US STRIKE COULD BRING CHAOS TO THE UK

THE combined strikes of Writers Guild America (WAG) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) this summer could bring chaos to the United Kingdom’s film industry.
The WGA and the SAG are planning to strike in May and June respectively in a very real effort to increase pay brackets for its members.
Equity spokesman Martin Brown told Reuters: “The strike will have an impact on Britain because of the large numbers of British actors who are also members of SAG.”
In an effort to prevent US studios sidestepping the dispute by using foreign actors and shooting overseas, SAG have issued highly contentious guidelines which require that in the event of a strike non-American members of the Union should work on a film only if it is shot entirely outside the US, is entirely financed with non-US money and if no distribution rights are pre-sold to a US company.
Brown expressed concern over the potential damage an SAG strike would have on the UK film industry. He agreed with statistics published in Screen Finance that said the majority of British films which have a budget of £10 million, the ones that have potential to be box office hits, are backed by American money and have rights pre-sold to a US company.
Brown said: “There is no doubt that the strike has the potential to shut UK productions down.”
He added: “We are still hoping that the SAG will reach a negotiated settlement with the film producers in Hollywood and we are regularly in contact with the SAG in order to assuage how the situation is faring. We would certainly not advise our members who are also members of SAG to divert from SAG guidelines and we certainly hope that our Equity members would not participate in any runaway productions (productions that are deemed ‘runaways’ from the US strike threat).”
This strike is the latest in a series of strikes with an unprecedented six-month strike last spring aimed at commercials sector.
Many stars are expected to abide by the rules set out by SAG. If they decided to comply with SAG regulations they would only be able to work on smaller budget British movies attracting no US backers. (AMcE)