The SAG/WGA Strike Could Affect Content Creators. Here's What to Do About It. ('You'll Be Known as a Scab')

Mashable ^ | July 13, 2023 | Elizabeth de Luna

[nickcarraway]

Ping

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Who really cares? They can go away forever. I won't miss their slop.

[mikegreenwell39]

Haha! My first job (I think I was at 14 or 15- I remember riding my bike and my Mom picking me up late at night) was as a scab at Safeway. I recall the strikers being especially nasty people (on at least one occasion they threw rocks at me)- not surprising as the Safeways I have been to employ some of the laziest and most insolent public facing employees I have ever met (save for government).

[agere_contra]

Unions hate competition.

[Billthedrill]

Somebody’s missing the point. If we “content creators” cross the picket line, we help corporate, who hate us and who we hate. If we don’t, we help the writers and actors, who hate us and who we hate. How about the whole festering lot of them can go to hell?

[nickcarraway]

Yes, I was thinking along those lines.

[agere_contra]

So many Hollywood projects clearly didn’t use writers.

She-Hulk, Witcher Blood Origin, The Rings of Power, Seasons 2 through 4 of Battlestar Galactica, Bat-Girl, the later Star War Movies, all Marvel stuff since End Game.

The ‘writers’ shouldn’t be on strike. They need to learn how to write.

[plain talk]

AI is believed to be a major piece of contention. No surprise there.

[Ciaphas Cain]

I have friends in the entertainment industry, and what the SAG is going on strike about is very understandable. The studios/execs want to hire extras for one day of production, and during that time scan their faces and bodies so that there's a digital model of the actor. The studios want to be able to use that model forever, and they would pay NOTHING for the use of the extras' likenesses. Imagine showing up on the set tomorrow, getting a hundred dollars for the day's work and then twenty years later seeing your face and body "acting" in a successful blockbuster... and you get nothing for it.

I don't really care for what happens to liberal Hollywood either, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. SAG is trying to head off a use of technology that threatens many people's livelihood, not just their own.

[nickcarraway]

I am not saying its not understandable, but I am asking, does SAG really have the ability to stop the studios from doing that? Soon they may not even need that extra for one day, they may be able to create the extras entirely.

And likewise, is there any way the writer's union can stop studios from AI writing?

I don't want either of those things, but at this point, are they fait accompli?

[Reno89519]

Will anyone even notice?

[nickcarraway]

There are probably people, who are not part of either group, that will be losing their jobs because of this.

[MinorityRepublican]

Soon they may not even need that extra for one day, they may be able to create the extras entirely.

They can do it right now, the AI will look a little fake but if the film is low budget, you wouldn't notice that much anyway.

[Enterprise]

I want to be a content creator to royally piss these people off.

[Sirius Lee]

I’m going to go create some Hollywood style content in my toilet.

[mewzilla]

I don’t see anyone holding pity parties for Bud bottlers.

[PghBaldy]

“160,000 members of SAG” -— Most of whom cannot make a living from acting.

[Vermont Lt]

I agree with most of those…except BSG. I know the ending was weak…but I compared to today, that stuff is Shakespeare.

[PerConPat]

My personal belief, for what it's worth, is shaded by the motion picture/TV industry being increasingly co-opted into promoting leftist and deviant causes. Could not care less about their troubles. There is very little intellectual balance or substance remaining in that art form.