Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Combined Leverage of a Merged SAG-AFTRA

poicture of all the companies SAG and AFTRA cover separately and what they'd cover together
(click to expand)
The current coverage of SAG and AFTRA and what the combined leverage will be after a merger. Read more on the merger.

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this posted by David August at 5:06 PM - 0 comments -  

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Pilot Season Casting Challenges

...for all of its importance, the process of casting pilots - for those actors who aren’t among the very small number well known enough to simply be offered a show outright - is, ironically, so strained and grueling that it doesn’t afford actors the opportunity to be cast in the show best suited to them, nor the producers a position of confidence that they have hired the best ensemble available.
...who gets cast can have little to do with acting ability anyway. Rather, because there are so many pilots competing for the same pool of talent, timing and competition issues can frustratingly undermine an actor getting cast in the right role. Studios and networks always demand that any actor going in to test for a show sign a "test deal," which says they can't accept another deal within a five- to ten-day period following their test; such contracts are required so an actor won’t be able to use the after-the-fact leverage of having beaten out the competition in order to negotiate a better deal for themselves. Most networks and studios will not test someone if they are being held by another pilot under one of these deals, therefore these actors are kept off the market even though they might not get the pilot that is tying them up. Meanwhile, their compensation for being held in this way is zero

(from Vulture).

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this posted by David August at 10:45 AM - 0 comments -  

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Equity Supports SAG-AFTRA Merger

On Tuesday, 2/21/12, the Council of Actors' Equity unanimously passed the following motion: "AEA strongly supports SAG and AFTRA in their proposal to merge their Unions."

(from Actors Equity's website).

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this posted by David August at 9:29 PM - 0 comments -  

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Better Bargaining with One Union

Venn Diagram example of union coverage pre and post merger of SAG and AFTRA
This is an example of how much better equipped a single SAG-AFTRA union would be to negotiate with producers, in this case the Walt Disney Company.

Please vote yes on the merger of SAG and AFTRA.

Read a PDF of 4 reasons to support merger:

  1. Improved Bargaining Strength
  2. Better Organizing
  3. Easier to Get Benefits
  4. Better Position for the Future

Also read my post about why they must merge. Disclosure: I am a member of both SAG and AFTRA and a SAG signatory producer; merger is good for both talent and producers.

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this posted by David August at 12:07 PM - 0 comments -  

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Add Your Acting Class to the Free Directory

I'm making a directory of acting classes.
Please add yours for free:
http://www.theyact.com/add-acting-class/

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this posted by David August at 11:10 PM - 0 comments -  

Sunday, February 05, 2012

One Agent's Focus

During the next month, if what you're calling or emailing me about does not pertain in some way to a major feature film role that you know definitively is currently casting or does not pertain to a series regular role, I do not want to know about it. Period.
If you have an issue with that, I ask that you kindly find an agent whose priorities are chasing SAG Ultra Low budget roles rather than potentially multi-million dollar pilot roles
...from this point till April, if you call me about a two line part in an indie, I will drop you

(from Ryan Hayden from Ideal Talent Agency's letter to clients).

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this posted by David August at 12:12 PM - 0 comments -