Ebony Star Parson, a makeup artist who lives in Atlanta, planned to start working this week on a new season of the BET sitcom “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.” The scripts were finished before Hollywood’s screenwriters went on strike in early May, she said, so the crew was cleared to start shooting.
But on Thursday, after thousands of screen actors went on strike, Parson learned that production on “House of Payne” was shutting down. The show’s producers told Parson and her colleagues to drop by the set and pick up their makeup kits. It was lights out for the time being.
Parson said she fully supports the film and television actors on the picket lines fighting for better base compensation, safeguards against the use of artificial intelligence, and other protections. But she is also confronting the painful prospect of an immediate future without steady employment.
“We stand in solidarity with our talent, because they are the reason we are able to work. But we are also impacted here, so it’s bittersweet,” Parson said. “We understand why it’s happening, but we are hurting. We are taking a hit.”
She does not have another job lined up, and she is still trying to come up with an “action plan” in the event the SAG-AFTRA strike drags on through the end of the year. She is praying for guidance.
Parson is one of thousands of everyday entertainment industry employees whose livelihoods are at stake as the Hollywood assembly line grinds to a halt. In the business, they are known as “below-the-line” workers, a category that includes hairdressers, costume designers, camera operators, carpenters, gaffers, truck drivers and other professionals.
In practical terms, the dual work stoppages by SAG-AFTRA, the screen actors union, and the Writers Guild of America mean that physical production on the vast majority of studio-backed movies and television shows are indefinitely on hold, from late-night talk shows and network sitcoms to high-profile projects like “Gladiator 2” and the eighth installment in the “Mission: Impossible” film series.
The strikes pit SAG-AFTRA and the WGA against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, a trade association that represents major studios such as Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery as well as tech behemoths like Amazon, Apple and Netflix. (The group represents Comcast, the corporation that owns NBC News.)
Neslihan Arslan, 39, an assistant art director who worked on the HBO drama “Succession” and the A24 film “Past Lives,” filed for unemployment benefits three weeks ago after production on an Apple TV+ series she was working on came to a halt. She is pregnant, expecting a baby girl in September, and increasingly unsure how she and her husband will make do this year.
“We were careful with our money and we managed to survive the entire pandemic, which also affected our jobs … but we’re going to have a lot more expenses,” said Arslan, whose spouse works in the industry as a dolly grip.
Arslan is considering pivoting to a “backup” profession in event design, although right now she is “too big to work” on anything that would be physically taxing. Arslan’s husband might drive for Uber to help pay the bills, she said.
“But there is no doubt,” she said, that they both support the creative talent on strike.
In an impassioned speech Thursday, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher acknowledged the wider ramifications of the work stoppage, saying in part that the “gravity” of the guild leadership’s unanimous vote to go on strike was “not lost on me.”
“It’s a very serious thing that impacts thousands, if not millions, of people all across this country and around the world — not only members of this union, but people who work in other industries,” said Drescher, who was previously best known for her starring role on the sitcom “The Nanny.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
