This is really important: currently, 100% of voice work for streaming video on demand (Netflix, Amazon, etc., — you know, the future of our business) is budgeted at “under 1.3 million dollars” and for the next three years of this proposed contract, voice actors will be doing work that will run forever, without those actors receiving residuals for their work. Even worse, there is no minimum scale, no limit on number of character voices, no limit on session duration, and no limit on episodes per session.
The proposed contract, if ratified, will create conditions for voice actors that are essentially identical to working without a union to protect and negotiate for us. This contract is a disaster, and we must not allow it to be ratified.
Voice Over actors, today is the last day we can contact our national board at SAG and tell them to not ratify this proposed voice over contract. It’s a terrible deal for us, and while (speaking as a former board member) I believe that the national board will do the right thing if they know and understand how this will affect voice actors. But I don’t know how many members of the national board are voice actors. I looked at the current board, and I don’t recognize a single name there from our part of the industry, and that worries me.
I don’t know if they understand how much this will hurt voice actors, and if they understand that if this contract is ratified, we may as well be working without a union at all. I’m sure that, when they do understand that, they will refuse to ratify this terrible contract.
But they have to know, and they have to understand.
If you are a union voice actor, please contact the SAG national board TODAY, and tell them to vote against this proposed contract. Today, Friday, October 10th, is the deadline to contact the board before its next meeting.
Further, you may wish to make it clear that voice actors deserve to vote directly on a contract that affects us, instead of our livelihoods and working conditions being put into the hands of people who may not work behind a mic as often as we do.
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I thought that perpetual nightmare called “The Simpsons” would meet the criteria to pay residuals under that formula. But, even so, it would still be a disaster of epic proportions, because it would only encourage lower budgets and less pay for performers.
Wish I had a union card on this one – I’d be so right there with you.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I’m curious nonetheless: how does paying residuals to voice actors factor into the revenue model for streaming services?
When a TV network re-airs a show, they are selling commercial spots for that specific time slot. There is specific, measurable revenue associated with that airing. With streaming, there are no time slots, and (usually) no commercials – just subscriber fees that are never directly connected to what is watched.
My understanding is that the point of residuals was to compensate actors when a program they worked on continues to earn revenue after its first run, which makes perfect sense. But since the concept of a first airing doesn’t even exist with streaming services, it’s not very clear how to connect the dots between people watching the show and revenue earned.
Hopefully someone smarter than me can figure this out in a way that’s fair to actors and content producers.
Matt, I doubt I’m any smarter than you, but I’ve learned a fair amount about how SVOD contracts work. A service like Netflix periodically negotiates and pays a content owner like Warner Bros Animation (WBA) for streaming rights for a piece of content like Batman: The Brave and the Bold (BTBatB), for a fixed window of time, like 3 years. Near the end of that window, the two companies try to negotiate for another a contract for another time window for BTBatB. If they agree, Netflix pays WBA again for a new time window to continue showing BTBatB. If not, Netflix must remove BTBatB from its streaming offerings until both companies agree on a new contract.
A fair approach would be that each time Netflix pays WBA, WBA should then pay a portion of that payment to each of the voice actors, as a percentage commensurate with the quantity and significance of the actor’s contribution to the show. The calculation should follow the same principles already negotiated by the union for TV residuals. The only difference between this SVOD model and the TV model is that the SVOD model needs to be based on percentage points instead of fixed dollar amounts per episode airing, simply because SVOD does not have the concept of “number of airings” and does not generally release the data of “number of views”.
The notice Wil received seems to say that since there are no “airings” and no countable “views”, there will be no fixed dollar amounts, and also zero percentage points. That combination of zero + zero is unreasonable, based on everything the union has fought for in the past to protect the rights of voice actors for fair pay.
I picked my examples based on the fact that Netflix really does pay Warner Bros Animation for the rights to stream Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Wil did voice work for that show, and deserves to be paid residuals for that work.
Wil, I am not a voice actor, but I fully support their industry and efforts. I have shared this with my puny number of followers.
But what else can we do?
Is there a “petition/poll/plan-to-invade-someones-house-and-leave-droppings” effort i can sign?
So… ELI5, please. To me it doesn’t look like “[you] may as well be working without a union at all”; it looks like a compensation change from base+residuals to work-for-hire.
Or, “Before, we paid you $2 now and promised to pay an accountant $2 and you $1, maybe, if it works out, and if the accountant doesn’t cost $3. Now, we’ll just pay you $3 and be done.”
Like richgarner71, I’m interested in what an average person (not a voice actor, just someone interested) can do to overturn this garbage pail of a contract. One of the commenters on G+ is right – this is a slave contract, and I’d like to protest it.
@lairdb: I get the feeling they wouldn’t offer the $3 now or ever. Still a crappy deal.
I, too, wish I had a card, @vernon. Heck, I wish I did animation instead of just :30-:60 narration, but it’s still relevant to me. All boats float (or sink!) in the harbor.
So, if it’s ratified, drop your union membership. If they aren’t going to represent you, they don’t deserve your money. I’ve always worked outside the union, anyway. It’s not as scary as you might think.
Maybe there needs to be a new union for voice actors. Because they don’t actually appear on screen, SAG is predisposed to ignore those of their membership whose work consists primarily of VO sessions.
Or perhaps a partnership with AFTRA, since that union covers radio (and therefore inherently understands the needs of VO workers).
@Kelli, Sadly, SAG and AFTRA are already joined at the hip anyway. They merged in 2012. A new union for voice artists is a dandy idea, but I question how much traction could be gained for such an idea, given the general anti-organized labor climate we see these days.
Is SAG selling voice actors out? I remember some pretty bad contracts during the early aughts. (So bad, that even I – not even tangentially in the entertainment business, noticed).
When will this actually be decided?
Apparently it was ratified today.