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With negotiations for a new set of SAG-AFTRA film and TV contracts set to begin May 5 , the plight of the unions’ lowest-paid members is coming to light. Data obtained by Deadline shows that earnings for SAG’s film and TV extras have been in a steep decline during the past 10 years, leaving fewer and fewer of them eligible for SAG’s basic health plan. Data collected by the SAG Pension and Health Plans shows that during the past decade, the number of SAG members who have qualified for SAG health benefits based on their earnings from extra work alone has plummeted by more than 67%, down from 2,782 in 2003 to only 905 in 2011, the most recent year for which those numbers have been made available (see chart 1). Related: SAG-AFTRA Working On Wide-Ranging Casting Diversity Report The numbers began their precipitous plunge in 2004, when the SAG Pension and Health Plans raised the earnings needed to qualify for basic health coverage from $7,500 a year to $11,000, an … [Read more...] about SAG-AFTRA Extras Squeezed Out Of Health & Pension Plans As Their Annual Earnings Continue To Plunge

In another victory for the WGA East’s ongoing campaign to organize reality TV shows, the writer-producers at Original Media have voted to be repped by the guild in collective bargaining. The vote, held under the auspices of the National Labor Relations board, was 42-9 to join. Original Media produces shows including Swamp People, Inkmaster and Stormchasers . “We look forward to sitting down with the company and negotiating a contract that will provide health benefits, paid time off, minimum compensation levels, and other basic union protections,” said Lowell Peterson, executive director of the WGA East , in announcing voting results today. In the last five years, the guild has negotiated contracts with three New York-based reality TV companies in Sharp Entertainment, Lion TV and Optomen Productions. It trying to get two others – ITV and Peacock Productions – to sign its contract. During recent hearings before the New York City Council , the guild presented … [Read more...] about Original Media Writer-Producers Vote To Join WGA East

Sony Pictures Classics has taken North American on Maryam Keshavarz’s The Persian Version which won the Audience Award (U.S. Dramatic Competition) and The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award (U.S. Dramatic Competition) at this year’s Sundance. Keshavarz is the first filmmaker to have two films win the Sundance Audience Award in the Dramatic Competition category. This is the second title that SPC has snapped out of Sundance, Deadline first telling you about their acquisition of A Little Prayer, which they took global rights on. Logline: Coming from two countries at odds with each other, Iranian-American Leila (Layla Mohammadi) strives to find balance and embrace her opposing cultures, while boldly challenging the labels society is so quick to project upon her. When her family reunites in New York City for her father’s heart transplant, Leila navigates her relationships from arm’s length in an effort to keep her “real” life separate from her family life. However, when her secret … [Read more...] about Sony Pictures Classics Picks Up Sundance Winner ‘The Persian Version’

Journalists for the Los Angeles legal newspaper Daily Journal write today about a tabloid reporter in the early 1990s surreptitiously taping Anthony Pellicano — bugging the bugger, according to LAObserved — while the PI fed, watered and overall negotiated with the night-crawlers of the news biz. (Actually, that was reported extensively two years ago by local TV news station KCBS and its then reporter Drew Griffin, who used the news break to leap to CNN.) But the Daily Journal claims today that the recorded conversations with Pellicano suggest lawyer Bert Fields didn’t know about the PI’s methods. I, too, was shown some tape transcripts back in 2004 pertaining to this. When I couldn’t hear the recordings themselves — none of the 250 microcassettes were made available to me but they were to KCBS’s Griffin — I didn’t feel comfortable going with the story. At the time, I believed and still do that drawing any such a conclusion one way or the other re Fields/Pellicano from the … [Read more...] about Old, Old News: Pellicano/Tabloids

EXCLUSIVE : Leading boutique firm, the Daniel Hoff Agency, is celebrating an impressive 30-year track record in entertainment via an expansion into Atlanta with a new office to be led by senior agents Renee Banks and Marta Parrillo . Banks and Parrillo are both longtime veterans of the Daniel Hoff Agency who had previously been based in Los Angeles. The agency, with an established presence in both L.A. and New York, now looks to capitalize on the burgeoning hotbed of production in the South, with local agents to bring the personal touch that has been key to the firm’s growth over the decades. Daniel Hoff Agency founder, Daniel Hoff, told Deadline: “Ten years ago, we seized the opportunity to open a Manhattan office with Dave Secor leading the charge, and in 2020, we expanded that New York presence as we brought on power Broadway and musical theater agents Dustin Flores and Marc Anthony Ferre. Now, with the explosive industry investment and growth in the South, … [Read more...] about Daniel Hoff Agency Expands With Addition Of Atlanta Office

Mafia Mamma and Knives Ou t star Toni Collette and Odessa Young ( The Staircase, Mothering Sunday, Shirley ) have signed to co-star in writer and director Nathan Silver’s twisted revenge thriller The Prima Donna . Collette and Young previously worked together on HBO’s award-winning series The Staircase . The drama revolves around dysfunctional family dynamics, the dangers of ambition, and the lengths we will go to make our mark on the world. Set in contemporary Rome, Collette will play a legendary opera diva who is about to step into the role of a lifetime just as her estranged daughter (Young) shows up at her doorstep, right out of rehab. An aspiring opera singer herself, the daughter summons up the courage to ask to be her mother’s understudy.  When her mother callously dismisses the suggestion, she snaps and starts mulling the ultimate revenge, igniting a cut-throat battle of wills. Silver, whose previous credits include Thirst Street, Uncertain … [Read more...] about Toni Collette & Odessa Young Reunite On Nathan Silver’s Revenge Thriller ‘The Prima Donna’; Cornerstone Launching At The EFM