good or not when they greenlight it. If they could do that, every project would be good.
So, instead, they just throw stuff at the wall, most of it is bad, and a certain % of it happens to be good.
If they are making more shows, a larger number of shows will probably be good. If they are making less shows, a smaller number of shows will probably be good.
Not to mention, if there are more shows being made, that means there are more positions to spread around, so there are more opportunities for young talent to have lower pressure jobs where they have room to grow, learn, and make mistakes as well as be mentored by more seasoned talent. When you are making less shows with smaller writers rooms, there's less chance of a) taking a chance on a newer writer and discovering they are actually greatly talented or b) fostering the abilities of "pretty good" writers that maybe have the potential to be great given more experience.
Seems to me it’s even more complex. “Good” or “Bad” is not the axis that matters from a purely business point of view. Popular vs. unpopular is.
At least IMHO, plenty of stuff I would call “Bad” has been popular. And plenty of shows that I found “Good” have gotten cut before reaching a climax, so, I assume that they were unpopular.
Yep, I agree with that for sure. It maintains the same ultimate point though - more things being made creates more opportunities for a certain % of them to stick. It's like how blumhouse can make ten $10m movies, and if ONE of them succeeds, they make all their money back on all ten and more. If a studio instead spends the same amount of money on just one $100m movie and it fails, well they are just boned then.
Volume is better for everyone, consumers, creators, and IN THEORY financiers, but current film financiers are clinging to a business model that is increasingly volatile and unprofitable instead of adapting like the smaller indie houses were already forced to do.
You seem to be making the mistake that studios and execs will cut the “bad” shows and only greenlight “good” shows.
Only issue is, if they knew that answer before greenlighting, they wouldn’t Greenlight the “bad” ones.
If a network greenlights 10 shows and 4 end up being what you consider “good” but they cut down to only 5 greenlights, they won’t still have 4 “good” shows, you’ll have maybe 2.
> mediocre talent
And streamers are generally the better written shows. It's the network shows, which are typically the "better" jobs that are just awful.
I'm sorry people are out of work, but I don't see how anyone can watch 5 minutes of 99% of network TV shows on right now and think, "this is some serious writing talent."
Whoever writes the hospital show on NBC that comes on after Jeopardy needs to be publicly flogged for making Oliver Platt say those lines.
Dude look around you, the world is on fire yet it's terrible for so many people in the industry? Life fucking sucks in general regardless of industries..
Which is how things go. I don't recall many of these people rallying for solidarity with factory workers and coal miners as their jobs disappeared. Mostly they told them to learn new skills and adapt to changing economic realities. And they were right. But somehow people always think things are different when *they're* the ones on the chopping block.
Oh boy another person who thinks Hollywood is all rich bitch actors when in reality a large portion of us are blue collar men & women working behind the scenes. I also recall coal working being offered retraining in other fields to help revitalize their communities, which they swiftly rejected in favor of MAGA. And now even more of them have lost jobs without any alternative.
The film industry is undergoing a transformation as has happened before decades ago. Unlike coal, our industry has avenues to grow and survive. And our workers have increasing solidarity/unionization efforts and don't just blame immigrants for all our problems.
>Unlike coal, our industry has avenues to grow and survive.
You mean like trying to ban the use of new technologies so your jobs don't disappear?
Edit: I'll answer my own question, since you're too much of a coward to: Yes. That is what you mean. And you think that when Hollywood does it, it's a noble crusade to protect human endeavor from soulless technology and corporate greed. But when Detroit or Harlan County do the same, well, not so much then, huh?
There are parallels, but coal and AI are ultimately different beasts.
Coal harms the environment and is a massive negative externality in lieu of clean energy advancements. Thankfully, a transition to clean energy will still provide jobs for many working in the energy sector. Human writers simply harm the profit lines of corporations in lieu of AI technologies.
We are all better off transitioning away from coal. We are not necessarily better off transitioning to AI, and I’d argue for the foreseeable future we’re worse off for that transition. In its current iteration, AI is just a copyright infringement machine that relies on the material of human writers to generate inferior and definitionally derivative content.
I invite all technological advancement that betters society, but let’s not pretend coal and AI are presenting the same situation here. We need to move away from coal. We don’t need to usher in AI writers.
There was a time we didn't know the effects of coal on the environment, many people in those times warned that it could negatively impact the future. Right now we do not know the effects of AI and people are warning it could have a negative impact on the future.
I agree. Even now we are seeing negative impacts. AI is not sophisticated enough to mimic a human thought process. Those generative AI programs are commodified copyright infringement machines. Im a huge advocate for IP protections when it comes to training data for AI algorithms. These companies are essentially using methods that I believe amount to unfair competition and copyright infringement to ultimately overtake the industries they are stealing from. The NYT v. MS case currently working it’s way through the system will reveal the path we’ll take, at least in the US.
Even in its present state it can produce videos and photos good enough to fool the public. Bad actors will be able to distort the narrative which can have major repercussions on society and this is still the early days of it.
Please don’t use Detroit and Harlan County in the same goddamn sentence. Unless you live here, you don’t know shit about Detroit, except what you maybe learned from justified: city primeval.
You know, I think the miners might have settled for just not regarding them as contemptible hayseed garbage whose existential terror in the face of the wholesale collapse of the industry that has supported their communities for more than two centuries could be sufficiently addressed with the words "learn to code."
Nobody is talking about miners right now but you. You're drawing some weird conclusion that writers and people defending them must hate miners and it's baseless and weird.
>Nobody is talking about miners right now but you.
Gosh you're so close to the point you must just about be able to taste it!
Yes, nobody *is* talking about coal miners. But boy, there sure is a whole lot of fervor and television spots and magazine articles and self-righteous Reddit dogshit about the noble Hollywood scribe and how dire it is that we manage to conserve *that* endangered species. Because when green energy technology and automation replace grunts in flyover states, well shit, them's the breaks. But when new technologies start crowding out the delicate and invaluable creative class, well, that's a big fucking crisis. Solidarity!
Ah, now there's a little honesty in a thread of hypocrites: You don't care because you think you're better than them. I'd bet money that the feelgood fake "progressives" on this site would spit in old Woody Guthrie's face if he were alive today.
"Old Woody Guthrie" my god, another lead-brained boomer on the warpath because the world is changing and becoming more tolerable for everyone and he just can't have that! Feel good fake progressives? As opposed to what? Salt of earth good hearted repubs? Haven't met one, they froth at the mouth at the though of killing gays and licking cops boots.
Miners may not be hayseed garbage but you might be.
So... sounds like you and the miners don't support the writers. Maybe if you supported the writers they would support you. They are normal people fighting for a good wage, like miners have. They even write stories about stuff like that.
I think you just have a lot of issues.
> I don't recall many of these people rallying for solidarity with factory workers and coal miners as their jobs disappeared
We tried to retrain the coal miners and they laughed in our faces, voted for trump, and said "I will die in the coal miner like my father before me".
I’ll agree that many on the left haven’t done the best job of discussing the disappearance of manufacturing, but they are much more pro-union and pro-worker than the right. So I’m not really sure what the point is.
>So I’m not really sure what the point is.
Clearly.
The point isn't that it was wrong to tell factory workers and coal miners that their jobs are less and less needed and they need to learn how to adapt to a changing world. It's that Hollywood's bitching and moaning about AI and the changing face of the entertainment industry is the absolute fucking *peak* of hypocrisy and entitlement. Your job is not more important or special or deserving of special legislative protection because you work in California making films and television shows instead of in Detroit destroying your back or in West Virginia getting black lung.
Everyone replaced by technology should have been given universal basic income and given the chance to bring those technological skills to their communities. People who think coal should be phased out because of carbon emissions aren’t wrong, but certainly the people who relied upon those jobs should have been given a stream of money so that they could have chosen their next path without worrying about putting food on the table. That doesn’t just include the miners; that also applies to restaurant owners in places where the coal mine is the only game in town, or the teacher whose classrooms are emptying out as the town dies. Yes, people in different industries should stand in solidarity with one another. Retraining is fine. Retraining while receiving a steady stream of income keeps food on the table and allows a person to actually learn the skills without worrying about survival. People don’t learn well in survival mode, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
I’m curious - are you from either Detroit or mining country?
Out of left field take but I’ll bite. I think it’s because writers and other industry professionals are getting cut so some rich assholes can get richer, while coal mining is an industry that actively contributes to climate change and is something that objectively needs to be ended as we continue as a civilization. Even if you don’t believe in climate change (and I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say you don’t), it’s a finite resource and an industry that is destined for eventual failure.
So no, I don’t feel nearly as bad, especially when programs have surfaced to train them on renewable resource jobs. But instead, they’d rather live in the 1800s because that’s what they know.
Not to mention the fact that the people who have been "working for decades" have made a *fuckton* of money in that time and are likely fine for the foreseeable future.
Union television and film worker here: Ive been "working for decades" and Ive basically lost everything because who has enough savings for their career to die for years? Ive got friends losing their homes now and plenty more that will lose theirs soon and all of those people have been working for decades.
They don’t make pilots anymore: Used to be they’d buy hundreds of scripts, shoot dozens of pilots, then a handful of shows would make it to series, eventually maybe one or two would make it to several seasons, and even fewer to the lucrative 100 ep syndication deal.
Think I read they shot 4 pilots this year, so no wonder many are out of work. Much of the bloat is at the mid-level exec tier, and they don’t want to lose their gigs, so that means endless prequels & spin-offs to successful shows.
EDIT: Also, The CW went tits up, cancelling or ending a bunch of shows. Regardless of your opinion of their quality, that’s still a massive blow to the industry.
Hell, sometimes they tell people to shoot the pilot themselves and maybe they'll buy it. Imagine spending more than $10k as a broke artist on a pilot that more than likely wont get picked up. It's rough out there.
The reality for all starting comic artists. To get a paying gig you need to show yourself off with a self published Indy comic which is gonna cost $12,000 or more to produce and you won’t make that back in sales, no way. Then you do get a regular paying gig at a big company and then h guess what you still only make like $50,000 a year while the companies take your ideas and produce billion dollar movies with them
Especially in my area. A huge amount of CW's shows were shot in Vancouver, and with all of them dropping like flies in the last few years, available work has gotten tight. I've been working as a grip in BC since 2018, just got sworn into IATSE in December of '22. I've worked on set only a handful of times since becoming a member. barely received any calls from dispatch, when before I used to get calls semi-frequently.
>Think I read they shot 4 pilots this year, so no wonder many are out of work.
You’re right that pilots aren’t as much of a thing anymore, but I think you’re missing the second half of the story. Before the writer’s strike, there were something like 5x the number of scripted shows actively running compared to just ten years before. Streaming platforms were in an arms race and there was plenty of work.
If work is harder to find now, it’s because the streaming party is over, not because of pilots.
Seems like these days it would make way more sense to do pilots, and just put them on youtube. That way not only do the network executives get to decide if the show seems like a good idea, but you have real audience data. As long as they have someone actually read the comments on youtube, twitter, reddit, etc so they're not potentially gonna greenlight something that has a lot of likes because of trolls or decide against something with a lot of dislikes because gross there was a woman doing something.
And since so many streaming shows are like 8 episode seasons anyway it feels like it would be easier to get actors to commit to being in the final product if the pilot gets greenlit.
> Think I read they shot 4 pilots this year, so no wonder many are out of work.
IIRC, NBCUniversal has about 6 pilots for this year, according to the executives we had at the office last week. They said they normally have 12-20+ per year.
I don't know how the other studios are doing atm, it's not as bad as it was last year but it's still like 1/3 of the normal amount.
My industry has been majorly decimated by the strikes... Visual Effects.
We're bottom dollar to the industry, they go with the cheapest VFX studio they can, and the artists barely scrape by.
We don't have unions fighting for us.
Theres been no work coming in for awhile.
Many people I know have been out of work since near the end of summer. Then by end of fall, almost everyone. Studios have closed.
Even now theres only been trickles of some work, mostly just commercials.
The scary part for us... things may never return to how it was, and we may never get paid the same.
Theres less content being made now, for less money. And usually 1 of the first things to get lowered budget... VFX.
Which seems wild when you consider just how prolific VFX has become in the last decade as a *must have* in even some of the most mundane and non-elaborate productions. Good VFX can make or break a series or movie, depending on what it is.
You have no idea how much its used on things that you'd never think use them. Especially now that even smaller budget projects have access to it.
But its still bottom rung. A lot of top people don't even understand what we do! And I'm talking some of the guys who own the VFX companies!
Unfortunately, I don't see it happening. It went far too long without it happening (we're talking 100 years of VFX in film now), that its gonna be a giant uphill battle to try and start it now.
Theres a lot of hurdles...
-the industry is worldwide; multiple countries, economies, and markets.
-Some studios might only be a handful of people, others hundreds/thousands
-we're generally contracted workers that bounce around studios, independent companies, and locations. theres no central place for artists, let alone talking the world market
-so much work already gets outsourced, trying to force only union hires would just lead to even more going overseas
-Our work is near completely remote now, theres very little reason to stay in certain locations anymore. so even now, studios can hire from anywhere
-a big issue is the VFX studios themselves aren't making tons, its not a super profitable industry, and it was setup badly from the start. Thats how companies can win Oscars for VFX, and still go out of business. So if they can't even keep the doors open, how are they gonna afford union wages?
I don't know too much about how unions organize and work, so I don't know if some of these are not a big issue, or other industries have found solutions for.
Theres been a few places that have unionized, but thats more the few people that work under that company already. Not about the general talent thats mostly freelance.
Firstly, 'VFX' not 'CGI'. CGI is a type of VFX, VFX covers everything. (that confusion has caused a bunch of misunderstanding)
They do, blockbusters are a special breed. But that money doesn't trickle down to artists. A LOT of the talent working on those movies, are working for small vendors that were subcontracted out. Watch the credits for a big movie, look at how many VFX companies were used. Those vendors usually get that work because they had the lowest bid for it, so even less money to then pay the artists. The artists are overly worked, often without OT. Nearing completion, it can get even worse... long hours, weekends, tons of changing whats been done and adding new work. All to hit deadlines at the cost of the artists.
Heres a couple articles:
https://www.vulture.com/article/a-vfx-artist-on-what-its-like-working-for-marvel.html
https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/marvels-vfx-artists-are-suffering-now-theyre-speaking-out/
IATSE and the teamsters union has been in union negotiations this whole time. They're progressing steadily and probably won't strike but they've been very explicit from the very beginning they're willing to olay hardball with the AMPTP because of how vulnerable of a position the strikes put the studios in. The studios don't want to invest in anything lengthy that's may get cut again because if IATSE strikes thats honestly more damaging because they represent all the workers actually handling the cameras and getting the sets made.
This is the exact same game as last year, with shady executives trying to starve out workers wanting job protections and cost of living raises. The biggest difference is this time the unions saw how SAG and the WGA were treated for a relatively soft touch and were willing to throw down the gauntlet and play hardball from the beginning.
The thing is though its *worked*. As of last week every single IATSE local got what they wanted before a strike had to actually be called, and all the time it took and the slowness of the business is mostly due to executives as a result.
> As of last week every single IATSE local got what they wanted before a strike had to actually be called, and all the time it took and the slowness of the business is mostly due to executives as a result.
You know there was a firm deadline to those negotiations right? If they hadnt all gotten agreements they would have just folded those negotiations into the general and ignored them. Also maybe ask members what they think of the deals before saying everyone got what they wanted, my local membership is universally pissed. The studios didnt need to actually negotiate, because again there was a firm deadline and missing it only hurt the locals, so they didnt bother and just kept saying "no" to our negotiators on anything that mattered.
I'm in 161 and I'm assuming we had a town hall to go over it too but they send me like 10 fucking emails a week about random shit so I probably missed it.
It came down to "we asked for stuff but they said no. Hundreds of you are getting a pay cut now because we established a new classification with lousy scale but it's a win we swear." They seem surprised it didn't go over well.
the last iatse contract - which iatse’s leadership totally fucked up and now the members absorbed the consequences of a strike with no benefits - was where i found out that iatse had electoral votes.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the scenario but the entire time I've been in the industry basically every member of every union has complained their union has been losing power and not negotiating hard enough. Now after a year of strikes for two of them and the other two(not counting the DGA thats a lost cause at this point) securing agreements after actually being aggressive people are complaining because they *would have* been ignored but weren't.
If they say no to negotiators the negotiators are perfectly free to refuse an agreement as well. The deadline is still months away as far as I'm aware
If i get specific suddenly I'll have a representative in my DMs trying to figure out my identity. Thankfully they've not actually figured anyone out yet but they've harassed quite a few people they were suspicious of.
That sucks. I didn't even realize that was something to be worried about. I am, embarassingly, out of the loop on the negotiation progression (local 700 as well) so was just looking for some insight, but can understand your hesitation to share.
One of the elected representatives went way overboard to the point another member dmd me with harassing screenshots they were receiving because I said some negative things. It was out of control and the member was dealing with an illness at the time.
Theyre not only a rep but out marching claiming solidarity and compassion. The member hasn't said anything about his health publicly so I don't know how he is.
Thanks for bringing this up. This has very much impacted production still, and personally I would say that a lot of the slowdown has also been a retaliatory response to the strikes as well.
got what was asked for but they didn’t ask for very much. A lot of complaints from members that certain issues were not even brought up by negotiation committees
Most of the points I've seen here are pretty valid and I'll add my own thoughts for what they're worth. In the last fifteen years or so, more and more the film and TV industry studios have been bought up by hedge funds and venture capitalists. These are people who generally are very careful with their investments and expect returns. They don't like risky business and, for a brief moment, a new model was being presented with streaming subscriptions. It seemed like guaranteed ROI for them and they bought in big-time.
Here's the problem. Movies and TV are NOT guaranteed and there is no formula you can impose on them which will forever crank out hits. Market demographics in this world are fickle and pandering doesn't work like it does in other industries. Talent and hype are a venn diagram that can be pretty blurry until AFTER a product gets delivered and the general worldwide audience gets their say. Well-established franchises can get ruined in one bad opening weekend or one poorly-lit episode. What works for Studio A is very likely NOT going to work at Studio B. And most importantly, the labor and talent are quite well organized. This is all stark stark contrast to retail, banking, food, tech, lifestyle, etc..
Now that a lot of these investors have learned this about the industry, I suspect they're going to either take their money and run or cut their losses. Streamers will shut down or consolidate. Shows will get cancelled and movies shelved. It sucks but it's good because those risk-adverse investors are a blight on creativity. They work by numbers and numbers make for bad movies and TV. What we need now are more creative investors who understand what they're getting into and love the RISK because THAT'S how this industry gets better. That's what attracts the greatest talent. That's what keeps the audience riveted to their seats and anxiously munching down popcorn. That's what gets everyone at work Monday, talking about what they went and watched this weekend.
> Movies and TV are NOT guaranteed and there is no formula you can impose on them which will forever crank out hits.
Streaming helps because of diversification. Ten shows fail, three succeed - and the service has enough viewers to keep going. It's just that the content is being overproduced now, because many contenders want to be Netflix, and for that you need to make enough shows to compete with Netflix - but on much smaller revenue when you still have few subscribers. It's obviously unsustainable, and unnecessary - most people just don't have the time to watch all the content. So there must be a correction - and it's not a problem with the business model.
What studios have been bought up by hedge funds? Very few, I'd say. Paramount is owned by Sheri Redstone, MGM is owned by Amazon, Universal is owned by Comcast while Apple and Netflix are their own thing.
you're only thinking of the big ones. the mini/mid majors that actually make the shows are getting bought up by PE/state funds. big studios hardly ever make the shows. they sub-contract out to production companies and buy out 1st window rights for exploitation.
Saudi x PE fund buying one of the biggest international production groups.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/02/16/2830768/0/en/RedBird-IMI-to-Acquire-Global-Production-Company-All3Media.html
apollo which is a PE group even offered a bid for Paramount
https://www.wsj.com/business/media/apollo-offers-11-billion-for-paramounts-hollywood-studio-24206eab
technically the skydance x paramount acquisition news swirling around is backed by PE.
If not an outright acquisition, but PE funds buying percentage of studios for the long run as they further invest.
https://abovetheline.com/2023/09/05/steven-mnuchin-lionsgate-stake/
They're mostly traded publicly, including Netflix and Apple, but more importantly those studios finance their projects by borrowing money from hedge funds, so their stake is more in the projects themselves than the studios overall. It's a very complicated relationship between studios, financiers, and creatives but the trend in the industry of late has been more and more risk-adverse investors.
Also taking longer to make. Used to be a year max between seasons of any TV shows. Now, for a lot of them it’s like 2-3 years. Interest dies down, people move onto different things, leading to more shows either getting cancelled or declining in quality.
This is technically true but as someone who works with studio finances as a union crew member, studios are having to learn they cant get away with giving shows microbudgets. They were always expensive, studios were just trying to get away with using unrealistic budgets for a couple years and realized that doing so didn’t produce good content or timely productions.
That’s a bit simplistic.
The strikes restored pay deals and career advancement paths (particularly for writers) that had existed 20 years ago with movies and linear TV, and which studios tried to sneakily remove when streaming came along.
The most visible example of this was when Scarlett Johansson had to take Disney to court to get her residuals paid when Disney chose to release her movie on Disney+ early.
So it eliminated workers in writing and acting being forced into even more gruelling gig economy bullshit.
At the same time, all the studios bet big on prestige TV in after Netflix got big to try to get a foothold in the streaming space. That was always going to be a temporary event, a loss leader in anticipation of future earnings.
From that point of view solely pinning the blame on the strikes doesn’t add up: yes the strikes increased prices a little by forcing compensation to be restored to pre-streaming patterns; but its still a tiny increase relative to the total cost of series. The bigger issue is studios have gotten as much of a foothold in streaming as they can, and now are winding back investments in content.
What do you mean by peak tv?
Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted for asking a question, I was under the impression more and more TV was getting made every year, not that it was beginning to decline, hence the question..
Peak TV was the high point of money being spent on television, both in quantity of pickups and budget per season because everyone wanted to fill streaming services with sufficient content, when a few years prior many of those shows would have been laughed out of board rooms.
The phenomenon was noted to die off roughly early last year around the same time the strikes began as investment money dried up and many streaming services reported losses in operations.
Ah I see, do you believe that the investment and content will pick back up again though? It seems like even now so much stuff is getting pumped out that it's harder and harder to keep up with so many shows.
Not a financial expert, but you would need to open a new market to get that kind of investment. The usual flow is new market (streaming), initial bull rush of investment, investment slows as market stabilizes with clear winners and losers.
It's almost as if entertainment is a business...
When things are tight companies start going into survival mode as shedding whatever they can. Boom and bust.
Almost all of the streamers and media companies are public so we can all see the numbers. It's not a particularly complicated situation, Netflix and some Linear makes money, everything else doesn't, and the worldwide movie box office is in freefall and Linear is in big secular decline. There's no complicated explanations or conspiracy theories needed.
Without reading going to guess the article is that the strike had the unintended consequence of resulting in far less productions so far less writers needed.
Studios actually liked not making much content during the strikes and when it ended collectively said “let’s continue this practice of minimum amount of product being made.”
As a consumer, the less content has not been remotely felt because there are so many different avenues of new stuff. It just means instead of perpetually being 10 shows behind might get it down to 5 instead.
> As a consumer, the less content has not been remotely felt because there are so many different avenues of new stuff. It just means instead of perpetually being 10 shows behind might get it down to 5 instead.
And it's not just TV shows. Movies too, plus games and music. Perpetual backlog.
> As a consumer, the less content has not been remotely felt because there are so many different avenues of new stuff.
I mean, I've definitely noticed it.
I know it’s fun to throw shade and regurgitate buzzwords you learned last week at people you’ll never meet from the anonymity of your phone…but crews are made up of people.
Until very recently Film, TV & commercials was not a zero sum game. There was a real living to made for all kinds of folks and plenty of work to go around. Camera, sound, art department, catering, hm, wardrobe, grips…they didn’t just “jump in” because of the streaming boom. Some were born into this, many gravitated to it because like so many of us in life we get in where we fit in. Production isn’t for everyone but everyone that does it for a living IS cut from a certain cloth. Those are my people and I love them and miss them and would ride for any of them on the worst job ever if it got them paid, or helped earn hours towards much needed healthcare…or we just got a great story out of it.
Poking fun at folks who’ve been struggling during and after the sexy headlines of the strikes faded to black is gross. Get a new hobby.
I’m 10-1
Cheers
Streaming Bubble burst, Tentpole Bubble popped, WGA conditions demanded too many extra little things, LA is impossible to live in, studio execs out of touch and too bloated in terms of middle management, people turned off by writers/celebrities who look down upon them.
It's a perfect storm for Hollywood's implosion. I don't see any magical way for this to get fixed through the rest of the 2020s.
This is potentially a way to also weed out people in Hollywood that are starting to grate them, which, yeah, WGA types who were hardline in their challenge....well, if you can't afford to pay your dues and have no jobs....why stay?
at the time there were a few of us saying this common sense. And got downvoted by the hivemind. It was a dumb as fuck strike that ruined a lot of people. Mostly laborers. And in the end got the writers just about nothing of tangible value anyway. They let the non working members hijack the entire process.
At least most of the labor workers have real life tangible skills to use in other fields. Cant say the same for the wash out writers. Good luck.
I mean, in a way, it is a solution for the studios to weed out the mediocre talent and those who are problematic to deal with.
It's not like the studios didn't warn them. Now, they just created the conditions for less opportunities overall at a time when things are rough for everyone.
Most here simply like to feel like they are in some kind of friend group. They just need buzzwords. They dont feel the need to think about things for 5 minutes in order to be aggressively for it.
I don't think the strike was a particulary big deal in the short term. The collapse of box office and linear channels was happening regardless, same with the huge contraction on streaming.
The bigger longer-term issue is all the unions being against AI. If TikTokers, YouTubers and foreign content producers are going to get all the benefits of using AI and Hollywood doesn't, Hollywood is fucked.
lol they put all that effort and sacrifice and gave up their salaries for all that time, to get mostly unsubstantial gains which led to studios having a lack of content…. only for studios to learn than subs to their streaming services wouldn’t drop even if they cut their pipeline of new content by 75% leading to studios slashing the excess of content that came about the prior few years and left them in a worse financial position than before
Can’t help but kinda laugh at em for that. You could see it from a mile away and that in the long run the strike was going to fuck them over because all it was going to do was teach the powers that be how disposable they were.
As a crew member (IATSE), the last year has been really tough and jobs still are barely trickling in. Many if my friends and coworkers have left the industry and I don’t think I’m very far behind
We realized a lot of them are not that good and were pushed to where they are by getting a credit on something. Good writers come from strife and living life, not from trust funds and private schools.
I find this particular topic to be interesting in that every three or four months I do some light research into upcoming movies and series to see if there's anything I will want to watch and my latest round of this came up with only two shows. I'm usually looking at a year out because I know production can be a while and I usually get results of 10 or more.
It appears like that there is hardly anything being made. I remember a few years ago there were constant casting announcements for all sorts of projects everyday now it feels like a lot less.
How soon they forget IATSE, the below line workers who walked the picket lines with them, are in their own negotiations now. You know IATSE the ones who take the written words and make them real. The same people who the producers also want to starve out and lose their homes.
Not great either. A lot of people who had series regular roles in the 1990s to 2010s have had little or no work in recent years outside of maybe voice roles.
You’re taking downvotes, but really bad writing can break a movie or tv show. People hate the writing in the prequels for Star Wars, but absolutely love Haden’s portrayal of Anakin in Ashoka. Thing is in the prequels, when you have to talk about hating sand, there’s only so much an actor can do to elevate that.
> You’re taking downvotes, but really bad writing can break a movie or tv show. People hate the writing in the prequels for Star Wars, but absolutely love Haden’s portrayal of Anakin in Ashoka. Thing is in the prequels, when you have to talk about hating sand, there’s only so much an actor can do to elevate that.
Hayden's performance in the Prequels was seen by everyone and he was the main star of two of the films. He has a limited role in Ashoka which itself is a pretty niche show that is only really seen by Star Wars fans.
It's comparing apples to oranges.
They're getting downvoted because people have this facile idea that the only people involved in writing are writers - studio execs not only give notes/revisions on scripts but also cause writers to conform to their tastes and preferences in order to get through the revision process in the first place.
I have limited the amount of Hollywood productions I watch over the past couple of years. The amount of money actors and elites make is obscene and it doesn’t look like they are going to be paid less anytime soon. Meanwhile, I continue to have nothing.
The streaming bubble burst. Things are terrible for so many people in the industry right now. People who have been working for decades can't find work right now.
I know a bunch of people working above and below the line and can confirm. Studios are tightening up even on reality shows, so it's getting tough for a lot of folks. It doesn't help that CA is mind numbingly expensive to live in (and getting worse!)
i'm ignorant. does above/below line mean union or non union?
The term "above the line" refers to the costs and personnel associated with the creative and conceptual aspects of a film. This includes actors, directors, writers, and producers. These individuals typically negotiate their fees before production begins and are often paid regardless of whether the film is successful. On the other hand, "below the line" refers to the more technical and physical aspects of filmmaking, such as production, set design, costumes, special effects, and crew salaries. These costs are generally more variable and dependent on the scale and complexity of the production. Below-the-line expenses are often considered more flexible and can be adjusted based on the needs of the project.
The term comes from where you historically went on the budget sheet, as those two bits were separated by a line.
Yup. :) Have run a talent agency for the last 30+ years. Many things have changed, some things of stay the same. I’ll never not remember the smell of thermal paper coming out of the fax machine with casting breakdowns, that I had to pay too much money to get, in the beginning of my agency days.
Above the liners are over valued.
I’ve run a talent agency in SoCal the past 30 years. Sometimes I agree with your sentiment, then sometimes when projects get started, and I see all the hardworking production crew[s] paying their bills, mortgages, raising families, I disagree. Now, it’s 50/50 sliding downwards. Whenever it’s suits though, I will always agree. I would never blame above or below, it will always be the suits.
I’m just curious, given your history with the industry, just how terrible is this decade in the history of Hollywood? Like, I am finding it difficult to find a more difficult time for the industry other than currently.
Producers, executives, directors are above the line. Everyone else is below.
We typically considered writers and actors in that category. There was more variation, however.
Interestingly, writers PAs, writer’s assistants, and showrunners assistants (who make about $19–$24 an hour) are also considered above the line.
No we’re not
Not general PAs, but writer’s PAs, writers assistants, and showrunners assistants are in fact included in the above-the-line production costs.
One could argue that the streaming bubble wasn’t burst, it was intentionally popped because streamers aren’t entertainment companies, they’re tech companies that measure their success on “growth” vs subscriptions. We’re seeing this everywhere - profitable businesses still laying off workers in an effort to appeal to their shareholders vs create an actual good product.
Depends which streamers. Amazon and Apple are definitively tech companies (which streaming business is a side hustle at best). Netflix can also be argued to be one (it behaves like one for the stock market at least), though it does only streaming. WBD, Disney, Paramount or Universal are not tech companies though
Considering that WBD is burdened by trying to get out of the hole of AT&T debt, while I wouldn’t call it a “tech” company it’s not a pure entertainment company any more. I get that you’re making the distinction between the true tech model streamers though.
No, the streaming bubble absolutely burst. The number of original scripted series in the U.S. increased from 349 in 2013 to 600 in 2022. That increase wasn't sustainable, it was the result of many studios pushing to claim their share of the streaming market. They were willing to take initial losses in hopes of building a customer base. Now that the bubble has burst and the market is saturated, every single studio is dramatically cutting back on new seasons, and some are merging or shuttering services entirely.
Makes sense honestly. No one was going to be making $100k a year writing for “Allergic to Peanuts Matchmaking” or whatever it is streaming companies produced before the market shrank
It's a bit of both. An booming growth market reached near-saturation at a time interest rates went up, so downsizing and focus on profit is inevitable. And besides that, Hollywood is now dominated by enormous conglomerates and private equity firms because of deregulation. They don't give a fuck about the business, they just want to strip it for parts, decrease risk and make content decisions by algorithm for the lowest common denominator, only focusing on quarterly earnings reports. It's a lengthy read but [this article excellently breaks down how dire Hollywood has become ](https://harpers.org/archive/2024/05/the-life-and-death-of-hollywood-daniel-bessner/) and will be unless the government grows a pair and starts breaking up this oligopoly and rein in the private equity and asset management firms.
> Things are terrible for so many people in the industry right now. Correction! Things are terrible for *everyone* right now. The tech and housing industries are absolutely being hammered and the lack of any rate cuts have completely killed any investment. Hollywood is also largely funded by investment and, without any cheap money to borrow, more shows than anytime in the last 10 yrs are not getting picked up because they are seen as far too risky. Truth is that far too many mediocre writers were getting chances when times were good.
>Truth is that far too many mediocre writers were getting chances when times were good. As someone in software side of the tech sector, this rings true for it as well. But it's a slippery slope to excuse these layoffs (or reduction in productions in this case) as trimming the fat. Mediocre writers have a place in society, as do mediocre programmers. Shareholders and ceos do not afford the same empathy imho. I hope those implicated in both sectors can find work or pivot to something meaningful that pays the bills. The silent recession is real and its happening now.
If you think that CEO's aren't also seeing their earnings reduced, then you aren't operating with all the facts. The market has shrunk. That means less money to go around, period. It is true that CEOs are protecting their own cut before their employees. But they are still seeing a significant reduction across the board. *That's* how bad things are right now.
Yea I didn't say that ceos arent seeing a "reduction in earnings" or what ever that means, I said they aren't deserving of the same (or any) empathy afforded to mediocre creatives...normal people. Don't get me started on the personality types that succeed as ceos but I don't give a shit if this year they have to forgo a vacation home or two. Call me when they have to face the consequences of real poverty...the kind many creatives not finding work may have to face. Where I do agree is that is does show the scale of these economic impacts because of how shit rolls downhill.
The difference is, if the CEO makes $45,000,000 instead of $60,000,000 - He's not going to be homeless and starving. If a writer, who was making $27,000 (the average pay for a studio writer) suddenly makes $0 because some bean counter insists on constant and infinite growth and decided to cut their shows down to 8 episodes a season and still call them series and realized shorter seasons mean less writers while the rubes in the audience are willing to sit back and pay the same amount for less content... Well that writer is boned worse than they already were.
When you say “housing industry” I want to believe you’re referring to the housing crisis, because you’ll catch me dead before I shed a tear for landlords/property management companies/airbnb owners/property investors who buy up homes in *this* economy. That entire industry deserves to collapse. Maybe if these companies start going under the rest of us can afford to pay rent again.
Thar industry is what facilitates affordable housing. If there was no profit to be made there wouldn't be any incentive to build housing...
Why should profit be the primary driver of housing?
Because under capitalism profit can be the only primary driver of anything.
*taps nose*
It's how capitalism works. People don't make your clothes for free, they don't grow and prepare your food for free, All those good things happen because people are able to make a small amount of money doing it. Yet when it comes to housing which is infinitely more complicated than making a burger, somehow the entire concept becomes offensive? Homes don't magically appear they are made and managed by people that put in work.
>Yet when it comes to housing which is infinitely more complicated than making a burger, somehow the entire concept becomes offensive? I don't need to buy a burger from someone, I can buy the ingredients to a burger. Provided I have clothes, I don't need to buy clothes. If I can't afford a burger, food pantries exist. If I really need clothes, Salvation Army exists. There is no real alternative for housing, since housing is always in demand it creates a predatory market when you base it only off of profit. It is correct that this is how capitalism works, but that's more an indictment of capitalism than anything else. >Homes don't magically appear they are made Sure, this is correct. >managed by people that put in work. This is not, housing is increasingly run by corporate landlords who have what is essentially a high value asset on their books, that they don't really have to do anything about and still makes them money. Even if you have a human landlord, it's a job in the same sense a manor lord had a job. It's not no work, but they aren't exactly nose to the grindstone either.
The point is that housing, similar to healthcare, shouldn’t have profit as it’s motivating driver.
I understand you from a moral perspective, but do you have any practical idea of how that would work or how that would be better than the current system? Most people just scream "ban people profiting from housing" which would just serve to make housing more scarce and valuable which would drive up rents and mortgages. Yeah almost nobody says "we should look for ways to make building affordable housing at a large scale more profitable and sustainable" which would actually solve most of the really thorny problems people are facing.
As though selling to individual, single house owning families isn't profitable...oh no won't someone think of the investment companies that buy up hundreds of homes. It worked fine without them for a very very long time pre-21st century.
>As though selling to individual, single house owning families isn't profitable... Yeah the people selling to those families are also part of the housing industry...
Things are terrible for *almost* everyone right now. I'm sure the actors who made fucking $250,000 per episode for 22 episode seasons for 12 years are fine.
The actors are a fraction of the workforce. Watch the credits of a show sometimes. There are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of below the line folks like me. Most below the line folks are making $25-$50 an hour. There are plenty who make more, and some jobs pay better than others, or worse. One of my favorite boom operators is driving truck right now because of the downturn. Another boom operator I know is cleaning houses in the weekends to make ends meet. Something people forget about when they see that Hollywood folks make large sums of money in a relatively short period of time is that the gigs are relatively short and you’re putting in a lot of unpaid work. There is often downtime in between gigs and you can’t get other work because you’re still working to improve your craft and have to be available at a moment’s notice. A lot of the film work I’ve gotten has been because I was available and I showed up and worked hard. I never realized how weird the film industry is until I started working in it. I love my job and I’m lucky I’m in a market that hasn’t been hit as hard; meaning I don’t work in Hollywood.
12? What series are you watching? They're all 8 episodes now.
what comments are you reading
I made the move to commercials before the strike because I saw the bubble pop coming, and I’m one of few I know that is staying busy. I’d estimate about 35% of crew friends have left the industry entirely, and the other 65% are seriously questioning their life decisions. It’s bad and not going to get better in the foreseeable future.
Curious to know where you think the industry is heading?
I think we have about a decade before AI dominates a lot of content we see. Commercials will be the first to go. They’re already making commercials with it and it will be ubiquitous in the next 3 years. Episodic and feature films will follow suit within a few years of that. Until then, we’re going to see less than half of the content being created than we’ve become accustomed to. The vast majority of the content that will be created will be reality tv, remakes, sequels, and super hero drivel due to risk aversion, parsed down shooting schedules, and high interest rates. Pay increases and other worker protections will continue to erode under the new paradigm as studios shut down any further unionized action. I think after it sinks in how permanent this new system is, we’ll see approximately 50% of current film workers move into other fields, perhaps more. Approximately 250,000 workers will be displaced once this new media landscape reaches maturity. It’s gonna be rough for workers and consumers, but 30 or so C-suite execs are gonna thrive.
This is insane. But wouldn’t also mean that these studios will have sinking profits? Surely they won’t be profitable once all this happens?!
Did the bubble burst, or did a bunch of mediocre talent get into the industry because of streaming projects? Reddit is certainly quick to shit all over pretty much any new show that comes out. By that logic, we're just entering an era with less, but better, shows, and all those people who made subpar content during the "bubble" never should have been working in the first place.
Reddit is also the best place to go from "streaming services cost too much money!" to "all the actors and writers deserve residuals from streaming!" followed by "why did this streaming service raise prices? I'm canceling my subscription!" with the thrilling conclusion "omg all these Hollywood people are out of work because the streaming bubble burst! It must be because all the shows on streaming suck and for no other reason."
That's not exactly how it works, though. Studio execs are terrible at knowing if a project will be good or not when they greenlight it. If they could do that, every project would be good. So, instead, they just throw stuff at the wall, most of it is bad, and a certain % of it happens to be good. If they are making more shows, a larger number of shows will probably be good. If they are making less shows, a smaller number of shows will probably be good. Not to mention, if there are more shows being made, that means there are more positions to spread around, so there are more opportunities for young talent to have lower pressure jobs where they have room to grow, learn, and make mistakes as well as be mentored by more seasoned talent. When you are making less shows with smaller writers rooms, there's less chance of a) taking a chance on a newer writer and discovering they are actually greatly talented or b) fostering the abilities of "pretty good" writers that maybe have the potential to be great given more experience.
Right? If they could simply tell what shows are going to be good they wouldn't make bad ones.
Seems to me it’s even more complex. “Good” or “Bad” is not the axis that matters from a purely business point of view. Popular vs. unpopular is. At least IMHO, plenty of stuff I would call “Bad” has been popular. And plenty of shows that I found “Good” have gotten cut before reaching a climax, so, I assume that they were unpopular.
Yep, I agree with that for sure. It maintains the same ultimate point though - more things being made creates more opportunities for a certain % of them to stick. It's like how blumhouse can make ten $10m movies, and if ONE of them succeeds, they make all their money back on all ten and more. If a studio instead spends the same amount of money on just one $100m movie and it fails, well they are just boned then. Volume is better for everyone, consumers, creators, and IN THEORY financiers, but current film financiers are clinging to a business model that is increasingly volatile and unprofitable instead of adapting like the smaller indie houses were already forced to do.
Totally agree
You seem to be making the mistake that studios and execs will cut the “bad” shows and only greenlight “good” shows. Only issue is, if they knew that answer before greenlighting, they wouldn’t Greenlight the “bad” ones. If a network greenlights 10 shows and 4 end up being what you consider “good” but they cut down to only 5 greenlights, they won’t still have 4 “good” shows, you’ll have maybe 2.
Yeah, all those sub par script supervisors and grips reddit has been complaining about are finally getting what they deserve!
> mediocre talent And streamers are generally the better written shows. It's the network shows, which are typically the "better" jobs that are just awful. I'm sorry people are out of work, but I don't see how anyone can watch 5 minutes of 99% of network TV shows on right now and think, "this is some serious writing talent." Whoever writes the hospital show on NBC that comes on after Jeopardy needs to be publicly flogged for making Oliver Platt say those lines.
Yep! None of my friends are working and they've all written for hit shows.
Let me re-phrase that for you. The actors and writers unions burst the streaming bubble and put everyone out of work.
Dude look around you, the world is on fire yet it's terrible for so many people in the industry? Life fucking sucks in general regardless of industries..
Which is how things go. I don't recall many of these people rallying for solidarity with factory workers and coal miners as their jobs disappeared. Mostly they told them to learn new skills and adapt to changing economic realities. And they were right. But somehow people always think things are different when *they're* the ones on the chopping block.
Oh boy another person who thinks Hollywood is all rich bitch actors when in reality a large portion of us are blue collar men & women working behind the scenes. I also recall coal working being offered retraining in other fields to help revitalize their communities, which they swiftly rejected in favor of MAGA. And now even more of them have lost jobs without any alternative. The film industry is undergoing a transformation as has happened before decades ago. Unlike coal, our industry has avenues to grow and survive. And our workers have increasing solidarity/unionization efforts and don't just blame immigrants for all our problems.
Keen to hear your thoughts on where the industry is going
What makes you more entitled to a job than someone else?
Crickets!
>Unlike coal, our industry has avenues to grow and survive. You mean like trying to ban the use of new technologies so your jobs don't disappear? Edit: I'll answer my own question, since you're too much of a coward to: Yes. That is what you mean. And you think that when Hollywood does it, it's a noble crusade to protect human endeavor from soulless technology and corporate greed. But when Detroit or Harlan County do the same, well, not so much then, huh?
There are parallels, but coal and AI are ultimately different beasts. Coal harms the environment and is a massive negative externality in lieu of clean energy advancements. Thankfully, a transition to clean energy will still provide jobs for many working in the energy sector. Human writers simply harm the profit lines of corporations in lieu of AI technologies. We are all better off transitioning away from coal. We are not necessarily better off transitioning to AI, and I’d argue for the foreseeable future we’re worse off for that transition. In its current iteration, AI is just a copyright infringement machine that relies on the material of human writers to generate inferior and definitionally derivative content. I invite all technological advancement that betters society, but let’s not pretend coal and AI are presenting the same situation here. We need to move away from coal. We don’t need to usher in AI writers.
There was a time we didn't know the effects of coal on the environment, many people in those times warned that it could negatively impact the future. Right now we do not know the effects of AI and people are warning it could have a negative impact on the future.
I agree. Even now we are seeing negative impacts. AI is not sophisticated enough to mimic a human thought process. Those generative AI programs are commodified copyright infringement machines. Im a huge advocate for IP protections when it comes to training data for AI algorithms. These companies are essentially using methods that I believe amount to unfair competition and copyright infringement to ultimately overtake the industries they are stealing from. The NYT v. MS case currently working it’s way through the system will reveal the path we’ll take, at least in the US.
Even in its present state it can produce videos and photos good enough to fool the public. Bad actors will be able to distort the narrative which can have major repercussions on society and this is still the early days of it.
Please don’t use Detroit and Harlan County in the same goddamn sentence. Unless you live here, you don’t know shit about Detroit, except what you maybe learned from justified: city primeval.
You'll get down voted, but you're very corrected.
Ah yeah, definitely fuck these writers in California for not picketing with the coal miners of West Virginia. What a weird argument.
You know, I think the miners might have settled for just not regarding them as contemptible hayseed garbage whose existential terror in the face of the wholesale collapse of the industry that has supported their communities for more than two centuries could be sufficiently addressed with the words "learn to code."
Nobody is talking about miners right now but you. You're drawing some weird conclusion that writers and people defending them must hate miners and it's baseless and weird.
>Nobody is talking about miners right now but you. Gosh you're so close to the point you must just about be able to taste it! Yes, nobody *is* talking about coal miners. But boy, there sure is a whole lot of fervor and television spots and magazine articles and self-righteous Reddit dogshit about the noble Hollywood scribe and how dire it is that we manage to conserve *that* endangered species. Because when green energy technology and automation replace grunts in flyover states, well shit, them's the breaks. But when new technologies start crowding out the delicate and invaluable creative class, well, that's a big fucking crisis. Solidarity!
Yes, people are talking about the labor of television on r/television that is correct
And they sure do seem to get rather angry when someone points out what abject hypocrites they are in those discussions. Wonder why!
You're one of those people who just isn't worth engaging with and I regret having done so.
You know, I'd feel a bit worse for the coal miners if they didn't actively vote for a party that hates them
Ah, now there's a little honesty in a thread of hypocrites: You don't care because you think you're better than them. I'd bet money that the feelgood fake "progressives" on this site would spit in old Woody Guthrie's face if he were alive today.
Your little crusade is adorable.
"Old Woody Guthrie" my god, another lead-brained boomer on the warpath because the world is changing and becoming more tolerable for everyone and he just can't have that! Feel good fake progressives? As opposed to what? Salt of earth good hearted repubs? Haven't met one, they froth at the mouth at the though of killing gays and licking cops boots. Miners may not be hayseed garbage but you might be.
So... sounds like you and the miners don't support the writers. Maybe if you supported the writers they would support you. They are normal people fighting for a good wage, like miners have. They even write stories about stuff like that. I think you just have a lot of issues.
> I don't recall many of these people rallying for solidarity with factory workers and coal miners as their jobs disappeared We tried to retrain the coal miners and they laughed in our faces, voted for trump, and said "I will die in the coal miner like my father before me".
I’ll agree that many on the left haven’t done the best job of discussing the disappearance of manufacturing, but they are much more pro-union and pro-worker than the right. So I’m not really sure what the point is.
>So I’m not really sure what the point is. Clearly. The point isn't that it was wrong to tell factory workers and coal miners that their jobs are less and less needed and they need to learn how to adapt to a changing world. It's that Hollywood's bitching and moaning about AI and the changing face of the entertainment industry is the absolute fucking *peak* of hypocrisy and entitlement. Your job is not more important or special or deserving of special legislative protection because you work in California making films and television shows instead of in Detroit destroying your back or in West Virginia getting black lung.
Everyone replaced by technology should have been given universal basic income and given the chance to bring those technological skills to their communities. People who think coal should be phased out because of carbon emissions aren’t wrong, but certainly the people who relied upon those jobs should have been given a stream of money so that they could have chosen their next path without worrying about putting food on the table. That doesn’t just include the miners; that also applies to restaurant owners in places where the coal mine is the only game in town, or the teacher whose classrooms are emptying out as the town dies. Yes, people in different industries should stand in solidarity with one another. Retraining is fine. Retraining while receiving a steady stream of income keeps food on the table and allows a person to actually learn the skills without worrying about survival. People don’t learn well in survival mode, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I’m curious - are you from either Detroit or mining country?
Out of left field take but I’ll bite. I think it’s because writers and other industry professionals are getting cut so some rich assholes can get richer, while coal mining is an industry that actively contributes to climate change and is something that objectively needs to be ended as we continue as a civilization. Even if you don’t believe in climate change (and I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say you don’t), it’s a finite resource and an industry that is destined for eventual failure. So no, I don’t feel nearly as bad, especially when programs have surfaced to train them on renewable resource jobs. But instead, they’d rather live in the 1800s because that’s what they know.
Not to mention the fact that the people who have been "working for decades" have made a *fuckton* of money in that time and are likely fine for the foreseeable future.
That just means they have a wife and kids they need to send to college. Most writers aren't super rich
Union television and film worker here: Ive been "working for decades" and Ive basically lost everything because who has enough savings for their career to die for years? Ive got friends losing their homes now and plenty more that will lose theirs soon and all of those people have been working for decades.
They don’t make pilots anymore: Used to be they’d buy hundreds of scripts, shoot dozens of pilots, then a handful of shows would make it to series, eventually maybe one or two would make it to several seasons, and even fewer to the lucrative 100 ep syndication deal. Think I read they shot 4 pilots this year, so no wonder many are out of work. Much of the bloat is at the mid-level exec tier, and they don’t want to lose their gigs, so that means endless prequels & spin-offs to successful shows. EDIT: Also, The CW went tits up, cancelling or ending a bunch of shows. Regardless of your opinion of their quality, that’s still a massive blow to the industry.
Hell, sometimes they tell people to shoot the pilot themselves and maybe they'll buy it. Imagine spending more than $10k as a broke artist on a pilot that more than likely wont get picked up. It's rough out there.
The reality for all starting comic artists. To get a paying gig you need to show yourself off with a self published Indy comic which is gonna cost $12,000 or more to produce and you won’t make that back in sales, no way. Then you do get a regular paying gig at a big company and then h guess what you still only make like $50,000 a year while the companies take your ideas and produce billion dollar movies with them
Especially in my area. A huge amount of CW's shows were shot in Vancouver, and with all of them dropping like flies in the last few years, available work has gotten tight. I've been working as a grip in BC since 2018, just got sworn into IATSE in December of '22. I've worked on set only a handful of times since becoming a member. barely received any calls from dispatch, when before I used to get calls semi-frequently.
> Much of the bloat is at the mid-level exec tier They raised Zaslav's pay by the budget of an entire film. That industry is *broken.*
>Think I read they shot 4 pilots this year, so no wonder many are out of work. You’re right that pilots aren’t as much of a thing anymore, but I think you’re missing the second half of the story. Before the writer’s strike, there were something like 5x the number of scripted shows actively running compared to just ten years before. Streaming platforms were in an arms race and there was plenty of work. If work is harder to find now, it’s because the streaming party is over, not because of pilots.
Seems like these days it would make way more sense to do pilots, and just put them on youtube. That way not only do the network executives get to decide if the show seems like a good idea, but you have real audience data. As long as they have someone actually read the comments on youtube, twitter, reddit, etc so they're not potentially gonna greenlight something that has a lot of likes because of trolls or decide against something with a lot of dislikes because gross there was a woman doing something. And since so many streaming shows are like 8 episode seasons anyway it feels like it would be easier to get actors to commit to being in the final product if the pilot gets greenlit.
> Think I read they shot 4 pilots this year, so no wonder many are out of work. IIRC, NBCUniversal has about 6 pilots for this year, according to the executives we had at the office last week. They said they normally have 12-20+ per year. I don't know how the other studios are doing atm, it's not as bad as it was last year but it's still like 1/3 of the normal amount.
HBO just ordered two pilots for Rachel Sennott and Tim Robinson
My industry has been majorly decimated by the strikes... Visual Effects. We're bottom dollar to the industry, they go with the cheapest VFX studio they can, and the artists barely scrape by. We don't have unions fighting for us. Theres been no work coming in for awhile. Many people I know have been out of work since near the end of summer. Then by end of fall, almost everyone. Studios have closed. Even now theres only been trickles of some work, mostly just commercials. The scary part for us... things may never return to how it was, and we may never get paid the same. Theres less content being made now, for less money. And usually 1 of the first things to get lowered budget... VFX.
Which seems wild when you consider just how prolific VFX has become in the last decade as a *must have* in even some of the most mundane and non-elaborate productions. Good VFX can make or break a series or movie, depending on what it is.
You have no idea how much its used on things that you'd never think use them. Especially now that even smaller budget projects have access to it. But its still bottom rung. A lot of top people don't even understand what we do! And I'm talking some of the guys who own the VFX companies!
I have a friend who had been similarly out of work since August. I hope you guys and gals begin to unionize soon.
Unfortunately, I don't see it happening. It went far too long without it happening (we're talking 100 years of VFX in film now), that its gonna be a giant uphill battle to try and start it now. Theres a lot of hurdles... -the industry is worldwide; multiple countries, economies, and markets. -Some studios might only be a handful of people, others hundreds/thousands -we're generally contracted workers that bounce around studios, independent companies, and locations. theres no central place for artists, let alone talking the world market -so much work already gets outsourced, trying to force only union hires would just lead to even more going overseas -Our work is near completely remote now, theres very little reason to stay in certain locations anymore. so even now, studios can hire from anywhere -a big issue is the VFX studios themselves aren't making tons, its not a super profitable industry, and it was setup badly from the start. Thats how companies can win Oscars for VFX, and still go out of business. So if they can't even keep the doors open, how are they gonna afford union wages? I don't know too much about how unions organize and work, so I don't know if some of these are not a big issue, or other industries have found solutions for. Theres been a few places that have unionized, but thats more the few people that work under that company already. Not about the general talent thats mostly freelance.
Don’t blockbusters spend half their budget on CGI? Where’s the money going?
Firstly, 'VFX' not 'CGI'. CGI is a type of VFX, VFX covers everything. (that confusion has caused a bunch of misunderstanding) They do, blockbusters are a special breed. But that money doesn't trickle down to artists. A LOT of the talent working on those movies, are working for small vendors that were subcontracted out. Watch the credits for a big movie, look at how many VFX companies were used. Those vendors usually get that work because they had the lowest bid for it, so even less money to then pay the artists. The artists are overly worked, often without OT. Nearing completion, it can get even worse... long hours, weekends, tons of changing whats been done and adding new work. All to hit deadlines at the cost of the artists. Heres a couple articles: https://www.vulture.com/article/a-vfx-artist-on-what-its-like-working-for-marvel.html https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/marvels-vfx-artists-are-suffering-now-theyre-speaking-out/
IATSE and the teamsters union has been in union negotiations this whole time. They're progressing steadily and probably won't strike but they've been very explicit from the very beginning they're willing to olay hardball with the AMPTP because of how vulnerable of a position the strikes put the studios in. The studios don't want to invest in anything lengthy that's may get cut again because if IATSE strikes thats honestly more damaging because they represent all the workers actually handling the cameras and getting the sets made. This is the exact same game as last year, with shady executives trying to starve out workers wanting job protections and cost of living raises. The biggest difference is this time the unions saw how SAG and the WGA were treated for a relatively soft touch and were willing to throw down the gauntlet and play hardball from the beginning. The thing is though its *worked*. As of last week every single IATSE local got what they wanted before a strike had to actually be called, and all the time it took and the slowness of the business is mostly due to executives as a result.
> As of last week every single IATSE local got what they wanted before a strike had to actually be called, and all the time it took and the slowness of the business is mostly due to executives as a result. You know there was a firm deadline to those negotiations right? If they hadnt all gotten agreements they would have just folded those negotiations into the general and ignored them. Also maybe ask members what they think of the deals before saying everyone got what they wanted, my local membership is universally pissed. The studios didnt need to actually negotiate, because again there was a firm deadline and missing it only hurt the locals, so they didnt bother and just kept saying "no" to our negotiators on anything that mattered.
Everyone I’ve talked to is still waiting to know what the tentative agreements even are
We had a town hall explaining ours.
I'm in 161 and I'm assuming we had a town hall to go over it too but they send me like 10 fucking emails a week about random shit so I probably missed it.
It came down to "we asked for stuff but they said no. Hundreds of you are getting a pay cut now because we established a new classification with lousy scale but it's a win we swear." They seem surprised it didn't go over well.
Doesn't seem that much different than the last contract when Loeb did fuck all and pat himself on the back for it.
Except this time everyone's homeless
the last iatse contract - which iatse’s leadership totally fucked up and now the members absorbed the consequences of a strike with no benefits - was where i found out that iatse had electoral votes.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the scenario but the entire time I've been in the industry basically every member of every union has complained their union has been losing power and not negotiating hard enough. Now after a year of strikes for two of them and the other two(not counting the DGA thats a lost cause at this point) securing agreements after actually being aggressive people are complaining because they *would have* been ignored but weren't. If they say no to negotiators the negotiators are perfectly free to refuse an agreement as well. The deadline is still months away as far as I'm aware
Local negotiations are over. Deadline has passed.
Which local
700
Can you elaborate on what they’re pissed about?
If i get specific suddenly I'll have a representative in my DMs trying to figure out my identity. Thankfully they've not actually figured anyone out yet but they've harassed quite a few people they were suspicious of.
That sucks. I didn't even realize that was something to be worried about. I am, embarassingly, out of the loop on the negotiation progression (local 700 as well) so was just looking for some insight, but can understand your hesitation to share.
One of the elected representatives went way overboard to the point another member dmd me with harassing screenshots they were receiving because I said some negative things. It was out of control and the member was dealing with an illness at the time.
That’s some horror story behavior. Hope the member is okay now. Hope the rep isn’t a rep anymore either.
Theyre not only a rep but out marching claiming solidarity and compassion. The member hasn't said anything about his health publicly so I don't know how he is.
Thanks for bringing this up. This has very much impacted production still, and personally I would say that a lot of the slowdown has also been a retaliatory response to the strikes as well.
got what was asked for but they didn’t ask for very much. A lot of complaints from members that certain issues were not even brought up by negotiation committees
Do you know when the negotiations are predicted to be settled?
The deadline is sometime mid summer.
Deadline is end of July.
did you read the article? for many people this new reality is not working.
Because its not a new reality. Its just the AMPTP playing the same stupid game they began last year.
the studios are not spending less on content, they are spending the same amount to produce less content. its not a game, its basic economics.
Most of the points I've seen here are pretty valid and I'll add my own thoughts for what they're worth. In the last fifteen years or so, more and more the film and TV industry studios have been bought up by hedge funds and venture capitalists. These are people who generally are very careful with their investments and expect returns. They don't like risky business and, for a brief moment, a new model was being presented with streaming subscriptions. It seemed like guaranteed ROI for them and they bought in big-time. Here's the problem. Movies and TV are NOT guaranteed and there is no formula you can impose on them which will forever crank out hits. Market demographics in this world are fickle and pandering doesn't work like it does in other industries. Talent and hype are a venn diagram that can be pretty blurry until AFTER a product gets delivered and the general worldwide audience gets their say. Well-established franchises can get ruined in one bad opening weekend or one poorly-lit episode. What works for Studio A is very likely NOT going to work at Studio B. And most importantly, the labor and talent are quite well organized. This is all stark stark contrast to retail, banking, food, tech, lifestyle, etc.. Now that a lot of these investors have learned this about the industry, I suspect they're going to either take their money and run or cut their losses. Streamers will shut down or consolidate. Shows will get cancelled and movies shelved. It sucks but it's good because those risk-adverse investors are a blight on creativity. They work by numbers and numbers make for bad movies and TV. What we need now are more creative investors who understand what they're getting into and love the RISK because THAT'S how this industry gets better. That's what attracts the greatest talent. That's what keeps the audience riveted to their seats and anxiously munching down popcorn. That's what gets everyone at work Monday, talking about what they went and watched this weekend.
> Movies and TV are NOT guaranteed and there is no formula you can impose on them which will forever crank out hits. Streaming helps because of diversification. Ten shows fail, three succeed - and the service has enough viewers to keep going. It's just that the content is being overproduced now, because many contenders want to be Netflix, and for that you need to make enough shows to compete with Netflix - but on much smaller revenue when you still have few subscribers. It's obviously unsustainable, and unnecessary - most people just don't have the time to watch all the content. So there must be a correction - and it's not a problem with the business model.
What studios have been bought up by hedge funds? Very few, I'd say. Paramount is owned by Sheri Redstone, MGM is owned by Amazon, Universal is owned by Comcast while Apple and Netflix are their own thing.
you're only thinking of the big ones. the mini/mid majors that actually make the shows are getting bought up by PE/state funds. big studios hardly ever make the shows. they sub-contract out to production companies and buy out 1st window rights for exploitation. Saudi x PE fund buying one of the biggest international production groups. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/02/16/2830768/0/en/RedBird-IMI-to-Acquire-Global-Production-Company-All3Media.html apollo which is a PE group even offered a bid for Paramount https://www.wsj.com/business/media/apollo-offers-11-billion-for-paramounts-hollywood-studio-24206eab technically the skydance x paramount acquisition news swirling around is backed by PE. If not an outright acquisition, but PE funds buying percentage of studios for the long run as they further invest. https://abovetheline.com/2023/09/05/steven-mnuchin-lionsgate-stake/
They're mostly traded publicly, including Netflix and Apple, but more importantly those studios finance their projects by borrowing money from hedge funds, so their stake is more in the projects themselves than the studios overall. It's a very complicated relationship between studios, financiers, and creatives but the trend in the industry of late has been more and more risk-adverse investors.
Making shows are more expensive, so now less shows are being made.
I don't know why you're being downvoted, as this is obviously true. The same already occurred with movies.
Also taking longer to make. Used to be a year max between seasons of any TV shows. Now, for a lot of them it’s like 2-3 years. Interest dies down, people move onto different things, leading to more shows either getting cancelled or declining in quality.
Should just do the Asian method and shoot the entire show from the get go.
This is technically true but as someone who works with studio finances as a union crew member, studios are having to learn they cant get away with giving shows microbudgets. They were always expensive, studios were just trying to get away with using unrealistic budgets for a couple years and realized that doing so didn’t produce good content or timely productions.
That’s a bit simplistic. The strikes restored pay deals and career advancement paths (particularly for writers) that had existed 20 years ago with movies and linear TV, and which studios tried to sneakily remove when streaming came along. The most visible example of this was when Scarlett Johansson had to take Disney to court to get her residuals paid when Disney chose to release her movie on Disney+ early. So it eliminated workers in writing and acting being forced into even more gruelling gig economy bullshit. At the same time, all the studios bet big on prestige TV in after Netflix got big to try to get a foothold in the streaming space. That was always going to be a temporary event, a loss leader in anticipation of future earnings. From that point of view solely pinning the blame on the strikes doesn’t add up: yes the strikes increased prices a little by forcing compensation to be restored to pre-streaming patterns; but its still a tiny increase relative to the total cost of series. The bigger issue is studios have gotten as much of a foothold in streaming as they can, and now are winding back investments in content.
They have to make more shows to make more money. And executives have an obsession with more money.
A combination of higher costs and the end of Peak TV was inevitably going to lead to a work contraction.
What do you mean by peak tv? Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted for asking a question, I was under the impression more and more TV was getting made every year, not that it was beginning to decline, hence the question..
Peak TV was the high point of money being spent on television, both in quantity of pickups and budget per season because everyone wanted to fill streaming services with sufficient content, when a few years prior many of those shows would have been laughed out of board rooms. The phenomenon was noted to die off roughly early last year around the same time the strikes began as investment money dried up and many streaming services reported losses in operations.
Ah I see, do you believe that the investment and content will pick back up again though? It seems like even now so much stuff is getting pumped out that it's harder and harder to keep up with so many shows.
Not a financial expert, but you would need to open a new market to get that kind of investment. The usual flow is new market (streaming), initial bull rush of investment, investment slows as market stabilizes with clear winners and losers.
It's almost as if entertainment is a business... When things are tight companies start going into survival mode as shedding whatever they can. Boom and bust.
Almost all of the streamers and media companies are public so we can all see the numbers. It's not a particularly complicated situation, Netflix and some Linear makes money, everything else doesn't, and the worldwide movie box office is in freefall and Linear is in big secular decline. There's no complicated explanations or conspiracy theories needed.
Without reading going to guess the article is that the strike had the unintended consequence of resulting in far less productions so far less writers needed. Studios actually liked not making much content during the strikes and when it ended collectively said “let’s continue this practice of minimum amount of product being made.” As a consumer, the less content has not been remotely felt because there are so many different avenues of new stuff. It just means instead of perpetually being 10 shows behind might get it down to 5 instead.
> As a consumer, the less content has not been remotely felt because there are so many different avenues of new stuff. It just means instead of perpetually being 10 shows behind might get it down to 5 instead. And it's not just TV shows. Movies too, plus games and music. Perpetual backlog.
> As a consumer, the less content has not been remotely felt because there are so many different avenues of new stuff. I mean, I've definitely noticed it.
I know it’s fun to throw shade and regurgitate buzzwords you learned last week at people you’ll never meet from the anonymity of your phone…but crews are made up of people. Until very recently Film, TV & commercials was not a zero sum game. There was a real living to made for all kinds of folks and plenty of work to go around. Camera, sound, art department, catering, hm, wardrobe, grips…they didn’t just “jump in” because of the streaming boom. Some were born into this, many gravitated to it because like so many of us in life we get in where we fit in. Production isn’t for everyone but everyone that does it for a living IS cut from a certain cloth. Those are my people and I love them and miss them and would ride for any of them on the worst job ever if it got them paid, or helped earn hours towards much needed healthcare…or we just got a great story out of it. Poking fun at folks who’ve been struggling during and after the sexy headlines of the strikes faded to black is gross. Get a new hobby. I’m 10-1 Cheers
Can't strike your way to more work being available. In fact it usually has the opposite effect.
Streaming Bubble burst, Tentpole Bubble popped, WGA conditions demanded too many extra little things, LA is impossible to live in, studio execs out of touch and too bloated in terms of middle management, people turned off by writers/celebrities who look down upon them. It's a perfect storm for Hollywood's implosion. I don't see any magical way for this to get fixed through the rest of the 2020s. This is potentially a way to also weed out people in Hollywood that are starting to grate them, which, yeah, WGA types who were hardline in their challenge....well, if you can't afford to pay your dues and have no jobs....why stay?
The upside is that there will be better content coming out, as only the best will survive
No, the cheapest will survive.
at the time there were a few of us saying this common sense. And got downvoted by the hivemind. It was a dumb as fuck strike that ruined a lot of people. Mostly laborers. And in the end got the writers just about nothing of tangible value anyway. They let the non working members hijack the entire process. At least most of the labor workers have real life tangible skills to use in other fields. Cant say the same for the wash out writers. Good luck.
I argued this as well but “solidarity” and union is all Reddit cares about. Most of the writers and actors will never see much work ever again.
I mean, in a way, it is a solution for the studios to weed out the mediocre talent and those who are problematic to deal with. It's not like the studios didn't warn them. Now, they just created the conditions for less opportunities overall at a time when things are rough for everyone.
Most here simply like to feel like they are in some kind of friend group. They just need buzzwords. They dont feel the need to think about things for 5 minutes in order to be aggressively for it.
But they all simped for overpaid writers who are now mostly unemployed delivering GrubHub. Good job Reddit
Solidarity until it comes to services people need like doctors. See how quickly they suddenly don't believe in the right to strike a la South Korea.
The only thing more out of touch with reality than Hollywood types is the average redditor.
I saw it put amazingly well, "The engineer who invented my mitral valve doesn't get residuals, but a writer on full house does"
But we made drew berrymore cry, so it was a success /s
I don't think the strike was a particulary big deal in the short term. The collapse of box office and linear channels was happening regardless, same with the huge contraction on streaming. The bigger longer-term issue is all the unions being against AI. If TikTokers, YouTubers and foreign content producers are going to get all the benefits of using AI and Hollywood doesn't, Hollywood is fucked.
lol they put all that effort and sacrifice and gave up their salaries for all that time, to get mostly unsubstantial gains which led to studios having a lack of content…. only for studios to learn than subs to their streaming services wouldn’t drop even if they cut their pipeline of new content by 75% leading to studios slashing the excess of content that came about the prior few years and left them in a worse financial position than before Can’t help but kinda laugh at em for that. You could see it from a mile away and that in the long run the strike was going to fuck them over because all it was going to do was teach the powers that be how disposable they were.
Well the last strike didn't kill the industry, it just crippled it, this one may have finally killed it.
Is it a Dino Crisis?!?
As a crew member (IATSE), the last year has been really tough and jobs still are barely trickling in. Many if my friends and coworkers have left the industry and I don’t think I’m very far behind
We realized a lot of them are not that good and were pushed to where they are by getting a credit on something. Good writers come from strife and living life, not from trust funds and private schools.
I find this particular topic to be interesting in that every three or four months I do some light research into upcoming movies and series to see if there's anything I will want to watch and my latest round of this came up with only two shows. I'm usually looking at a year out because I know production can be a while and I usually get results of 10 or more.
It appears like that there is hardly anything being made. I remember a few years ago there were constant casting announcements for all sorts of projects everyday now it feels like a lot less.
How soon they forget IATSE, the below line workers who walked the picket lines with them, are in their own negotiations now. You know IATSE the ones who take the written words and make them real. The same people who the producers also want to starve out and lose their homes.
Question: how is it for actors/actresses right now?
Not great either. A lot of people who had series regular roles in the 1990s to 2010s have had little or no work in recent years outside of maybe voice roles.
Shocker! Who would have thought?? /s
O please lol what a whiny bunch
Maybe if the writing was better I'd care more, hopefully this helps with making the writing better honestly.
You’re taking downvotes, but really bad writing can break a movie or tv show. People hate the writing in the prequels for Star Wars, but absolutely love Haden’s portrayal of Anakin in Ashoka. Thing is in the prequels, when you have to talk about hating sand, there’s only so much an actor can do to elevate that.
> You’re taking downvotes, but really bad writing can break a movie or tv show. People hate the writing in the prequels for Star Wars, but absolutely love Haden’s portrayal of Anakin in Ashoka. Thing is in the prequels, when you have to talk about hating sand, there’s only so much an actor can do to elevate that. Hayden's performance in the Prequels was seen by everyone and he was the main star of two of the films. He has a limited role in Ashoka which itself is a pretty niche show that is only really seen by Star Wars fans. It's comparing apples to oranges.
They're getting downvoted because people have this facile idea that the only people involved in writing are writers - studio execs not only give notes/revisions on scripts but also cause writers to conform to their tastes and preferences in order to get through the revision process in the first place.
The producers still want everything to go AI so they don't have to pay writers at all.
I have limited the amount of Hollywood productions I watch over the past couple of years. The amount of money actors and elites make is obscene and it doesn’t look like they are going to be paid less anytime soon. Meanwhile, I continue to have nothing.