By Sunayana Prabhu
A special red-carpet premiere at the Count Basie Cinemas is on hold, several actors are back home in Monmouth County, and producers filming along the Jersey Shore are incurring economic losses: The Two River community is witnessing the trickle-down effect of two major Hollywood strikes that have brought television and film production to a standstill.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike May 2 and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joined the picket lines July 14. The WGA represents writers of scripted content like television shows, movies and more; SAG-AFTRA represents TV and film actors. The two unions have been striking against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a group that represents over 350 major Hollywood studios and streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony.
This is the first time in 63 years that both unions are simultaneously striking. The two biggest issues on the table are fair residual pay as the growth of streaming content skyrockets and better regulations on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
As picket lines on both coasts grow longer, the economic and emotional cost is mounting, even in Monmouth County.
“In terms of the climate out here, morale is low,” Theresa Pittius, Co-Founder/Co-Owner of The Professional Performance Prep The Prep in Little Silver, NJ., told The Two River Times in a phone call from Los Angeles.
The Prep is one of only two SAG-approved performing arts training facility and recording studios in New Jersey, allowing actors to record in the state rather than fly to Los Angeles or commute to New York City. The company accommodates actors under contract with Netflix Animation, Disney Jr., Nickelodeon, Apple TV+ and HBO, among others.
“They’re all home now, back in the Two River area,” Pittius said of actors who had been working on set in Toronto, Atlanta, New Orleans, New York and LA. They are pivoting from TV and film to theater, voiceovers and podcasts.
Actors and writers who worked “nonstop” during COVID when streaming giants needed more content have now hit a sudden lull. “It’s a really hard time for everyone right now,” Pittius said, anticipating the strikes through the fall. Meanwhile, she has been training actors with a talent management company for their big break whenever the strike ends.
A special Sept. 9 screening of the locally produced and filmed movie “Miranda’s Victim” was canceled due to the strike; actors may not promote a film or show during the work stoppage. Count Basie’s 1,500-seat theater was set to host a red-carpet event and planned to include many of the stars. A scheduled panel discussion with the stars after the screening and an after-party were also dropped. “Unfortunately, the strike has… brought my production to a halt,” said Rumson-based George Kolber, a producer and writer on the film.
The movie premiere was to benefit RAINN, one of the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organizations and was going to be sponsored by Monmouth University and Hackensack Meridian Health. Kolber said holding the event in Monmouth County was a way to thank the county and the state, whose film incentive program inspired him to shoot at locations in and around the Two River area.
Kolber’s movie, a 1960s period drama that tells the origin of the Miranda warning, illustrates how micro-economies thrive when movies thrive.
It was filmed in county locations like Red Bank’s Elks Lodge and Count Basie Center for the Arts, Middletown Township’s old municipal building, the vacant Port Monmouth Elementary School and at Monmouth University in West Long Branch. Sickles Market, a gourmet grocery store, provided catering service to the film crew. Over 100 background actors from the area were employed during the filming. The movie’s release date has now been pushed to sometime this fall.
Film companies have created a “gig economy” that makes it hard for actors to make a “decent living” or have a sustainable career, said actor Casey Webb, best known as the television host of the reality show “Man v. Food” produced by Warner Bros. Travel Channel. “The lion’s share is going to the executive power and it’s just greatly unbalanced and deeply flawed,” said Webb, who was living in New York City auditioning regularly for scripted television shows and movies, and has now returned to Atlantic Highlands to focus on unscripted content.
The dual strike is expected to cause $4 billion in economic damage, surpassing the 2007 writers’ strike which some estimate cost the state of California $2 billion, according to Milken Institute’s chief global strategist Kevin Klowden, who spoke with Yahoo Finance July 24.
A film or television series employs a large workforce that is impacted by the strike, including crew members, hair and makeup artists, costumers, production assistants, carpenters, welders, accountants, set designers, lights and camera operators, gaffers, janitors, drivers, personal assistants and more.
The fact that the strikes affect “so many multiple businesses, it’s crazy,” said actor and producer Ernest O’Donnell who co-owns Smodcastle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands with film- maker Kevin Smith. “It’s a double-edged sword.”
O’Donnell, who had small roles in Smith’s films “Chasing Amy” and “Clerks,” among others, is in the midst of filming an independent movie he is co-producing with Smith. To be filmed in Atlantic Highlands, Leonardo and Highlands, its production schedule is postponed due to the strike which he fully supports. “Fighting to get more money for residuals and a bigger cut because of the streaming on all the platforms is definitely justified and it’s unfortunate but they (studios) don’t give the actors and the writers their due,” he said. “Because without us, there’s nothing.”
“AI can help out with small portions of filmmaking, but not as a whole,” O’Donnell said, “because AI does not have compassion and it does not have a heart, does not have a soul. And that’s what an actor brings to a story and definitely that’s what a writer brings to the story.”
The article originally appeared in the August 17 – 23, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
