SAG-AFTRA Reaches New Deal - Michele Proude Interview

Jamie talks to Michele Proude about the latest developments regarding the SAG-AFTRA deal with studio heads.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
All right, welcome back to thehelb on Hollywood, and welcome back Michelle.
Proud to the hulb on Hollywood.Thank you so much for being with
us, well, thanks for havingme and so Michelle, we've got this
deal. We finally have a sagAftra deal with the AMPTP. So now
comes the job of understanding it andvoting on it. And before we dive

(00:29):
into the details of all of that, go ahead and let our audience know
a little bit more about yourself andyour history of leadership with Sagaftra, particularly
here in New England. Sure.So, I am a New England local
member and have been for a verylong time. I have been serving in

(00:50):
various roles and leadership in the localfor the past over twenty years, but
most currently I actually was the firstNew England sag after president. So after
merger, I served as the localpresident for six years and then after that
for the past four years and Ijust was re elected. I serve as

(01:12):
the national vice president for mid sizedlocals and so that's my current title.
But of course I speak not onbehalf of the union, but rather as
a as a member like everybody elseyep, and as a member, like
everybody else, what was your reaction, your first reaction when you heard about
the deal and when you started tohear a little bit about the details of

(01:34):
it. Sure, So, Imean, I think, like a lot
of people, my first reaction tohearing there was a tentative agreement was relief.
You know, one hundred and eighteendays and it was starting to look
like maybe this was going to goon into the new year. So I
was thrilled that the committee was ableto reach attentative agreement. I guess I

(02:01):
should back up a little bit andjust say that though I've never served on
the TV Theatrical Negotiating Committee, Ihave served several cycles on the Commercials Contract
Negotiating Committee. So I think Ihave maybe a stronger understanding of how negotiations
work than maybe the average member,just because I've been in the room.

(02:22):
Not this room, but I've beenin a negotiating room, and I mean,
what was achieved in this tentative agreementis really astounding. I mean,
I can't overstate what they were ableto achieve here. The proposal that they
went in with was huge. Therewas a lot of depth to it.

(02:46):
There were a lot of asks init, and how much of that they
were able to actually bring home tous is more than I think a lot
of members really understand because obviously,look, we had one hundred and eighteen
days. We were really hyper focusedon four key issues. Did we get

(03:07):
one hundred percent of everything that wewanted? No, because that's just not
a negotiation. But did we getan overwhelming amount of what we were asking
for? I would say yes.I've heard a lot of sort of back
and forth about the artificial intelligence piece, the AI piece, and what was

(03:28):
really interesting is the timeline. Therewere people who were coming out saying that
it wasn't enough before the details ofthe tenet of agreement was even released.
So I feel like it's really important, just like during strike, it's really
important for members to get the informationfrom the union, not from social media,

(03:53):
not from people with big voices,but really to go to the webinar,
to go to the website, readwhat's there, and ask questions.
The AI piece, what everyone reallyhas to understand is that there was zero
language. I think I mentioned thiswhen I was on before. There was

(04:15):
no language in the contract whatsoever addressingartificial intelligence, and unfortunately, what that
does is it leaves us vulnerable.And so all of the language that you
see that is now part of thisagreement is new. It's brand new,

(04:36):
and it's meant to keep us safeand give us the opportunity to have consent.
So it's consent and compensation. Thoseare the two things that were So
if you want to use my imageor my work in this way, then

(04:56):
you need my consent. I needto say yes, that's okay. Then
you need to compensate me fairly forit. And that was really what it
was about, was putting rules inplace, you know, just so it's
not the wild West where now I, as Michelle, have to say,
uh wait, what is happening?How do I can I? Can I
decline? Can I step away fromit? So is there room for growth

(05:21):
in you know, in future contractsto refine the language, add more language
and so forth. Absolutely, Butis this a really good stepping off place?
I think it is. I thinkI think what they were able to
achieve is more than maybe you wouldexpect in a first stab at this and

(05:42):
the AI in particular was something thatDuncan Pradtree Ireland was saying. It was
on the table on day one andit was on the table on day one
hundred and eighteen. It was somethingthat they got a lot of pushback on
and it was one of the morecomplicated and difficult things to to to sort
of lay out and iron out.So there are protections for you, as

(06:08):
you mentioned h compensation and consent.And one of the other issues with artificial
intelligence was this idea of you couldbe scanned and then the computer would tavi
and create like the digital amalgamation ofdifferent different people different features in order to

(06:28):
say, well, this isn't you, so we don't have to compensate you.
Was that addressed at all? Doyou know? So? I mean,
now you're getting into a greater amountof depth than I have because I
was not in the room, solike everybody else, I'm reading through the
documents. But that's the kind ofquestion that I would I would get on

(06:49):
one of the webinars and I wouldask the question because and you also if
you if you aren't able to dothat, there is an email which I
don't have in front of me,that you can you can email your questions
and for a response as well.I mean, we have we all have
thirty days to vote, I believe, beginning today and so what I would

(07:14):
encourage people to do if they're notsure or if they're concerned, is to
ask the take the time to askthe questions. I mean, you absolutely
should have those answers. I'm scrollingand looking while I'm talking to see if
I can find the answer, butwe can keep talking while I'm doing this.
Yeah, and that's great that theyhave a series of webinars and the

(07:36):
dates and times have been sent outto all of the members. So it's
a great idea suggestion. Probably shoulddo, you know, make sure that
you are in on this and continueto ask these kinds of questions. I'm
going to try to get hop ontoone of those as well so that I
can have absolutely more to talk aboutas well, and all of those details.

(08:00):
But it was tough. It wasdefinitely from what you were hearing in
the trades, and uh, youknow, one side tries to pressure the
other by leaking such you know,details here and there. When you saw
the process of the negotiation, whatwent through your mind as someone who's been

(08:24):
in the room where it happens sometimesyou know, with the with the commercial
contracts and you've been through that before, what went through your mind with the
amount of pressure and the details thatwere leaking left and right throughout this negotiation.
I definitely saw the stuff that wasout, you know, that was
circulating and the media and so forth. But I also kept in mind that

(08:45):
you know, some of those sameCEOs have you know, have a partnership
or an interest or an investment inthose same media outlets. So you know,
you take all of that with agrain of salt, and I trusted
that our negotiating committee was doing theirjob. And again, this is another
thing people don't really understand. Sothe the negotiating committee is made up obviously

(09:09):
of staff, legal staff, youknow, chief negotiator, all of that,
but then it's made up of members. And knowing who the members are
who were serving on this TV attheatrical negotiation, they represent an incredible diversity
of thought. They come from alldifferent places, They work all different parts

(09:31):
of the contract, whether they're principle, whether they're above scale, whether they're
you know, weekly players, gueststars or background stunts, you know,
stand ins, I mean, right, everybody, Dancers, singers, everybody
was represented on this committee, andthey all had different values and priorities.

(09:54):
We had people that represented the smalland mid sized locals, which are the
twenty three locals outside of Angels inNew York, and we have a smaller
number of people who represent us,but they are fierce and I know that
they fought really hard. And allof these members are volunteers, so nobody
was paid. They had months,you know, of time away from family

(10:18):
and you know, and they dedicatedthemselves and they understood what was at stake,
and there was a lot of pressureon them to come back with something
that was not just a good deal, but a great deal. Like the
longer we were on strike, itcouldn't be just a good deal. It
had to be a great deal.I mean one of the things that was

(10:39):
achieved in this negotiation. And thismight not resonate for people who are in
the New York background zone because it'shard to understand how it impacts us.
But there has never been parody betweenthe West coast, the Los Angeles background
zone, and the New York backgroundzone. So for example, in a

(11:01):
film, I believe it was thefirst fifty seven background were covered by union
contract on the West coast and thatwas inclusive of the stand ins, whereas
on the East coast it was inthe New York zone. It's the first
eighty five exclusive of the standards,or maybe one standing was included. And

(11:24):
what they were able to achieve isparody, which means they brought the West
coast up numbers up to match theEast coast. So you say, well,
how does that impact us on theEast coast for background, because every
single contract negotiation that we go intoevery three years, we would have all
of these recommendations from the wages andworking conditions meetings regarding background. You know,

(11:48):
we want to see this happen withbackground. We want to you know,
why couldn't we get a bigger bumpwith wardrobe or why couldn't we have
you know, there were a bunchof different proposals that came. Typically what
ends up happening is we would gettwo more background on the West coast.
We'd go from fifty seven to fiftynine up to sixty one, and that

(12:09):
would be the big get for background. We could we could never achieve other
things because it was about getting thatparody. To get parody all in one
fell swoop in this contract with everythingelse that we got is amazing. And
so again it's details like that thatI think are out of context hard to

(12:31):
understand or recognize. But this committeereally was thoughtful and worked hard and got
They squeezed all the juice out ofit. And so when they come to
a place where they say, Ibelieve that we have gotten every single thing
we can get and at this pointwe're not going to get any more,

(12:54):
and we feel satisfied that we've achievedthe goals that we set out from the
beginning, then I trust them andI believe them on that because I know,
having sat in that chair in adifferent negotiation, that if it didn't
feel like that we had achieved everythingwe had set out to do, I
would have voted no. I wouldhave said no, I'm not no.

(13:16):
And it was unanimous vote in thatroom. It was unanimous support. That
that is critical, Like it's thatsays to me that that we really asked
for the world, and though wedidn't get the world, we really came
as close as we were going to. We got so many games that we
can go. We can This willprotect us for the next three years and

(13:39):
then it will help us to buildfor the future. That's that's exactly.
I feel exactly the same way becauseit is this the first time I heard
or it's very rare to get aconsensus. It's not I can't remember another
time that had happened like this isNTV theatrical Like it's again because of the

(14:03):
diversity of thought, there's always somebodythat has something that they wanted that they
didn't get or you know whatever,or they feel like they could have.
But really unanimous. That's amazing thatthat really speaks to the contract. And
back to AI for a second.I was able to find a little bit
of information on that and just someof the some of the guidelines that they've

(14:26):
set the guardrails that they've set uphere are incredible. But as for the
digital alterations of people, which islike, well, okay, maybe we
don't want to get your consent,so we'll just create an amalgamation of a
person and then and try to usethat as a loophole. This sort of
closes that loophole where they would stillrequire the consent of the digital performers before

(14:52):
they altered anyone's digital appearance. Andthis one I thought was was it was
kind of big as well, wasif lip or facial movements are altered to
make it look like a background actoris speaking and dialogue is added that they
will be upgraded to a day performer. That's huge, it's huge. That's

(15:13):
huge because I know a couple ofa couple of people already who have been
digitally scanned and seeing themselves in otherprojects and at first they're like, oh,
that's meat, but hey, that'smy face, that's my body,
that's me performing, and I didn'tget paid, I didn't get notified.
So this eliminates that. So thatnow there there is that consent, there

(15:35):
is that compensation. And again hardthought it was there on the very last
day of negotiating when SEG After presentedtheir best and final offer and SEG was
like, nope, we still needto handle this. So that that blows
my mind. But there were anumber of other really big issues on the

(15:58):
table as well, so let's talkabout some of those. So we were
looking at compensation as well. AndI feel like they really had background actors
in mind. I feel like theythey really represented the middle class actors,

(16:18):
the ones that struggle to make thehealth insurance, that are the ones that
really make a movie feel real,right, that we rely on so much.
So there was a seven percent overallpay increase, but eleven percent for
background actors. So that was that'sgoing to be a big deal, and

(16:44):
we should note that that's already inplay. So the people who are I
mean, there's you know, Ican say for Boston, there's already work
happening this week, like one ofthe projects that was filming before that shut
down. I know that there wasa call for some background for this week.
And so the members who work onthat will already be impacted immediately by

(17:07):
the pay increase. The first payincrease, that's just step, the first
step, and then the next increasewill be July one, that's another four
percent, and then a year fromJuly it's an additional three and a half
percent, right exactly. And sowhat were some of these other big issues
that we had that they were working. There's also there was this streaming,

(17:32):
so streaming residuals, so there andso there was an increase with those.
It wasn't exactly our proposal, butfor sure there are increases. And again
I don't want to get into theweeds. I don't feel like I'm I'm
an expert to speak on it,and I wouldn't want to misspeak, but
there were definitely increases there, andthat's also part of the webinar they go

(17:56):
through in the in the agreement,and then the self tapes. The self
tapes were another big issue, andthere are a whole bunch of different Well,
first of all, there are guidelinesand there are there are guidelines to
what's going to be expected, andif I'm remembering correctly, again, it

(18:17):
was a lot of information. SoI don't want to. I don't want
to because I don't I'm not helpingif I do. But what will happen
is there's going to be a graceperiod while everybody adjusts to it, but
then there will actually be like finesif it's not followed. And I think
that that's so that there's actually there'sa way to follow up and make sure

(18:38):
that that it is followed. Oneof the biggest things is the forty eight
hours to that you're going to begiven forty eight hours to create your self
tape audition, and that is exclusiveof weekends and holidays, because a lot
of people felt it was really unfairthat if you get it at five o'clock

(19:00):
on Friday and it's due Monday morning, you're expected to do it over the
weekend. And so this would preventthat sort of thing from happening. But
there's a whole list of things,even down to for people that really can't
do self tape auditions, that there'sa way to ask to be able to
have some other alternative, whether it'sa zoom or in person audition. So

(19:26):
I would go through all of thosestep by step. I don't have them
all in front of me right now, but it just was a lot of
the things that members had been askingfor when we heard it in all of
the wn w's and it was becamepart of the proposal, and I think
they did a great job of clarifyingwhat's allowed and what's not allowed. Yeah,

(19:48):
I think I'd really like to knowas well more about the streaming bonus.
I know the studios were very protectiveof their revenue sharing right right.
They don't want to adopt the residualstructure, the traditional to film and television
that actors have relied on before.But there is this new streaming bonus that

(20:12):
will add to the revenues of thosewho participate in streaming. So that's another
thing for members to learn about,ask about before voting commences. So we're
speaking on a Tuesday. Voting isgetting underway, and I think one of

(20:33):
the other things I wanted to askyou. When people think about Hollywood,
right, they're thinking about California,They're thinking about the West Coast and the
Hollywood Sign and that very traditional sortof that's where Hollywood is. But Hollywood
is everywhere, and especially here inNew England. You know, we are
Hollywood East and it's been booming here. There have been so many projects,

(20:53):
so many opportunities, and I washoping maybe you could talk a little bit
about the needs of Hollywood East andhow this really it impacts us here,
not just out in California. Ohabsolutely, I mean we have seen more
and we've seen more and more growth, and like if you look over the

(21:14):
last decade and decade plus, thenumber of local actors who have been cast
in not even just like day Player, but even larger roles in these projects
that are coming here. We've reallyseen incredible growth. And because of the
Tax and Center for Films, whichwe are forever grateful for here in Massachusetts,

(21:38):
our crews have grown exponentially in additionto our acting pool. And what
that does is it makes it easierfor projects to come here because they can
be they don't have to ship everybodyin. People are actually here working,
boots on the ground, ready togo. So all of the gains that
we've seen in this contract, it'sgonna it's going to help our local members,

(22:02):
it's going to help our local crew, it's going to help our local
you know, restaurants and hotels andeconomy and tourism. Honestly, yeah,
it's a huge boost to the economyhere. And I know that there were
a number of projects that some werein pre production and some were my cat's
coming by to say hello. Somewere in pre production and some were we're

(22:29):
planning to come and they've been justwaiting for this to be resolved so they
could get back to work. SoI think we're going to see an immediate
you know, boost in in filmmakinghere and projects that are coming here now
that now that we have you know, we're done with the strike, right

(22:49):
And I can't tell you how eagerI am to get back on set and
to get back to doing the youknow, the business of what we love,
which is create and acting and makingstories. I was wondering if you
had any closing thoughts for us herebefore we let you go. Sure,
first of all, I found thatemail, so I wanted to include it.

(23:11):
So if you have questions, ifyou have questions regarding the tentative Agreement,
you can email t the Theatrical twentytwenty three at sag after dot org
and that's where to send the questions. So it's nice that you have if

(23:32):
for people that don't have time togo on the webinar or are going to
watch it later on YouTube but don'thave time to be on live to ask
questions, that's a great way toget your questions answered. And I mean,
I think we obviously there's going tocontinue to be more of these information
sessions. I strongly recommend attending noteven just one, but maybe a couple

(23:55):
of them, because every time youhear more information, it is a lot
to process. And the main thingthat I guess, the other thing that
I really want to emphasize is whatwould a no vote mean? What does
that mean? So if you votedno, you know what would that mean?

(24:18):
It means that the entire everything thathas been achieved would be scrapped and
we would start from square one againon strike presumably because we would have no
contracts still. And so it's notI think sometimetimes people are like, well,
vote no, because we really haveto get this one other thing.

(24:38):
It doesn't actually work like that.This is the agreement, that the tenet
of agreement that was reached, andso we either accept it whole or reject
it whole. And if we rejectit whole, we actually have to strike
the whole bargaining process from square one. And typically what happens is you don't

(24:59):
achieve what you've already achieved. SoI guess, just kind of having that
perspective in mind, you know,again, is it perfect, No,
but is it a lot of thethings that we wanted and a great way
to go forward, including language thatwe've never had before for protections. You

(25:21):
know, those are kind of thethings we have to be looking at in
weighing a yes or a no vote, and I think that that's really important
to understand. So I hope thatmembers will, you know, educate themselves.
I hope that they will, youknow, ask questions, feel comfortable

(25:41):
with this, but you know,in the end, I really hope people
will vote yes and support this andreally embrace that what we did by being
on strike for one hundred and eighteendays is achieve the biggest package I think
we've ever got in this space andsomething that's going to really set us up

(26:03):
for the future. Well, thankyou so much for being with us here
on the Hub on Hollywood, MichelleProud, and we're going to make sure
to include the email address where peoplecan get more information and where can people
find you if they want to knowmore about Michelle Proud. Oh, I
mean, I'm so old fashioned.I'm kind of a Facebook gal, so

(26:27):
I'm not even on Instagra. I'mso bad. But yeah, you can
always reach out through Facebook or myemail is just my name Michelle Proud at
gmail dot com, so you canreach me there too, all right,
thank you so much, Michelle,Okay, thanks