Originally posted by fir3bird:
I'm curious. Don't some actors cut their own deals at the onset? I've always heard the Bill Cosby accepted lower pay, for the promise of residuals in the future and that's why he's a billionaire. And I guess these would be the few with such draw power that the studios have to bend to their wishes. The way this sounds is that everyone just looks in the book and gets the same 3200 bucks for x, or y. Or in the case of the internet, 23 bucks , or nothing.
That nothing sure sucks. |
The rule of thumb is that the Union, even my union, makes the deal for 'scale'.
Scale equates to the minimum amount due.
The 1% of actors from SAG that you continually see on screen, magazines, news, blah, blah, are the powerhouse actors that can make their own deals above scale in most cases. I too can make my own deal, as long as I follow the basic agreement.
Those powerhouse actors are also, in most but not all cases, producers, writers, and even directors. So, the deals they make reflect that other hat they wear.
Its all about being marketable.
The new media that is currently the issue like the internet is the sticky point right now. The producers get most of the pot in this situation, and they, like me and you, can not predict the future of what other media will be around, or standardized like watching streaming video from your cell phone. They are scared to have to go back to the table after a few years and revisit this "new media" issue. They would rather just say "your getting this much of the pie now", where as the actors are saying "NO, we want to get a piece of each and every pie when they are coming out of the oven."
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