WORKING WITH SAG!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dleo]

We are trying to work with SAG on the Ultra Low Budget contract as I write this.

They over charged us!!!!

They came up with a ridicluos SAG actor BOND amount.

We went to the SAGindie workshop, and checked our information very carefully all over the WEB. At the work shop and other WEBsites we found statements that there's a 40% bond for SAG Salaries, and to make sure you budgeted for it. We did budget for it, but that was not the correct amount. We tried to contact SAG about the BOND during the time we were writing the budget to make sure this was right, but nobody at SAG would answer this question. That left us no choice, we had to figure out the bond from other sources. So we went with the 40%. That was wrong! It's actually the entire amount you are paying your SAG actor's plus 10% -- plus 15.3% of entire cast Salary for pension and health.

So say your total budgeted salary is $5,000.

You would pay the $5,000
Plus 10% additioanl $500
Then pension and health $765

The total bond would be $6265 plus your actors Salaries which is 5,000 so your total budget should be $11,265 for actors.

SO DO NOT USE THIS 40% when figuring your budget.

SAG hit us with this two days before we were suppose to start shooting.

We would never have gone SAG route if we didn't go to the SAGindie workshop, which is basically selling the new low budget contract, and there information is very very wrong. Do not trust these workshops.

 

[Dleo]

PAYING ACTORS

The best way to pay actors and anybody on a set is at the end of the week--or the last day of the week they work. You will keep the actors and crew happy, and your set will have harmony. Never miss a payroll, and never be late. Your crew and actors will love you, and they will spread the word.

If you run into finiancial issues, then tell the cast and crew right away, don't wait til the end of the week on the payroll day-- to tell everybody that you may need an extra couple of days. That's really not good!!

you should make sure you have the money for actors and crew before you shoot, and if you go over budget it's your fault--it's never the crews fault or the actors fault. Even if the crew worked slow the actor had issues with there lines -- It's the PRODUCErs and Directors Job to take care of these things and as the leader on the set it's your fault you go over budget.

Never blame actors and crew for overages, it's not there fault it's yours!! Pay on time!! Be responsible!! If you run out of money let everybody know a head of time. In most cases the actors and crew will take defferrments to get the film done-- at this point as long as you are honest and upfront with them at all times in most cases the crew and actors will do what it takes to finish your film.

What I do is add one day onto everyweek of my shooting schedule as a makeup day, you may not need it, but it will be accounted for in the budget, and at the end of the production you may have extra--but you will not be short inmost cases.

Example: it costs us say $400 a day to shoot(all crew and actors salaries). We schedule five days of shooting -- that would $2,000, but I add another $400, for overages, so for those five days I put in the budget $2,400.

I know it sounds crazy. If you just stay on time you will be fine. But you won't -- Plan for overages, and you will be safe. The big Hollywod productions do the same thing.

Making a film to me is always a tiny miracle of sorts, and GOD HELP ME! I love it so much.

Here are links to the trailers for our films We made Shadow of Crime in 2009, and Demon Equation is almost done.

Shadow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig0HgDFFgMs

Demon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8NLv0tYytw

 

[wheatgrinder]

related thought..

SAG or NOT SAG has no bearing on quality of actor. How can it? Its just numbers. You have the same chance of getting a BAD one in either case. Blame standard distribution of the bell curve... Its this same standard distribution that means that no less then HALF the actors in SAG are of below average talent. Unions by this fact of math by and large PROTECT and CULTIVATE mediocrity, only FREE market assures that the BEST get the BEST pay. The market DOES work even in SAG, crappy actors dont work much. At my scale, it only takes ONE crappy actor to ruin an entire project. I've read the horror stories on IT..

Personally, I had a run in with SAG. I asked a friend to be in my Christmas video, he said, sure, but I have to register with SAG. I sighed deeply and said whatever, the online forms were pretty simple and it just took a few minutes so no bother. Except of course, the SAG person did not give a RIP about my project, they never contacted me, they never told him "OK" Heck, this is why its ME in the Christmas video by the way (Sorry bout that CF, I had really tried to get a more attractive model!)

There is the New Media stuff from SAG.. whats that about.. ??
: http://www.sag.org/content/search-signatory-database.

 

[directorik]

related thought..

SAG or NOT SAG has no bearing on quality of actor. How can it? Its just numbers. You have the same chance of getting a BAD one in either case. Blame standard distribution of the bell curve... Its this same standard distribution that means that no less then HALF the actors in SAG are of below average talent.

You’re correct. SAG is not a trade union, it is a guild. All SAG
does is regulate work conditions, pay scale, benefits and
residuals. They do NOT guarantee experience level, reliability, or
quality of the performer. I would say you’re being too generous.
In my experience considerably more than half are below average
talent.

Unions by this fact of math by and large PROTECT and CULTIVATE mediocrity, only FREE market assures that the BEST get the BEST pay.

This is not true. I respect the opinion of people who dislike
unions, but your statement is just an opinion and not fact. Unions
regulate the working conditions, pay scale, benefits and in many
trade unions they ensure people with seniority get first calls for
a job.

My personal experience is ONLY with IATSE - I am NOT commenting
on any other trade or craft union. A union worker can be fired if they
do not do their job. Another union worker must be hired in their place,
but the union does not protect bad workers.

On non-union productions producers do not pay the BEST workers the
BEST pay. They pay only what they can afford to pay and no matter how
good the person is they cannot pay more. Even the good producers who
wish they could pay more do not pay more.

I know from experience that if you (the producer) call Local 80 here in
Los Angeles and hire four grips you are going to get the best grips available.
You call Local 600 for a camera operator or camera assistants and you're
not going get some protected, mediocre people; you're going to get skilled
professionals who are very, very good at their job. And if at any point in the
production you think they are doing a bad job you call the local and they
send a replacement immediately. And they'll keep doing that until you are
happy.

 

[wheatgrinder]

Thanks, your right Directorick, I sorta extrapolated that last bit to include all unions, that was unfair of me.

Seems you WOULD agree that SAG does protect mediocrity, since more then half are below average in your estimation (a mathematical impossibility by the way, but I get your meaning)

Frankly though, I really have no business talking about this, Im coming from 0 practical experience, (not withstanding that little bit with the friend and my christmas video!)

 

[directorik]

Seems you WOULD agree that SAG does protect mediocrity, since more then half are below average in your estimation (a mathematical impossibility by the way, but I get your meaning)

I do not agree. SAG does nothing but protect the working
conditions for the actors. Just because they do not have a
talent screening process does not mean they protect mediocrity.
Anyone can join regardless of skill or experience. It is up to
the producer to audition actors and hire only the people with
the talent they need.

 

[wheatgrinder]

I think we mostly agree, but you might be missing my point.
Any group of people, with a standard distribution of talent, will have the largest portion of the distribution in the "middle" of the curve. Thus, any formal organization that provides any "shelter" even as flimsy of a shelter as SAG offers, IS by the laws of the universe, protecting the bulk of the population. The middle = "mediocrity"

I only argue these semantics to point out your point in more clarity, SAG by the vary laws of math that govern the standard distribution cannot EVER offer better or worse talent in any group or population.

I know it is not YOUR view, but others here seem to think that going with SAG will improve there chances of finding good talent. It is simply not so.

 

[JoshL]

I know it is not YOUR view, but others here seem to think that going with SAG will improve there chances of finding good talent. It is simply not so.

I absolutely agree with your point, as far as average talent in a population. However, there's another side to that. Are people who are serious about their craft more likely to join SAG? If that's true, then it is more likely to find better talent, because there are more talented actors in a smaller population (SAG members versus everyone else in your town). There will always be outliers...people who aren't really interested in being actors, but happen to be REALLY good at it. Likewise there will always be people who THINK they are good, so they join SAG, etc.

So, mathing it out a bit, say there are 1000 people in town. 1 in 100 are good actors. If 100 people join SAG, that'd be 1 out of 100, and 9 out of 900...same odds. However, if good actors are MORE LIKELY to join SAG (we'll say 5 people do), that'd put the odds to 5 out of 100 versus 5 out of 900. 5% chance of finding talent versus .5%

The question is really for actors: how likely is a good actor to join SAG? If they're good because they're serious about their career and spend a lot of time working at it, I'd guess probably more likely.

Just a thought experiment really. I like math

 

[directorik]

I think we mostly agree, but you might be missing my point.
Any group of people, with a standard distribution of talent, will have the largest portion of the distribution in the "middle" of the curve. Thus, any formal organization that provides any "shelter" even as flimsy of a shelter as SAG offers, IS by the laws of the universe, protecting the bulk of the population. The middle = "mediocrity"

Except that SAG is protecting no one. There is not even flimsy shelter.
They only insure that every actor is paid, that employers contribute to
their benefits, that working and travel conditions are met. It's the same
with the Writers Guild. They do not read the scripts written by their
members to insure all members are excellent writers. They only protect
the rights of the writers they represent.

I think I am getting your point - I think you have a misunderstanding
about what a guild does. They are different than a trade or craft union.
I agree that in many unions the mediocre worker is protected. When a
union is set up on a seniority basis and only the senior people can work
these people are sheltered. That doesn't happen in SAG.

The producer does not need to hire the most senior person on the SAG
roster - they are free to hire anyone they want. If a producer wants a
SAG actor who has been a member for only a week they can hire that
person. If a producer wants a non-SAG actor in their movie that actor
then joins - easy as that. It is up to the producer to audition SAG members
and only offer jobs to the most talented. Since SAG allows this freedom
of choice they are not protecting the "right to work" of any actor. Mediocre
actors do not get the jobs because SAG does not protect them.

I know it is not YOUR view, but others here seem to think that going with SAG will improve there chances of finding good talent. It is simply not so.

You are correct; many people believe that SAG screens their actors and
only allow in the best of the best. This is not the case and it is a flaw in
the people who think this - not in SAG. SAG does not protect mediocrity,
they only protect actors from unscrupulous producers.

 

[directorik]

Are people who are serious about their craft more likely to join SAG? If that's true, then it is more likely to find better talent, because there are more talented actors in a smaller population (SAG members versus everyone else in your town).

But it's not true. Serious actors do not necessarily join SAG. And
many terrible actors join SAG. There is only one reason for an
actor to join SAG - to be hired by producers who have agreed to
follow the SAG agreement. If they are doing theater they don't
join SAG.

The question is really for actors: how likely is a good actor to join SAG? If they're good because they're serious about their career and spend a lot of time working at it, I'd guess probably more likely.

Just a thought experiment really. I like math

And interesting thought experiment for sure. And I'd say they are
neither more or less likely to join. But I hate math and I don't believe
personal choice or talent can be turned into mathematics. There are
excellent, serious actors all over the world who have never worked
for a signatory company. They act in theater and independent films
and never join SAG at all.

 

[FrankLad]

This thread has been quite educational. And sorry to hear of your frustration, Dleo!

I recently had a "SAG-eligible" (?) actor contact me about being in a film. Being that I've primarily used folks who aren't actors, it makes me nervous.

 

[directorik]

I recently had a "SAG-eligible" (?) actor contact me about being in a film. Being that I've primarily used folks who aren't actors, it makes me nervous.

Nervous because you don't understand what "SAG-eligible" means
or nervous because if you hire him you will be working with a serious
actor for the first time?

 

[FrankLad]

Nervous because you don't understand what "SAG-eligible" means
or nervous because if you hire him you will be working with a serious
actor for the first time?

I've worked with actors (non-SAG indie and theater types) in the past, but nervous in this case because I don't want to find myself in an expensive or overly-complicated paperwork situation. Especially for what would amount to very little screen time.

Ultimately, this is a hobby for me and I take a simple approach: I film someone for a couple hours, give them $40, and we call it even.

BUT... what does "SAG-eligible" mean? I mean... obviously on the surface it means "eligible for SAG membership", but... what does that entail? I'm sure it's mentioned for a reason.

 

[Dleo]

Except that SAG is protecting no one. There is not even flimsy shelter.
They only insure that every actor is paid, that employers contribute to
their benefits, that working and travel conditions are met. It's the same
with the Writers Guild. They do not read the scripts written by their
members to insure all members are excellent writers. They only protect
the rights of the writers they represent.

I agree completely!!!

I think SAG is a great organization for the most part!! They just seem to have issues with dealing with ultra-lowbudget filmmakers. I wish I could get larger budgets to make my films with. With a larger budget I would be happy to pay union scale and work with SAG, and I'm sure it would go much much better than my experience with SAG so far.

SAG pretends to want to work with independant filmmakers. I've been to two workshops provided by SAG about the ultralowbudget agreement, and we did a lot of research about SAG before I tried to become a SAG signatory, but still SAG threw stuff at us from left field. We asked about the deposit in the beginning of the whole process, and were told it would be 40% of total actors salaries, we got these numbeers from books--the workshop, other filmmakers, and from the first SAG REP we talked to. But our deposit ended up being 125% of our actors salary, and at our budget level we had no choice we had to either come up with the extra cash or start all over, and recast our film with non-SAG actors.

The actors we were working with at this stage really wanted to be part of the project, but were afraid of SAG. They were all new members of SAG, and were afraid of getting in trouble. After talking with them, and seeing how committed they were to the project, I had to try, and lucky enough we were able to come up with the cash. We did it more for our acters than us. We felt we were only paying them $100 a day and thought they deserve a chance. We wanted to work with them they were our first choices.

Our Rep was down-right rude to us-- laughing in our faces--telling us we were bad for the film industry, because we were making such a low-budget film.

If you do not have a payroll service which we didn't (too much money) with an agreement with SAG you send the payrolls checks directly to SAG, and they send them to the actors. We made sure SAG got the payroll ontime or early everyweek. It took SAG three to four weeks to get the checks to our actors. We gave each actor a copy of their payroll stub every Friday, and said we sent it to SAG like they asked. A couple of our actors called SAG to find out what the hold up was--the answer from SAG was we have the checks and we will get them out to you as soon as we can--this took about three to four weeks for each check. The actors thought it sucked!! The actors that worked on bigger budget movies said, the usually were paid ontime. I told them that it was because we didn't use a payroll company--all the actors agreed though-- it wasn't our fault-- it was SAG's fault. If we didn't have to send those checks to SAG we would have givening them the checks on time or early.

Now that's it's all over, and the film is near completion. We've talked to our actors, and all the SAG actors have agreed, that if they had to do it over again they would've done our film outside of SAG, and for the $100 a day without SAG. They've learned that SAG will do nothing to them if they do a low profile -- ultralowbudget film, but if the film makes money, then SAG will just make the produces of the film pay the salaries and pention funds --that nothing will happen to the actors. So we are all a bit wiser and I hope this helps other people in the same position, because that's why I'm posting these rants.

 

[Dleo]

SAG ELIGIBLE ACTORS

Performers are eligible to join SAG after working on a SAG film in a principal role, gaining "Taft Hartley" status 15 days after the first day of work - or meeting background entry requirements.

This means that the next SAG project they do will allow them to be a card carring SAG member, and it's important for an actor wanting to be in SAG to state the eligible part, because a SAG signatory production can only hire SAG actors. Being Eligible means they can hire the actor as a regular SAG actor, and that actor would now be a full fledged member of SAG after tons of paper work of course.

It also means they are not a member of SAG yet, and can do anything they want.

 

[FrankLad]

SAG ELIGIBLE ACTORS

Performers are eligible to join SAG after working on a SAG film in a principal role, gaining "Taft Hartley" status 15 days after the first day of work - or meeting background entry requirements.

This means that the next SAG project they do will allow them to be a card carring SAG member, and it's important for an actor wanting to be in SAG to state the eligible part, because a SAG signatory production can only hire SAG actors. Being Eligible means they can hire the actor as a regular SAG actor, and that actor would now be a full fledged member of SAG after tons of paper work of course.

It also means they are not a member of SAG yet, and can do anything they want.

Thank you very much for the clarification!

 

[Dreadylocks]

Just a thought experiment really. I like math

OT:

You are shrunk to the height of a nickel & your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

Read, set, go!

 

[JoshL]

OT:

You are shrunk to the height of a nickel & your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

Read, set, go!

I wouldn't have the mass to break the glass or knock the blender over, and obviously couldn't scale the sides. Presumably if I had been tossed in the blender, yelling for help would only get the attention of whoever put me in there. Depending on the construction, I might be able to disable or detatch the blades (I've owned some crappy blenders in the past). Barring that, I would attempt to lodge myself between the blade and the spindle (head on the spindle, feet on the blade). If I could get the angle right, I'd spin with it; inertia would push me against the blade and if I were very lucky, I could use that to hold myself in place as the blender ran. I don't think I could possibly just hold on to the spindle itself.

This would, of course, only buy me enough time to think of something else, as that I doubt the mad scientist with a shrink ray gave me a "survive for a minute and I'll let you live" sort of option. I wouldn't trust that anyway. You know how mad scientists lie.

 

[Dreadylocks]

Mad scientists can't be trusted, it's true.

Not a bad answer. Thumbs up.

 

[Cracker Funk]

Dleo, I appreciate your rants. I need to do more research before making a decision, but I'm leaning towards asking my one SAG actor if he's willing to try and fly under the SAG radar. If we make money, then I'll be more than happy to pay the SAG pensions, or whatever, to keep things good between this actor and SAG; definitely wouldn't want to screw things up for him. But yeah, at the miniscule budget-level I'm looking at, a simple cost/benefit analysis makes it difficult for me to justify going with SAG.

 

[wheatgrinder]

Thats my $20K question..

If a sag actor comes on set signs a contract etc, and doesn't tell me... its his problem right? SAG cant hold ME responsible can they?