Dylan MacDougall
Just shy of one year from the closure of the Writer’s Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild strike, many are still struggling to find proper footing in the industry.
“It’s a trying time for all involved” David Treska, a film student turned small-time filmmaker, spoke on the matter. “Sometimes it feels like the strikes haven’t truly ended.”
In spite of their demands being met, many in the industry still feel as though studios are dragging their feet with actually implementing them.
A January 2024 article from Deadline Hollywood described film production in Hollywood as stagnant and flatlining; with marginally fewer films and television shows being shot in the city.
The Hollywood Reporter corroborated these remarks just two short months later. Quoting one unnamed storyboard artist “The strikes ended and we’re still getting crushed.”
One of the union’s requests led to larger writing rooms for television shows, a previous staple of network television, but now job opportunities have seemingly vanished from all parts of the state.
Los Angeles is no longer the hot bed of film production it once used to be. The southern state of Georgia has proven to be a noteworthy find, becoming the prominent shooting location of many blockbusters within the past decade.
This is not a California-exclusive problem. It is a nationwide problem.
Massachusetts-born background actor Bob Grant has said that acting roles have all but dried up.
“I don’t remember the last time I struggled to work.”
Grant, a retiree, has been featured in numerous New England based projects, most recently Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers. Acting has been a side project of his for many years now. Which it is for many in the field.
“What most don’t know about acting, writing, directing, is that it’s actually a part-time job,”
Treska said. “Only the lucky few are paid enough to make it their full-time job.”
The rampant inclusion of AI has also proven to be contentious post strike. When Blumhouse Productions utilized AI in a recent short film, many in the industry questioned what the purpose of the strike was to begin with.
Journalist Heather Wixson and screenwriter Seth M. Sherwood took to Twitter to speak out about the company’s actions.
“Awful, just awful,” Treska spoke on the use of AI.
Grant, an actor whose likeness could have been digitally scanned – prohibiting him from obtaining future work – prior to the strike said “That’s terrifying, could you imagine seeing yourself in a movie you never actually worked on?”
However, a recent write up from The Wrap discovered that a plethora of independent filmmakers are currently experimenting with AI, including Aneesh Chaganty of Searching, the Spurlock Sisters, and Casey Affleck.
The end of last year’s strike looks to be a far cry from the conclusion of 2008’s writer’s strike. Though, the world has altered drastically in just sixteen years. Four different presidencies and a hierarchy shift in who, what, and where movies are made.
“It doesn’t help that movies are now made by people who don’t seem to like movies to begin with,” Treska said, indirectly referring to Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav. A sentiment commonly shared by those in the industry.
Last year, Zaslav was booed while giving the commencement address at Boston University.
“There’s a lot of optimism in spite of all that’s gone wrong,” Treska concludes, “We saw how high spirits a lot of the strikers were last year, if they can get through being starved by their employers, they can hopefully get through just about anything.”
