The dream factory has stopped manufacturing them. Since last Thursday, Hollywood is on almost total strike (the directors are left out), when joining the already current protest of the scriptwriters an even more massive strike, that of the actors. This is the first strike that brings together scriptwriters and actors in 63 years.
A few figures are enough to understand the magnitude of what is happening in the United States. The last protest of the scriptwriters, in 2008, lasted three months and represented an economic impact of 2,500 million dollars and the loss of thousands of jobs in an audiovisual industry that generates 2.4 million jobs throughout the country and $186 billion in salaries. It is not just about those most directly affected, but about a whole network that includes everything from agents to technicians, from builders to catering or communication companies. An enormous structure that is now staggering, as has already been verified in the two months of the writers’ strike, with a 80% of productions and filming stoppedespecially the late-night programs known as ‘talk shows’.
This joint strike is part of claims not met by the employer, among which wages stand out, in response to the increase in the cost of living and that which refers to better working conditions. In the case of the scriptwriters, due to the use of fewer resources by the producers and the precariousness of teamwork. And in that of the actors, by the assumption of the expenses that they have to invest in participating in ‘castings’.
The first of the ‘streaming’
But the protest acquires a different magnitude because it is the first that occurs in times of ‘streaming’, that is to say, in a new dimension of the entertainment industry, characterized by the irruption of The platforms that have changed the rules of the gameat a time when the pace of productions has declined (24% less compared to 2022).
The ‘streaming’ has meant working in shorter series than before and a decrease in the collection of rights, due to the lack of transparency in the global audience figures. Added to this is a new demand that does not only affect Hollywood, but the industry throughout the world: the irruption of artificial intelligence can interfere with work of one and the other, by impersonation or by uncontrolled replication of the image.
The film industry has undergone a radical change in recent years, which has led to a new relationship with viewers. However, relations with its professionals follow the same guidelines as decades ago. The claim of the strikers greater transparency about the issuance of their works and being able to have more control over what is done with them responds to this mismatch between the labor framework and the new reality of audiovisual consumption. He pulse between studios and platformson the one hand, and scriptwriters and actors, on the other, will necessarily be resolved through negotiation.
And what comes out of it will be transcendental, because it will serve as a reference for other audiovisual industries in the world. Although new technologies open up a huge range of possibilities, cinema cannot relegate or neglect its most creative and artistic part, because without it it could not exist. As one activist stated: “This is not only about actors, nor about writers, but it is the soul of entertainment”.