this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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I am skeptical this strike will come to much, though I wouldn't complain at being proven wrong. The last big writer's strike I remember was in 2008ish, and that strike killed off a lot of shows and (anecdotally, at least) resulted in a large uptick in what we foolishly refer to as "reality TV".
I would not be surprised even a little if I were to discover that this strike has caused executives and producers to turn to AI-generated content right now, as opposed to sometime down the line. The first "written by AI" show is bound to get a lot of initial attention, and as with all things dealing with automation-- it doesn't have to be perfect, just better than humans.
The pessimist/pragmatist in me agrees with you, that this strike probably won't come to any real meaningful changes.
However, the one big difference now is, actors and writers today have been earning such paltry amounts that almost all of them have full-time side hustles, so nobody is going hungry. I have a lot of friends who work as actors and writers in LA, and even if they do that "full-time" they all have full-time side careers too, as the pay for acting/writing is so crazy low and LA's COL is so high. So if the studios hope to wait it out until people lose their houses and can't afford food, they may be waiting a long time.
The ones hurting the most in LA are the mid-level and senior producers, who earn a good 6 figures, but not millions. They don't have side hustles, and they have mortgages on million dollar homes, and also no income coming in. And they're on the studios' side, so they may actually be the first to fall before anyone from WGA/SAG.
I know I'm being a debbie downer, and my mostly-off topic follow up question is going to be in the same vein: Are you implying that these actors with second jobs can pay all their bills with only their second jobs? Does acting really pay so little; that's nearly "hobby" territory.
There are some articles floating around (I'll try to dig them up when I have time later) where actors actually discuss how much they make and it really is that little. Think like 2k for a one-time spot which sounds great, but that then gets cut by taxes, fees to agents and other representatives. Also not including the time for auditioning, at-home work preparing for the actual rehearsals and filming. It's wild. I work in the arts but not film, and I thought I had it bad.