On Sunday (2/10), the Writers Guild of America (WGA) board and negotiating committee unanimously approved a tentative contract reached on Feb. 1 with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). And now the deal is no longer tentative as WGA members who cast ballots overwhelmingly voted in favor of returning to work. Some 93 percent of the 3,775 who voted gave a thumbs-up to ending the strike.
The new writers’ contract is modeled to some extent on the agreement reached earlier between the AMPTP and the Directors Guild of America (DGA), which included an accord on the key issue of compensation for content running on the Internet.
As reported in SHOOT, the WGA strike–which began on Nov. 5–has had indirect and direct impact on the advertising and spotmaking communities. For example, the direct impact on the visual effects biz has been profoundly negative, according to then Visual Effects Society (VES) chair Jeffrey A. Okun (SHOOT, 12/7/07).
Beyond the industry, the strike has hit the economy at large quite hard, particularly in Greater Los Angeles where assorted businesses depend on revenue generated by feature and TV production. Estimates run as high as the L.A. economy losing some $22 million a day because of the work stoppage.
Hopes now run high that at least part of the primetime TV season can be salvaged. Also high on the wish list is that the agreements between the AMPTP and the WGA and DGA, respectively, will make upcoming negotiations with the actors proceed smoothly and yield a contract sans any strike action. The actors’ unions agreement with the AMPTP is set to expire on June 30. But there’s some acrimony already on just one side of the bargaining table as the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) has broken ranks with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
AFTRA’s board of directors voted on Feb. 2 to separately negotiate its upcoming primetime TV contract with the AMPTP–without SAG being party to those talks. If that AFTRA decision holds, it will conclude a longstanding joint partnership between the two actors’ unions in negotiations with the major feature/TV studios.
And keep in mind that the extension to the commercials contract for actors is set to expire at the end of October. It remains to be seen what bearing, if any, AFTRA’s split from SAG on the primetime TV contract front will have on prospects for reaching an agreement with the ad industry.
Yorick Le Saux Connects With Writer-Director Steve McQueen On “Blitz”
When opportunity knocked, cinematographer Yorick Le Saux, AFC couldn’t answer in the affirmative--though he desperately wanted to. Scheduling conflicts forced him to turn down overtures from director Steve McQueen on a couple of occasions--the first being for a commercial, followed several years later by a query as to the DP’s availability for what turned out to be the acclaimed Small Axe anthology. Thankfully, though, the third time proved to be the charm as McQueen once again reached out to Le Saux and the two wound up collaborating together on Blitz (Apple Original Films). McQueen, a Best Picture Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave, wrote and directed Blitz, which makes its streaming debut today (11/22) on Apple TV+ after a wide theatrical release. Blitz, short for the Germans’ blitzkrieg bombing of London during World War II, is told largely through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy, George (portrayed by Elliott Heffernan), whose single mom, Rita (Saoirse Ronan), had made the heartaching decision to send him to the countryside with thousands of other schoolchildren to flee the devastating aerial attacks. The prospect of being separated from his mother and grandfather is traumatic for George who at his young age has also felt the sting of prejudice, having been ridiculed about his mixed-race heritage. Le Saux shared that going into Blitz, his only connection to World War II was what he heard about it from his parents and grandparents. But he was eager to work with McQueen and found that upon delving deeper into the subject matter he felt a profound bond to the story, which carries relevance to today. Le Saux said this gave him a sense of purpose to help realize the writer-director’s vision for the... Read More