Brave New Media #006 - Anthony DeSantis from Brave New Media on Vimeo.
This clip features Anthony DeSantis, Hollywood board member of the Screen Actors Guild at the SAG Solidarity Rally. Recorded 9 June 2008.
Message from Anthony:
My name is Anthony DeSantis. It is right that I should stand behind what I send out over the internet. You can IMDB me for reference but suffice to say that I qualify as no man's "High-Profile" actor. I am, by definition, a middle class actor. I make most of my money from commercials. I've never made enough in just over ten years in LA to make a living doing TV and film alone but I have made my Plan 1 benefits every year since 1997 primarily due to commercial work. I've never made over $100,000 in one year as an actor. I'm right in the middle class sweet spot. (Full disclosure--I've been on the Hollywood Board of the Screen Actors Guild for 5 years and have run with Membership First each of those years. For those of you who don't know, Membership First has swept the elections save for one or two people here and there for each of those five years. That means that people have believed for those years in what Membership First stood for and what we've been doing for longer than the US Department of Homeland Security has been in existence.)
The above means that I've been around the top 20 per cent or so of my profession for over a decade. Ask anyone in any other professional field who is in the top 20% of their peers if they feel they deserve to be able to buy a house, feed a family of four, have two solid cars and save enough to put those two kids through college and finally retire comfortably?
You bet your ass they believe they should and so should any actor who goes on hundreds of unpaid auditions, books jobs that never air, gets turned down again and again only to show up in "upscale casual" or with an armload of changes or races across town three times in a day through LA traffic so they can avoid the ire of a 20-yr-old intern who thinks you should have made it from Santa Monica to Burbank on time at 5pm for a one-line co-star read. You're damn right we deserve to be paid fairly. What we/you do is invaluable to the creative process. There are no Studios without you. There are no Ad agencies without you. There are no Producers without you. There are no casting agents without you. Without you there are only novels. No films. No TV. No commercials; Just paperback books and the oral tradition.
Is this a time of uncertainty? You bet. Am I afraid that my livelihood is in danger of going away? Damn right. Do I wish there was an easy way out, that we could all select and be able to save what has been built for us by the generations who came before us? I tell you I do.
But Rome is on fire. Your neighbors are quietly disappearing in the dead of night.
This is your time in history to change history. You have the power. How? Is it hard? What do you have to do?
Just show up. That's all.
Just show up. That's all.
WEDNESDAY , JUNE 11 @ The HARMONY GOLD THEATRE on Sunset.
I know you've heard a lot of this before. Maybe you've tuned a lot of it out. I'm going to say it again anyway. I'm going to say it until I have to leave town with my belongings in a Pod because the corporations, in their bottom line sort of way, are squeezing every penny out of that bottom line and leaving me and all the other middle class actors packing their families and their belongings in a station wagon to seek their salvation, ironically, to the East where they came from with their dreams of making their fortunes--their careers in Show Business. Don't worry. The Producers and each and every level of that bloated, economically unsound, bureaucracy will still be pushing low-cost, high-return reality television along with movies shot with stars and a bunch of AFTRA members working along side their non-union friends, and driving their sweet new Bentleys, Beemers, and Benzes. No need to cry for them and their MBA's. They'll even tell you they like going to ArcLight theatres to see the two hour American Idol spectacular (Who ever knew that reality could cross over to Film when movies started tanking at an alarming rate because the stars had no one to act in scenes with?)
Does anyone out there know many actors who make a living solely as an actor doing Guest Stars and Co-stars any more? Ask the old-timers. It used to be possible.
Does this all sound far-fetched? Think of this. AFTRA is out to get 100% jurisdiction in television. How do I know? They said so. (The following is from a post by Matt Kimbrough, AFTRA leader and 08 W&W chair: It is taken from a much longer personal account of the AFTRA SAG situation and how it comes to be where it is. You can find the full post on the internet. It is dated April '08)
"President Connolly created a Strategy Cabinet of elected National Officers and key committee chairs to oversee this independent future. This cabinet first met in the spring of 2004. There, NED Greg Hessinger presented a stark financial future. Without increasing jobs, without organizing new work, without streamlining its operations, AFTRA could be out of business in a decade. The decision was made to make AFTRA's mission to organize work for itself (my bolding) for all categories to be sure, but freelance actors represented the largest population and the area where the most erosion of AFTRA's work had occurred. This had happened again in part because merger, if achieved, would bring all actor's work under one banner. Now that it had failed, twice in five years, AFTRA had to change its culture. It had to look to save itself and no longer expect support from SAG. It began its march for independence, therefore implicit competitiveness in television, with SAG. (my bolding))"
Once AFTRA has all of television (If we stand up now and stop them.), do you think they'll be happy with that? I don't. They'll find a way to promulgate a film contract if they haven't already. All of television? Ludicrous you say? AFTRA has been described by our employers as "cheaper" and "more flexible." That means that AFTRA is willing to sell you, the actor, for less money: less money in residuals, more free runs on cable, with fewer protections, etc. etc. The information is out there. You should be reading it. Even if S.A.G. signed the same contract, *the one that eliminates residuals on made-for-new media productions as of July 1 '08, *offers no protections for product placement, *expects you to negotiate your right to say no to clip use at the time of hire when you are most vulnerable, *gets nothing on DVD, *settles all current and future Force Majeure claims in the studios' favor, and *creates a working environment that allows non-union actors to work along side those actors that the studios get to decide are "professionals." Even if S.A.G. signed that same sub-standard contract it is still very likely that the studios will continue to push new pilot jurisdiction to AFTRA because it's the "cheaper", "more flexible" union. AND DON'T FORGET: Whatever you think of the agency situation, AFTRA has allowed our agents to be partially owned by our employers or anyone who wants to pony up some cash. So, when your agents and your employers lie post-coitally in bed together smoking their Cuban cigars, do you think they're going to want to set up their projects at the "more expensive", "less flexible" union? The union that fought for a decent wage and refused to give away your future? Hell no. AFTRA could have all TV shows (except for the eternal CSI's and ER) within two years: whatever isn't Reality.
Look, I don't hate AFTRA. In many ways I admire their strategy, tenacity and single-minded attack. They are following their script beautifully. That doesn't mean that I should stand quietly by, choosing to appease rather than standing up and saying, "Your strategy is costing me and my friends our careers and I will do all I can to stop you." Haven't we learned from history?
Rome is burning. Leave your fiddles in the closet.
Come Dance with the horse that brung you (I know. Mixing my folkisms). Stand firm with the Screen Actors Guild. It ain't a secret remedy. It's what unions have done in this country for a century. They stood shoulder to shoulder with their brothers against corrupt management (No, I'm not saying the Studios are corrupt, just designed and built on an anti-labor premise.), against scabs, and against those who believe that going along to get along with the boss man is an acceptable strategy while selling out their brothers and sisters who are standing in the streets, defiantly demanding to be paid the way any professional employee deserves to be paid.
In hope and solidarity,
Anthony DeSantis
anthonydesantis _(AT)_mac.com
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