How important is the topic of AI for SAG-AFTRA members? Significant enough that Tom Cruise approached a June bargaining session to urge the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to listen to the union’s concerns on the issue, the hollywood reporter has learned.
that was not him Mission Impossible the only concern of the star. He also wanted to urge the AMPTP to support the guild’s position on doubles.
Cruise also had a few words for SAG-AFTRA representatives on the delicate state of movie theaters post-pandemic.
SAG-AFTRA sometimes calls artists during bargaining sessions to discuss issues in which they have experience. Any member can request to head to a bargaining session and the guild can assess the value of their participation. Apparently, the union concluded that Cruise’s point of view was worthy. (It is understood that no other star of her caliber participated in the negotiations in this capacity.)
SAG-AFTRA had a handful of proposals on the table related to professional stuntmen, including stunt coordinators and stuntmen, which the 160,000-member union represents. The union also sought to institute further safeguards around the use of generative AI in entertainment in its 2023 talks with studios and broadcasters, focusing on ensuring artists consent to and receive adequate compensation when their performances are ingested into the technology. .
Of course, despite Cruise’s participation in the talks, after some five weeks of negotiation, the artists’ union and the AMPTP failed to reach an agreement at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, July 12, when the contract expired. package of film and television contracts from the syndicate. Beginning July 14, artists began picketing studios and corporate headquarters in New York and Los Angeles and withholding their work, subsequently shutting down or delaying productions including Mission: Impossible 8.
In addition to lobbying studios and streamers on behalf of SAG-AFTRA, Cruise is said to have asked the union to consider allowing actors to promote films during a strike given the fragile state of movie theaters, reminding his union that promotion is also important for actors. . He was feeling “uncomfortable”, says a source who was present.
SAG-AFTRA current strike rules maintain that advertising, including “agreements, interviews, tours or promotion through social networks of any work or company on strike” is expressly prohibited during the work stoppage.
