The Obligatory SAG Strike Blog Post
The prospect has been looming on the horizon for a while, but it appears that the worst may soon come to pass: the Screen Actors Guild may be headed for a strike of their own, just months after the WGA wrapped up its labor dispute. Everything from movie production to the fall TV line-up is now up in the air, and those projects already underway are rushing to wrap things up.
If this seems ill-advised to you on the part of SAG, well, you're probably in the majority. Hollywood is still in recovery mode from the WGA mess, and a second strike won't help things, as the above linked articles points out:
The Milken Institute, a Californian economic think- tank, recently estimated that the state would already lose about $2.1bn (£1.07bn) in output as well as 37,000 jobs by the end of the year.
"Even if the actors strike doesn't happen, there is already an economic impact going on which is currently affecting production schedules," said the study's author, Kevin Klowden. "Even a smaller strike would slow down the recovery."
For more, here's a thorough WSJ story from last weekend, and here's Wired on how the SAG strike could affect one of nerdom's most prized projects.
It's sort of a downer just to think that a year ago no one would have suspected that being a movie-fan meant understanding the intricacies of labor negotiation, but so it goes.
Jon Schnaars
Writer/Podcast Co-Host/Business Guy
If you have questions about doing business with BGH, this is the man to speak with. Jon also enjoys the fancier things, like monocles and silent-era horror films.