I'm sure everybody remembers the writer's strike this year, how we were subjected to a slew of empty-headed reality shows in place of the usual drama or sitcom, forced to abandon our televisions for the outdoors or God forbid, actual human contact. Those were dark days for Americankind.
It would seem that - although the writer's strike gutted the industry of material, jobs, and opportunities and the promises made at the resolution have all been unmet - the Actor's Guild is considering a strike.
Which, despite the ease of replacing a face as opposed to a brain, will probably have a similar effect on the industry, mainly a vacuum of entertainment.
The biggest effect of the last strike has been the pushback of a lot of fall film releases, which have been moved to fill the empty slots of the next summer season. This leaves us with a lot of indie movies having a shot at making a buck this fall.
But back to the Film Actor's Guild (error in nomenclature intentional). This is a bad idea, actor's are the most over-payed element in film making. I thought the writer's strike was morally justifiable at least, writer's have always gotten screwed when it came to passing out the pie. Actor's are the ones hogging the big slices they wouldn't be able to get their hands on if it weren't for good writing, direction, production, lighting, etc. Granted there are exceptions, you could shoot Daniel Day-Lewis with a home video camera at dusk without any lighting and get an Oscar worthy performance. But there's only a handful of Daniel Day-Lewis'. Most actors are mediocre at best and all of them are payed much more than the true creators.
Still, if absurdity wins the day, they will go on strike, making cinematic or televised entertainment even more irrelevant in the post dial-up internet age. And that future only involves lower pay for everyone all around.
My wife asked me to write about the strike, so I wrote about it. Really, I'm returning to a medium of entertainment I have neglected, where there is no industry of interdependent parts that have to democratically cooperate in order to produce something of merit, I'm talking about the book of course.
What would happen if there was an author's strike? It's an absurd concept, and that is just another reason books are better.
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1 comment:
I AGREE! Why on Earth do the overpaid actors need to be paid more, for heaven sakes give me a good writer and a scrub actor, not to mention a decent director. But for all that is good why should Vin Deisel be paid more for bad acting in a mindless action, or Jessica Alba to make another dance movie with Usher as her over paid love interest! Jes louise, the problem though is that they will get they want and the people will flock to dissappear into mind numbing films with good looking jack asses taking the bill. So in brief, I agree with you.
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