A lot is going about in the halls of social media and the news regarding the strikes between writers and actors. Both of the overarching organizations, the Writer’s Guild and the Actor’s Guild, announced then executed their strikes — all spurred by the growing disparities between what members of these groups get for their work and how much the companies that hire them get. Couple that with the rise in AI generated storytelling, and it is becoming more difficult to make a living as an actor or writer.
As far as most of us are concerned, writers and actors in Hollywood — or better put, the writers and actors in mainstream entertainment — are apparently all wealthy. We see examples like Tom Cruise or Stephen King and we think that everyone is raking in tons of money. The truth is, most actors and writers make a pittance of what is imagined, all while executives rake in a fortune. That’s often the reality salary with benefits and bonuses versus contract employment. Writers and actors are more contract employees whereas the executives don’t have that concern.
Creative work is gig work. While some individuals are capable of an almost assembly line manner of creation, most operate in stops and starts. Periods of creative floods follow deep droughts. Writers and painters, effectively those who “create from nothing”, might not necessarily be subject to this burden. Actors and musicians though are more likely to, as their creativity is often through interpretation, bringing to life the works of writers. They effectively require the opportunities afforded by others to bring forward their creativity.
Strikes mean a refusal to work under the current conditions being offered. It is a risk, of course, given that the could end up being left high and dry for their position. In this case, it has become obvious, particularly where AI is concerned, given that it effectively allows for a new form of slave labor to exist for the entertainment industry. And where licensing is concerned, writers who work in areas outside of independent publishing, they likely will see their work algorithmically replicated with these AI systems for a minuscule cost to the larger conglomerates. Rightly so, writers are thus rebelling, with the acting guilds following suit to support.
It is no surprise that because of the ways that entertainment was birthed and grown since the industrial era that there are a few individuals who make a financial killing while those who lay the foundational work that allows for the products to be made end up with mere pittance for their efforts. They soon see their work make incredible profits, but given that they were contract employees — their work owned by the company that contracted them — they only see their names displayed on the work as the only additional reward granted to them.
There are disadvantages to being independent, although that list is shrinking. As the technology advanced to such a point that brought the costs of entry low enough for nearly everyone to enter, it creates other problems. One of those problems is that since the barrier to entry is so low, plenty of people who believe in their own creative talents without the ability to prove it or the willingness to work to improve it. Eagerly, they pump out painting or writing or whatever creative outlet they choose, believing it to be a work of genius as their lack of success simply proves that the world is against them.
But there are also still greater numbers of writers, painters, and other creative individuals who have enough skill and talent, but wading through everything to find an audience grows to near insurmountable levels. Most of those who choose the independent path know this, believing that outright ownership over their work to be paramount.
Like everything, choosing to be independent as an artist is a trade off. For one, an audience has to be built by the independent creative, whereas those who go the traditional, corporate route are able to trust that others will work to bring eyes to the art. Companies have marketing and sales departments with established channels of distribution on their side (although, for writers at least in what I’ve seen, more and more of the marketing is falling upon them vs those marketing and sales departments). There’s actually a considerable amount of the process these companies control or guide, effectively meaning that all but the story itself and the work to write it are not of the author’s (again, in the case of writers).
Being independent removes the greater certainty that comes with working for a corporation — but wait, other artists don’t really work for a corporation, they again, work effectively as contractors. There’s “certainty” during the contract, meaning that they will be paid some sum of money in accordance with the fine print of what they signed up for, but as has been seen in the entertainment industry, for both books, movies, and everything in between, is that often the large corporate entity will win out if there be any dispute, leaving the artist with little more than their name attached to the project they toiled to bring to life. All the while companies continue to reap the benefits of the IP. Independent artists, by default, continue to own their IP, lest they be foolish enough to sign that over.
In this modern evolution of artists against the entertainment industry, it is now the streaming networks who are shafting artists. And it’s not surprising. Streaming services get their content one of two ways: creating it or licensing it. Licensing can be expensive, and is temporary. A company like Netflix would have to pay per whatever rate was agreed upon in the licensing contract — quite similar to the way an independent writer is able to license the rights to printing their work compared to how a contracted writer might. Each license has a deadline, a set period of time that gives the licensee limited rights, such as allowing Netflix to stream a movie in a given territory. Other than that, they can create the content outright and own it for the life of the company.
No matter how this is achieved, writers and actors don’t get much money for a project. And were streaming companies to reverse this, the low price point they maintain would shatter. Already many of them only make their money through the shell game of venture capitalism’s trading card method of investments. Production is a thing of the past, replaced by the artificial consumptive practice of content creation. Not unlike “The Feelies” in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, movies and shows are becoming more about spectacle in the attempt to capture eyes rather than inspire deeper connection and reflection, as is the goal in art. If anything, it is an artifice of the industrialization of everything, bringing to its zenith that track we set upon when Henry Ford figured out the assembly line model for his Model T automobiles.
I have a great deal of sympathy for those on the picket lines during this latest strike. Seeing others profit to a greater degree from your labor is troubling. Nowhere like in entertainment are the actual producers (not those with the fancy titles, but the artists as producing material) of a product pillaged as managers and executive inflate their own importance and pay themselves accordingly. All because they are cogs in the machine that once was necessary for broader distribution of art.
And there are other avenues that can be explored here, too, such as how trying to capture larger and larger audiences begins to narrow the channels some might use to discovery. Meaning that there indeed becomes a smaller piece of the pie available to an decreasing few individuals and only creates a scenario where they must play ball or perish.
AI narrows it further. For the cost of a single program now, companies will be able to manufacture content without the pesky need to pay a living wage to a writer or a painter or a graphic designer. How soon before this expands to visual mediums like TV and movies where an actor is no longer necessary, much less those operating the machinery that records it. More and more, the professional management class will be able to rely on a smaller and smaller number of computer data entry clerks to feed in parameters to the AI program and create just about anything.
But there is hope. Although it seems difficult (and actually is), being independent is the way to operate. Many in the independent space rightfully call for those wanting to operate in that space to become business persons in their own right. What that means is growing in understanding of the facets of, for instance, writing, publishing, and distributing a novel — as opposed to the traditional model of a writer just writing. This is because a writer owns their work and therefor has to take a greater responsibility for it.
It is a way to get through the increasingly bland spectacle that is the modern entertainment industry. Though these movies all look great, most are simply boring and devoid of genuine meaning. Or they are subversive in a way that isn’t meaningful, critical of something out of spite and hate rather than out of respect and love of it. Independent artists can focus on the work and meaning rather than audience numbers needed to satisfy the bean counters and executives calling for quarterly figures to beat out last quarter’s numbers.
Maybe this latest strike will steer more artists to this path. There are many of them who are incredibly talented and likely would be even better if they were permitted to go out on their own instead of working for a corporation. We’ll have to wait and see. Until then, like many others, I can only sit back and hope that they are successful in getting what they are asking for — and that it doesn’t backfire.
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