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Actor Renée Threatte was a SAG-AFTRA strike captain during the 2023 strike.
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Courtesy Renée Threatte
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Topline:
With the SAG-AFTRA strike wrapped, it’s time for thousands of actors, writers, costume makers, set builders and other entertainment industry professionals to get back to work. But experts say a return to business as usual will take time, and that the industry probably won’t get back to the peak employment seen in recent years when there was a glut of productions driven by streaming platforms.
Economic costs: Production stoppages that affected movies, TV shows and streaming programs are estimated to have cost the economy about $7 billion, with about half of that in California, according to Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist at the Milken Institute.
Employment shrunk: According to a new study from Otis College, the Hollywood strikes came at a time when the industry was seeing a downward trend in employment. Since reaching a “post-pandemic employment high” in August 2022, employment shrunk by 26% in October 2023, the study points out.
What's next: Hollywood pros LAist spoke with said they are ready to get back to work come early 2024, and they hope productions will begin getting back to normal after the holidays.
Set builder Greg Gilday has worked on some of Disney’s big Star Wars shows, building spaceships for the franchise’s Ahsoka series. But during the Hollywood strikes that dragged on for months this year, he was busy doing something a bit more down to earth.
He organized swap meets where out-of-work entertainment industry pros could sell their stuff to make ends meet.
Now that the actors have ratified a new contract, have the jobs come back? For Gilday, not yet.
“SAG-AFTRA reaching a deal hasn’t had any impact as of this moment,” he said recently, noting that the end of the calendar year is usually a slow time for productions. “Come January, I’m sure it will be a feeding frenzy.”
Set builder and welder Greg Gilday outside Walt's in Eagle Rock.
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Robert Garrova / LAist
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The dual Hollywood strikes that began with the Writers Guild of America in May, followed by the start of SAG-AFTRA picketing in July, were the heart of the hot labor summer in Los Angeles. The strikes, which together lasted more than six months, brought the writers and actors gains in their new union contracts, including guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence, wage and residual increases and more.
Now it’s time for thousands of actors, writers, costume makers, set builders and other entertainment industry professionals to get back to work. But experts say a return to business as usual will take time, and that the industry probably won’t get back to the peak employment seen after the pandemic when there was a glut of productions driven by streaming platforms.
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‘Ready To Work’: Hollywood Artists Hopeful New Year Will Bring Employment After Dual Strikes
Production stoppages that affected movies, TV shows and streaming programs are estimated to cost the economy about $7 billion, with about half of that in California, according to Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist at the Milken Institute. And when the final figures are in, that number is expected to grow.
What recovery might look like
While some of the roughly 160,000 actors guild members continued to raise concerns about artificial intelligence protections until the ratification vote deadline, the performers union ended up sealing the deal with more than 78% approval.
Striking writers and actors rallied in front of Amazon Studios in Culver City in support of a bill that would provide unemployment benefits to striking workers.
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Robert Garrova / LAist
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“This is a golden age for SAG-AFTRA, and our union has never been more powerful,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said in a statement following the ratification of the contract.
Gilday, the set builder, said he’s happy with many of the wage increases and protections writers and actors gained after the strikes, and he’s hopeful the new year will bring him an abundance of work.
Fran Drescher, SAG-AFTRA president and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union's chief negotiator, address the press on Nov. 10, 2023.
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Robert Garrova/LAist
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Previous strikes have shown that a return to normal could take as long as a year, according to Klowden. But, he said, mass spending from streaming companies on large numbers of high-quality shows — during what’s known as “peak TV” — is not likely to come back.
He said streaming services are moving away from the big spending days when they were searching for the next Game of Thrones or Ted Lasso, that would bring more eyes to their platforms.
“And that means that even as production numbers recover, they’re going to recover in a way that just won’t come back to quite that heady level we were seeing say in late 2021 or early, mid-2022,” Klowden said.
According to a new study from Otis College, the Hollywood strikes came at a time when the industry was seeing a downward trend in employment. Since reaching a “post-pandemic employment high” in August 2022, employment shrunk by 26% in October 2023, the study points out.
The report estimates that nearly 25,000 Hollywood workers have lost their jobs since April.
‘They just can’t survive’
Recent numbers from FilmLA, the nonprofit tasked with coordinating filming permits, show on-location permits were down about 57% during the second week of December compared to the same time last year. That was after the actors guild strike order was lifted.
But it’s still a considerable improvement over mid-November, when permits for feature films and television projects were down 83% compared to the same time in 2022.
Klowden said it’s important to note that just because productions can get back to work doesn’t mean they’re ready. Things like coordinating trailers and craft services and other support staff take time.
And he said it’s possible some of those workers might not come back at all after getting pummeled by the pandemic and the dual strikes.
“The combination of these multiple shutdowns has led to a situation where they just can’t survive,” he said.
‘Ready to work’
Actor Renée Threatte was a strike captain during the SAG-AFTRA strike.
“I’m ready to work,” Threatte told LAist. “It’s been a long couple of months. While I’m really proud of the union and for all of the volunteers and all the people that showed up on the picket line... I’m disappointed that it took so long.”
Still, Threatte said she is happy with her union’s new contract. And while auditions are slow at the moment, she’s hopeful the floodgates will open in January.
But even if the work comes back, it doesn’t mean the struggle to afford to live in L.A. will be over.
“I hope that not only can this contract inspire people to fight for a fair and working wage ... but I hope it can also inspire our politicians to make sure that they’re doing what they can to keep an effective and viable way of life here in Los Angeles,” Threatte said.
Klowden agrees that the cost of living in L.A. should be a major concern. He said Hollywood has always touted itself as a gateway to a sustainable middle class life, not just for writers and actors, but everyone who makes the dream factory run.
“That’s important. And that sense of maintaining that concentration of talent and concentration of skilled workers is a big deal in terms of Hollywood’s attractiveness,” Klowden said. “And if that goes out the window, then there is a real problem.”
