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Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

cnbc.com

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Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#81

Post by gruez »

Arrath wrote: post #54
falcolas wrote: post #10

Given the explicit "we'll just wait for them to lose their housing" messaging from the Hollywood executives... Good on SAG-AFTRA. This can only increase the bargaining power of both groups.

> Given the explicit "we'll just wait for them to lose their housing" messaging from the Hollywood executives... Yeah, that was fuckin disgusting. Its tar and feather territory if you ask me. I'm in full support of this strike and I applaud the actors for getting in on it. Bring the studios to their knees if that's what it takes.

>Its tar and feather territory if you ask me.

Refusing to accept a deal is akin to acts of violence? I feel like the pro-union rhetoric is getting hyperbolic, and is detrimental to the quality of the discussion. If simply refusing to accept a deal is "tar and feather territory", then what do you call it when studios are literally covering union members in tar and feather? "tar feather (fr!) territory"? Rather than discussing actually relevant topics like which side's offer is objectively more fair, half the comments here are about trying to describe the studio's actions in increasingly hyperbolic terms.

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#82

Post by thefounder »

bwestergard wrote: post #20

A refreshing show of solidarity between groups of workers whose interests clearly align. If they call for the public to cancel subscriptions, I'll do it.

Well, to be honest we've been served a lot of trash content before the strike for various reasons so I'm not sure how our interests and worker's interests align here.

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#83

Post by Animats »

bsimpson wrote: post #53
dluan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The visual effects people and animators in Hollywood should absolutely be organizing for one, because their work is the soonest to be blown up with AI stuff. There's already a ton of stuff for small productivity improvements that reduce editing or grading tasks that used to take days into minutes.

There's the Animation Guild for collective bargaining, and ASIFA (which is like the Academy of cartoons). https://animationguild.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASIFA-Hollywood

The Animation Guild is a good model.

Disney, whose animators have been unionized since the 1950s, bought Fox's animation operation and is trying to run it non-union. They're refusing to bargain with TAG, even though Disney has recognized the union.[1]

There aren't that many animation studios left. Most either went out of business or were bought by Disney. The remaining Hollywood unionized animation studios are Disney, Sony, Nickelodeon, Rick and Morty, Titmouse LA/Robin Red Breast Production, and WAG Pictures, Inc.

Despite repeated attempts, TAG has been unable to unionize game developers.

[1] https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/support-unionized-worker...

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#84

Post by lbotos »

solardev wrote: post #58
Kye wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jet Li famously turned down The Matrix because he was worried about what they might do with his motion capture in the future. Previous discussion of the topic right here on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27852017

It probably won't be long before algorithms can mocap just from the recorded footage and then transpose those movements to arbitrary 3D models :/ That doesn't take away from the beauty of martial arts though. You can have an exact definition of all the moves you'll ever do, but still spend decades refining them. For actors though... yeah I can see why they're worried

It's definitely rudimentary possible.

During covid I was working on a paintball video game and I took pro paintball footage and ran some university research skeleton modeling program on it and got reasonably good results. I was going to use that for crouch and bunker hugging animations. And that was just me an HN reader playing around.

EDIT: Sibling posted and I was using that project -- OpenPose!

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#85

Post by rightbyte »

davidw wrote: post #35
monkeyodeath wrote: post #19

The business philosophy of "maximize shareholder value above all else" is going to eviscerate our society until there's nothing of quality left. Hollywood has always been a dirty and money-focused business, but it seems like the latest crop of execs are hellbent on entirely divorcing the creative enterprise from its human elements. Now studios are just exotic financial instruments that seek to turn "content" into sto…

"Captain's log, Stardate 3034. The Enterprise is now in its 23rd reboot."

Made me chuckle.

I can't recall any STNG episode where they solve some tech issue by doing the same thing but after a restart or two.

Didn't computers at the time of writing have the state problem solved by reboots? Like, reloading the program was essentially the same thing or something?

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#86

Post by bluefirebrand »

ninth_ant wrote: post #65
falcolas wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being the worst tactic used by companies to break strikes doesn't make it good or even OK . Nor should it lessen the condemnation faced by these companies. EDIT: To be clear, I expect a company's executive team in the 21st century to act ethically and with even the smallest bit of compassion for their coworkers. I do not expect them to act like some entitled plantation owner in the late 19th century. And if that'…

This not some dirty tactic, it is specifically how all breakdowns in employer/union negotiations go. Union withdraws their labour until their demands are met, employer doesn't agree until their demands are met. As time goes on, both lose money, both parties are betting the other party will compromise in a beneficial way before their side does. If you don't approve of this, you don't approve of unionization. Because t…

> As time goes on, both lose money, both parties are betting the other party will compromise in a beneficial way before their side does.

Historically when the key demand is "we want fair pay" versus "we are not giving you another dime", this strategy from the employer ends in violence.

So, not a great plan for employers tbh

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#87

Post by gruez »

Arrath wrote: post #57
HDThoreaun wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't come to the table because they know the writers will not accept the offer. What's the point in wasting time?

Its such a shame that the laws of the universe only allow the studios to make that one offer they want to bring to the table.

The same could be said for the union. Why should either side be forced to make concessions?

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#88

Post by mrtksn »

monkeyodeath wrote: post #72
mrtksn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything measured and optimised for shallow goals goes into the gutter. As the analytics overtook decision making, the quality of everything declined sharply. IMHO, it's happening because we the humans optimize for proxy metrics which once were good as a proxy to the real thing but with the computer age they turned into shallow goals that end up destroying the real thing as the optimisation became too robust. Remov…

"As the analytics overtook decision making, the quality of everything declined sharply." Pretty much. I'm sure Hollywood execs have always wanted to make as much money as they could, but they also (formerly) didn't want to be known as guys who only made terrible movies. Prestige, vanity, relationships, reputation...unanalyzable human factors are really important for the production of human-centric products like art a…

Couldn't Have Said It Better. It expands to everything, every job has perks and qualities that cannot be measured qualitatively and optimisations eat into it. As people spend most of their lives working, this degradation destroys people's life satisfaction too.

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#89

Post by Animats »

no_wizard wrote: post #3

Now this could actually force the Hollywood studios back to the negotiating table in earnest. Its one thing to outsource writers, its not easy (I'd say rare to impossible) to outsource the actors themselves.

The previous Writers Guild strike, in 2007-2008, resulted in a big boom in "reality" shows.

Re: Actors union will join writers on strike, shutting down Hollywood

#90

Post by [deleted] »

Arrath wrote: post #56
gruez wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The studios haven't even come to the negotiation table in the 70 days of the WGA's strike. What's the point of coming to the negotiation table when the other side's demands is so far from what you're willing to offer? >Their entire plan is waiting them out so they'll accept a worse offer. It takes two to make a deal. By refusing to accept a deal, both sides' are hoping to inflict damage to the other side so they can…

> What's the point of coming to the negotiation table when the other side's demands is so far from what you're willing to offer? Uh, does this situation not fit the dictionary definition of negotiation? Such a gulf in demands/desires/position between the sides necessitates negotiation and compromise. The institution saying "lol fuck them, we'll starve 'em out" is monstrous in that context, imo.

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