SCOTT BROCATO:
Mark, what is your take on the negotiations? How are they progressing so far or not progressing so far?
MARK VASCONCELLOS:
(laughs) How are they NOT progressing? Cause right now I believe it's at a standstill. I don't think anybody's talking to anybody right now, which is really sad. So yeah, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) who hold the contracts for SAG and the WGA, the Writers Guild of America...they turned out to be a little greedy and don't want to renegotiate contracts. All the contracts are pretty old, you know. So when they got to renegotiating again the AMPTP wouldn’t budge. So those are the people that pretty much make the contracts with the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.
So when renewal came, they didn't want to budge on anything. And, you know, over the course of the last 10 years, technology has really changed everything. So things have got slanted. Things have gotten really unfair for the writers, the actors, and the directors, and even some of the crew and things like that. So it was time to renegotiate. But they've been really stubborn, and now neither side are talking to each other, which is kind of sad.
SCOTT BROCATO:
And no progression in sight...
MARK VASCONCELLOS:
Uh, no. Not yet. SAG, and the WGA, have put down their list of demands, and they had a final list and they sent them over to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and they weren't budging on it. So that's when the strikes started to happen.
SCOTT BROCATO:
How has it been affecting you professionally as an actor? Did you have things lined up that are now put on hold?
MARK VASCONCELLOS:
Currently, no, because I am a Union actor, I am a SAG actor, but I didn't have any SAG contracts lined up. I didn't have any with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producer contracts lined up. So it hurts everybody. I mean, I can't go up to Albuquerque and audition for a television show. I can't go up there and work on a television show. We are in a market down here that's mostly nonunion. We've been getting some bigger movies in here, like with Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis and Dolph Lundgren, who are kind of half union, half not. It's the way they work out their contracts and stuff. But yeah, so everything's at a grinding halt with anything with union contracts.
SCOTT BROCATO:
Because you, as a SAG-AFTRA actor, you can't work on (a non-SAG project) without crossing the picket line.
MARK VASCONCELLOS:
Right, right. And you don't want to cross the picket lines while they're holding out and doing the strike and non-union people should be helpful in that sense too, because the non-union people will someday probably be union people. So everybody wants to help out. But we here in Southern New Mexico have always been pretty much a non-union market. A lot of independent films, a lot of people that are doing their own things--the colleges, young filmmakers--they're making their movies. And they can continue to make their movies. Those are their projects. As long as they're not dealing with companies and producers that fall under the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, they're fine. I can continue with my own personal projects. Most of my own personal projects are lower budget, micro budget, and hence nonunion. We can't afford it. So we try to treat people fairly, and that's kind of what this has all come down to, is being fair and keeping the integrity of this business alive and well for everybody on both sides.
SCOTT BROCATO:
What other kind of businesses that deal with film crews, if they were dealing with a SAG-AFTRA film set, do you see are also affected by this as a trickle down (effect)?
MARK VASCONCELLOS:
Oh yeah, huge impact. Because, you know, film, when it comes to your town, it disseminates money throughout the community like no other business. You know, it hits hotels, it hits eateries, clothing, shopping, you name it. Gas, umbrellas, whatever. Rentals, car rentals, truck rentals. Everything. So the film industry really disseminates money through a community like no other business, and it's been proven to do so. The track record for New Mexico in the last 10 years has been very pro-film, and hundreds of millions of dollars have come into this state because of that, local businesses have benefited because of that. So now, with the strike on, all those union contracts are dead in the water and nobody can do anything. So the local businesses lose out on that income. So yeah, it doesn't just hurt the actors, the writers, the crew. It hurts ancillary businesses or local businesses that we're also reaping the benefits of the film industry being in their neighborhood.
SCOTT BROCATO:
Final question: if you were suddenly in charge of the negotiations, what solutions would you have that would you think could be beneficial to both sides, that might bring this whole strike thing to an end?
MARK VASCONCELLOS:
Well, first off, we have to communicate. So if everybody goes silent, nothing gets done. And over the last 10 years, technology has just blown things out of the water proportionally. So people are making hundreds of millions of dollars off of streaming services and subscriptions and things like that. And the writers and the actors are just asking for their fair share. You know, they're not getting anything from all those views. They're not getting anything from that script being used over and over again. They're not getting anything from possible AI taking their jobs.
SCOTT BROCATO:
That's sort of the crux of it, isn’t it? AI?
MARK VASCONCELLOS:
Yeah, that's the big one. Because, you know, they can create scripts through computers now. They can digitally remaster someone's image or voice and put them on the screen. But that's not fair to the actor. That's not fair to the writer. So they're just asking for a piece of the pie. And in all fairness, there's so much money generated there in the film and television industry that both sides can profit and live a normal life. I mean, some of these actors, they can't pay their bills now. You know, things like that. So it's really sad when we've lost the human side of our business, which is really about humanity—our stories that we tell, the movies we create, things like that.
And the movie business and television business will never go away because people love it. It's a recession-proof industry. Whatever's happening in the rest of the world, they're going to keep making television and film...unless we're on strike, and then everybody suffers. So it's like, let's even it out some. You know, you guys who are running the streaming companies and the big huge production companies, you're going to make your millions, you're going to make your hundreds of millions. Let the performers and the writers and some of their creators and the artistic people benefit from your ride on the technology level side of it, while protecting the writers and the actors with their images, their writing, their likenesses, their sound; and protect them from AI because it will get out of control if it's not controlled. So that's all we're asking for.
SCOTT BROCATO:
Mark Vasconcellos, thank you for speaking with KRWG Public Media.
MARK VASCONCELLOS:
Awesome. Thank you.
