'Zero Residuals From Streaming': Stunt Performers Speak Out
AI is a 'huge' concern for the stunt community, which took to the pickets outside Warner Bros. today
As a woman in stilts towers behind him, stunt performer Michael DeCamp (Us, NCIS: Hawai’i) is telling me how “wildly out of date” the current SAG-AFTRA contracts are, particularly when it concerns streaming and what was once upon a time known as “new media.”
“We have zero residuals for streaming,” he says from the picket line outside Warner Bros. “We were very generous in the beginning to help [the studios] get it started because it’s new and confusing. Now they know exactly what’s going on and I feel we deserve a part of that to help us pay our rent, pay our bills, pay our health insurance. None of us are loaded. We do this because we love it, but we also do this because we need to make a living.”
Of the many proposals that SAG-AFTRA has presented to the AMPTP, i.e. the entity that reps Hollywood’s major studios in contract talks, there are several that pertain to the stunt community — specifically, overtime pay for “flat-deal” stunt coordinators, wage increases and residuals from reruns and streaming projects.
According to the guild, the AMPTP rejected the overtime pay proposal, offered increases, and countered with a deal to pay stunt coordinators residuals “calculated as if they only worked one day, regardless of how long they actually worked on a picture/episode, but this would only take effect in year 2 of the new contract.” (The union said it had tentatively agreed to accept the terms that matched the 2019 deal with Netflix but wanted them to begin during year one of the contract.)
In the AMPTP’s response to the published proposals, what SAG-AFTRA “failed to mention” was that the producers had offered “outsized wage increases” for flat-deal stunt coordinators, fixed residuals for stunt coordinators on high-budget SVOD programs similar to the Netflix agreement, and for the first time would pay fixed residuals to stunt coordinators on TV series.
It seems like every stunt performer in L.A. gathered today, outside Warners, on an uncomfortably hot morning. So have their (frequently costumed) supporters and allies. Mando and Boba Fett and Greedo are back out again — I last spotted them at the Disney lot the first week of the actors strike — this time alongside two Storm Troopers and a droid I could not name.
As we waited for the dozens-strong motorcycle brigade to start tearing down Olive Ave., I spoke with stunt performer Angela Meryl, whose career has spanned 26 years in this town.
Perhaps best known as Vivica A. Fox’s stunt double in Kill Bill — one of the opening scenes, where Fox’s character crashes down upon a glass table during a fight with Uma Thurman? That’s Meryl — the veteran performer has also doubled for Halle Berry, Beyonce and Rihanna and worked on projects from Obi-Wan Kenobi to Skyfall to Furious 7.
The industry has changed in recent years.
“There’s a lot more people in the business, which is a good thing,” says Meryl. “But CGI is coming back, and definitely now that AI is here, a lot of us are going to be replaced.”
AI is a “huge” concern for the stunt community, she says, wondering aloud if those classified as “non-descript” stunt performers, which SAG-AFTRA defines as a “utility or faceless stunt,” could be ripe for dismissal.
“[Non-descript performers] are the ones protecting the main stunt double that is doubling the lead actor; we are protecting them from the crowds so that they can do that job. Those people, I feel like, could be potentially replaced by AI, if it’s a big crowd scene like Black Panther,” says Meryl.
DeCamp says he’s not “anti-AI,” because the technology isn’t going anywhere. “But we would like to put some safeguards in place [so we can] continue to not only do what we do but work with the technology as it grows.”
And there’s value to the art of practical stunts, he says.
“I love big CGI blockbusters, but we don’t feel the hit the same way,” says DeCamp. “If somebody explodes, [you go] ‘Oh, that was cool,’ versus if you watch a smaller low-key stunt, where the stuntmen are getting launched and there’s an explosion behind them and they’re slamming into the concrete, you as a person, as an audience member, recognize that feeling. You feel not only for the character but for the performer, which I feel is a much greater connection.”
There is the foreboding sense that technology could soon rip their livelihoods from their grasp. Near tears, Meryl tells me that the state of things is “heartbreaking.”
“This what I know. This is my life. This is my job. This is my passion,” she says. “And it just breaks my heart.”
Today in Strike News
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, actor, writer and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes a passionate argument for paying the people who produce the training data used by Generative AI. “And I’m not just talking about actors and writers. I also mean people who don’t get residuals today: the camera operators, the costume designers, the sound mixers, everyone whose work the AI will be ingesting, mashing up and mimicking.” (Washington Post)
It’s not just Netflix that’s hiring AI workers: Disney has roughly a half-dozen AI-focused jobs available and Sony is hiring an AI “Ethics” engineer. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Though the WGA strike aims to keep writers from contributing material to film and TV productions, many are finding it difficult to refrain from creative endeavors entirely. Some have been writing books, others have been mentoring teenage Ukrainians, and a few are turning to pottery and tending chickens. (Los Angeles Times)
The Swiss-based Locarno Film Festival is beginning to feel the heat of the strike, with Stellan Skarsgård forgoing his award, and Riz Ahmed and the cast of Theater Camp pulling out entirely. (Variety)
Despite raising more money in California than in any other state in 2020, Joe Biden is reportedly not going to campaign in the Los Angeles area until the actors and writers strikes are resolved. (TMZ)
In other political news, California Governor Gavin Newsom reached out to all parties in the strike to offer his assistance in brokering a deal. (The Hill)
Both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have threatened legal recourse against Hackman Capital Partners, which owns the Radford Studio Center, over the guilds’ weakened ability to protest on the lot compared to in 2007. “They say they are neutral but they have definitely chosen to cook us alive, like burgers on a grill,” WGA assistant lot coordinator Charlie Kelly said in reference to Hackman. “It doesn’t feel neutral out here.” (The Hollywood Reporter)
IATSE has been working with the L.A. Food Bank and the L.A. County Federation of Labor to provide a food drive for struggling members of the industry, which will take place tomorrow at the union’s West Coast office from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Picket Sign Scene of the Day
A whole cavalcade of stunt performers on motorcycles.
Additional reporting by Matthew Frank.