What happens when Hollywood comes to a halt and your podcast revolves around movies and TV shows? We're making lemonade out of lemons, and repurposing our show content to stand in solidarity with those fighting for fairness in Hollywood. This episode is a little different. We chat about the impact of the ongoing writer and actor strikes and how these strikes are a stark reminder of the crucial roles these professionals play in creating the content we all love.
We're also excited to announce our new focus on comics and video games - topics we've been itching to dive into! We share our plans to review these mediums in the coming weeks, discussing the implications of the strikes, especially for newbies in the industry, and highlighting how it's not just the A-list talents who are being hit, but also those struggling to earn a living. So join us on this new journey as we stand shoulder to shoulder with Hollywood's creative minds. Timecodes are provided if you want to skip around to your topic of choice! Thank you to everyone who continues to support and don’t forget to subscribe to download new episodes as they become available and don’t be afraid to share a rating!
In the wake of the tragic death of Power Ranger actor Jason David Frank, the number for the Suicide and Crisis Prevention Hotline will be displayed here: 9-8-8. It's that simple. Call or text that number to be instantly sourced to a crisis counselor. Speak with someone today if you feel alone and need help.
00:00 Our Statement on the SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Strike
In the wake of the tragic death of Power Ranger actor Jason David Frank, from this episode on, the number for the Suicide and Crisis Prevention Hotline will be displayed here: 9-8-8. It's that simple. Call or text that number to be instantly sourced to a crisis counselor. Speak with someone today if you feel alone and need help.
What happens when Hollywood comes to a halt and your podcast revolves around movies and TV shows? We're making lemonade out of lemons, and repurposing our show content to stand in solidarity with those fighting for fairness in Hollywood. This episode is a little different. We chat about the impact of the ongoing writer and actor strikes and how these strikes are a stark reminder of the crucial roles these professionals play in creating the content we all love.
We're also excited to announce our new focus on comics and video games - topics we've been itching to dive into! We share our plans to review these mediums in the coming weeks, discussing the implications of the strikes, especially for newbies in the industry, and highlighting how it's not just the A-list talents who are being hit, but also those struggling to earn a living. So join us on this new journey as we stand shoulder to shoulder with Hollywood's creative minds. Timecodes are provided if you want to skip around to your topic of choice! Thank you to everyone who continues to support and don’t forget to subscribe to download new episodes as they become available and don’t be afraid to share a rating!
In the wake of the tragic death of Power Ranger actor Jason David Frank, the number for the Suicide and Crisis Prevention Hotline will be displayed here: 9-8-8. It's that simple. Call or text that number to be instantly sourced to a crisis counselor. Speak with someone today if you feel alone and need help.
00:00 Our Statement on the SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Strike
In the wake of the tragic death of Power Ranger actor Jason David Frank, from this episode on, the number for the Suicide and Crisis Prevention Hotline will be displayed here: 9-8-8. It's that simple. Call or text that number to be instantly sourced to a crisis counselor. Speak with someone today if you feel alone and need help.
Speaker 1:
It's the Infinite Podcast. Go tell your friends, it's the.
Speaker 2:
Infinite Podcast. My God, it never ends. It's the Infinite Podcast with Robin.
Speaker 1:
North and Q. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Project Infinite Podcast, the podcast covering the Infinite and an ever-expanding multiverse of fandom. I almost forgot the intro From Movies, comics, tv Shows, video Games. We got you covered. I'm Rob.
Speaker 1:
I'm here, as always with Kourt, and you might be wondering, looking down at the episode title and more pulling to the length of why the heck is this episode so short? Well, because we don't have a ton to talk about today, because we're at a crossroads of our, of our, of our it's not a career of our podcast, at the very least. Because, as you know, in the last few weeks there has been a writer strike going on and since the writer strike has been going on, there is now an actor strike on top of it. So basically, the entirety of Hollywood has shut down over this and it's kind of thrown, obviously, a wrench into our plans, which obviously is furthest from importance right now. But we have made the decision to not go forward with our episode that we were going to do this week, nor any reviews or anything like that for the foreseeable future. We're just going to. Obviously, you know, the cool thing about what we do is we do cover a variety of different things. So, that being said, we're going to take this week kind of off, so we're just kind of posting this.
Speaker 1:
What we're talking about right now, and then next week we're going to start reviewing comics, reviewing video games for the foreseeable future is the two things we're going to be focusing on, honestly, a couple things that we've been wanting to get to for the longest time.
Speaker 1:
I mean a little behind the curtain. One of our test episodes before we officially launched the podcast was an episode we did on Spider-Man Life Story and to this point, it's the only episode we've ever done on a comic in force, other than we did an appearance on another podcast where we talked about Captain America, civil War and, obviously, the Civil War comic, and you've probably heard us do a couple of video game related things, mostly related around Guardians of the Galaxy when that had come out, the Last of Us, star Wars, jedi, survivor, those kinds of things. So that's where we're going to, that's the domain, the universes that we're going to be living in, for the next few weeks at very least, as this thing doesn't seem to be nearing any type of resolution, as it shouldn't, until these writers and actors get the type of thing that they're going to do, that they're asking for and really rightly deserve. So I know you have something that you want to say about this, so I'm going to yield the floor to you?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean plain and simple. I mean we stand in solidarity with the writers killed and the screen actors killed. I mean very plain and simple. There's by no means we will cross the picket line and you know, we want to make sure that at the end of the day, we don't get any of this. Without them, there's no stories that we love, there's no movies, characters, anything like that, that we love without them. So, like Rob said, from now on until the foreseeable future, we won't be doing any.
Speaker 2:
You know, with the strike, you know written companies, we're not doing any reviews for them. And you know it's all the big ones, it's, you know, literally all of the massive ones that you know we would have talked about week in, week out, that we have talked about week in, week out. We are not doing anything from them. I think it's in. You know, it's not really our bunch of interest, we don't really care about us at this point. It's for them. So that is plain and simple.
Speaker 2:
Like I said, there is, we don't get all these products, we don't get all this, you know creativity, without writers behind the scenes to make you know and set these things and, you know, have their creative voice, through the, through the pendant, through the, through typing it out and, you know, getting it to us, and it doesn't get personified without actors. So, if they're not being fairly compensated, if they're not even able to make a living wage, as these, you know people that sometimes you know we put on these pedestals and rightfully so for their talent, but aren't able to live a, you know, have a living wage. And you know we have, you know, regular jobs and we're, you know, somewhat able to support ourselves or able to support ourselves. And you know all these people in Hollywood that are, you know, trying to make it, trying to live their dreams, which not every person can say. If they're not able to get a living wage, then we don't see it fit to, you know, help, you know, even if we're doing reviews, help promote these companies that won't even pay them.
Speaker 2:
That, obviously, fran Drescher being the president of the SGA, one of the big things she talked about was there's no kind of even a meet in the middle. There's no meet in the middle. Then, you know, one of the big things that also came out of this was the AI the AI in the room which we talked about.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Apparently, the entire consensus behind it is from the studios, I believe from Dizzy was we're going to take an actor, we're going to pay them for a day, we're going to scan their likeness and then we're going to be able to use that likeness forever without compensation to the actor, which is very scary, especially, to you know, up and coming actors who might, you know, might have accepted this, got paid their $300 and, you know, be under contract for them. Not being able to, you know, give off their artistic voice is very unfortunate. So by no means do we want that to happen. And yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, you covered pretty much all of it that we needed to talk about.
Speaker 2:
But, like I said there's, we are with them to the end of the line. Like this is. It's very simple. I'm going to have fun doing the comic book reviews. I'm going to have fun doing the video game reviews. Obviously I would love to do, you know, what these creators of you know any facet of creators able to do. But until the studios are willing to compromise and come to a mutual understanding, then you know, on our end, we're not going to do anything related to it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I mean it really just boils down to just how we feel about it at the end of the day, like we've gone over the rules and regulations, and I mean there are ways for us to probably go about doing reviews and stuff like that If we so chose to. We're just choosing not to at this point in time, just like you said, out of solidarity. And I mean, I think the thing that, especially as it relates to this, that people get kind of confused about or maybe they're not understanding, is is it's not just the top of the line actors and writers.
Speaker 2:
That's one of the big things, yep.
Speaker 1:
That are fighting for this, like they're not fighting for themselves. Essentially, they're fighting for the people that, like you said, can't make a living wage off of this career, because Hollywood is not so much a it's not like the job of kind of glitzing glamour that you would think it is, it's more about the opportunity is where probably I don't know 80 to 85% of these people live in, right? No?
Speaker 2:
that's the perfect way to put that is the opportunity.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, majority of them are, you know, not being able to provide for them. Think about, like, think about some of your actors that just you know, even, like I thought about this when I was doing my research like, think about your actors that like pop up in some commercials. You like, those people just doing that aren't going to be able to provide through themselves. Think about, even some of you know, the actors that like, show up in this project or this project and it could be any studio, anything and you're like, hey, I remember that person from that small role in this thing. These people are not able to provide for themselves.
Speaker 2:
I feel like when we talk about it, we think, like Brad Pitt, denzel, you know, margot, like the big ones, but like that's a small percentage of what the others 100, there's, you know roughly what is it in the SGA, I believe it's like 160,000 of them. That's 160,000. And we're looking at a sample size of, like you know, 100 actors that we think about because you know that's who the quote unquote A-listers are. But it's not about the A-listers, it's about everybody just being able to, you know, go to work and do the thing that they love. How many of us can say we're doing the thing that we love and these people are trying to do the thing that they love and if it's for the sake of entertainment for us, I think they at least that you know these studios can do can compensate them for keeping them rich and, you know, getting them money in their pockets.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and I mean it's doubly more important as important for the writers, because the writers don't make a fraction of what the actors do.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I really want to dive into that next one.
Speaker 1:
No, but I mean, that's that's really. That's the important thing is the writers get and this is where it all started is with the writers, the writers guild, obviously, and they're also impacted by AI. We've talked about in the past how some studios now are having AI generate pilots, basically, and then and then basically just bringing writers on as glorified editors, which is not in the spirit of the profession at all. You want a writer and a writing staff that can generate ideas from their own minds, and it just feels like studios are more and more willing to not have to deal with that and would rather just pay a you know, half of the half the writers, half the pay to basically just edit AI generated scripts, and that's not a not a future that anyone should want to live in.
Speaker 2:
No, and yeah, I mean you know big aspirations of somebody that would want to be in the WGA, like that's scary and that's scary that writers have to like to live like that. One of the big podcasts I listened to on screenwriting it's, it's incredible, the screenwriting lab. And you know, I've been seeing the posts come through on Facebook and like there's a lot of fear in those posts because a lot of people that are in that group are screenwriters, are in the, are in the writers guild of America and it is very frustrating and it's very it's like it's it's kind of sad. I was reading through some of the posts and it's like, you see, like this fear that they have in the. You know in the tones of their words that they're writing. You know to see how they should proceed, to see that they've talked about talking about some of them have talked to like agents and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:
But to your point about, you know how much they make comparatively like writers are. You know your, your inceptors, essentially your, your creators, at the at the core of it of you know any idea that you have needs to, needs to get executed and that doesn't start without you know a pen to a page or, you know, hands to the keypad, so hopefully, going forward, they get fairly compensated. And then some hopefully, and it's not like, and this whole idea that they're not asking, they're asking for the world is just insane to me. They're they're just asking to not have their jobs taken away by computers and they're they're just asking to be able to provide for themselves and their family. That's it.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and you, you'd think that would be an easy kind of compromise to come to, but the unfortunate thing is about, you know, I it's something that I've always heard, but something I truly believe in is that these big corporations don't get to be big corporations and these billionaires get to become billionaires without kind of squeezing everyone else under them, and that's essentially what is happening. So, yeah, I mean, I mean, that being said, we're again reiterating standing with the writers, standing with the actors. We're going to shift our focus a little bit in the coming weeks. We don't have a topic for this week, so we're just doing this and then next week we'll figure it out.
Speaker 1:
We're figuring out as we go Because obviously this, like I said, this whole thing kind of messed with our plans a little bit, but not in a way that makes us, you know, angry or or, or you know, unsupportive of the strike because this is totally minimal compared to what they're, what they're trying to accomplish and what they're trying to do with their not just their careers, but the careers of of you know people, years and years and years and years in the future, which is again another important point is that they're not necessarily doing it for themselves. They're doing it for future generations, decades down the line, that that maybe aren't even into acting yet, but may someday get into it and because of the work being done now, they'll hopefully have a better career to look forward to, right, do you?
Speaker 2:
have anything else. No, that's it. I think we covered everything. I just I mean, at the end of the day, I just hope that they get what they, not what they want, what they need. That's it. That's very simple, and I'm going to leave it at that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, well said. And I mean, obviously you would hope that this gets resolved quickly but fair, I think, is probably the best. But I mean, if this thing drags out weeks, months, so be it. It is what it is, so be it. Well, the reason I mean the reason we started this whole thing and to begin with is because we have no shortage of things to talk about, right, so we'll always find things. So, that being said, we look forward to coming up with what we come up next week and the following weeks after, and you know, whenever the time comes, that we can resume doing the reviews and everything we will. But until then, you can follow us on Twitter at Project INF underscore pod. You can follow us on Facebook. You can follow us on Instagram At the Project Infinite pod. And next week, yeah, we'll probably start with a comic next week, just to give ourselves some time to do other things, gather some ideas together. And yeah, that's pretty much it. We'll see you next week. Goodbye, peace.