Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1551: Affirmation from the SAG Actors Guild

"NBC Channel 12 really agreed to broadcast it? Interesting, how did you do it?" Ronald's assistant Yang Yanzi had some business acumen. She also worked as a production assistant for Oliver Stone and knew very well that these TV stations would not do business at a loss.

In the past, the main reason why the SAG Screen Actors Guild could not present a union award was that there was no benefit in presenting the award.

Apart from the Oscars, which are guaranteed to make money, only the Golden Globe Awards has won a broadcast contract from NBC. This contract makes the Golden Globe Awards the second most profitable awards ceremony in the United States and even the world.

As for the amateur level of the awards, it had nothing to do with the broadcasting contract. The awards scandal in the 1980s caused the Golden Globe Awards to lose their broadcasting rights for several years, and it immediately declined. If it had not been for the broadcasting contract that was later regained, the Golden Globe Awards would probably have been discontinued or even disappeared.

The biggest feature of the Golden Globe Awards is that celebrities who agree to come will generally win the award. The origin of this unspoken rule is that celebrities are a guarantee of television ratings.

In theory, SAG is full of movie stars, and their attendance at the award ceremony should not be broadcast by television stations.

However, this is where the subtlety of the matter lies. In addition to SAG, there is also an actors' union, AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), which also represents many actors.

If the SAG awards are only given to movie actors, there won't be enough viewers for the broadcast. The ideal situation would be for the two major actors' unions to unite and establish an actor's union award, which would be the best of both worlds.

This is how things are in America: if there is one person taking the lead and there is the possibility of making money, it is easy to accomplish. But if there are two people taking the lead, it is often difficult to accomplish.

There was originally a conflict between the two major unions. The Screen Actors Guild SAG has its own charter, and those who do not appear in publicly released films and have a contract of more than one week cannot join the union. A large number of actors from AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) are in TV dramas or radio dramas and have no chance to join SAG.

Some agents even require possession of a SAG union card as a prerequisite for signing actors and representing them.

With such contradictions and mutual contempt, it is unlikely that the two unions will unite. In addition, the main function of the two unions is to negotiate wages and dividends with the employers every few years, so the two unions are still constrained.

So, 47 years after the Directors Guild and Writers Guild Awards were presented, the SAG Actors Guild finally sorted out the contradictions and conflicts of interest and belatedly established its own awards.

"That's of course the influence of me, your boss..." Ronald laughed and joked.

"Boss, if you say so, I will take it seriously." Yang Yanzi heard the tone in Ronald's words. This guy didn't seem to be joking.

"You can take it seriously, but I won't admit it publicly anyway..."

Ronald did use his influence to promote the establishment of the SAG Screen Actors Guild Awards. He used his influence in the television industry to pass on a message to NBC, saying that the first awards ceremony would definitely be able to obtain a Golden Globe-level broadcast ratings share.

Seeing how confident he was, NBC decided to give it a try to see if it could increase the opportunities for stars to appear on TV.

Ronald's influence was also key to the establishment of the first Screen Actors Guild Awards.

If SAG wants to become the host of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, it has to bring in TV stars to present the awards. If it is just a movie award, NBC may not be willing to do it. Although movie stars have higher box office appeal and advertising prices, TV audiences may not be familiar with them.

Often, they can only recognize the faces of movie stars and remember a certain role they played in a movie. And most of the time, only those who watch movies more than once a year are familiar with the stars and will turn on the TV to watch them receive awards.

Television stars, on the other hand, have so many opportunities to meet the audience, once a week or even multiple times, so people are much more familiar with them than movie stars.

In addition, TV stars have a much larger fan base, whether it is the three wireless TV stations or cable TV stations like HBO, the audience is tens of millions. The award ceremony with their participation actually has a considerable audience share.

For example, last year's Oscars and Primetime Emmy Awards had over 40 million and 20 million viewers respectively. If there were no viewers who only like TV stars, the awards would not be given out.

So there are actually two key obstacles for SAG to establish this award. One is the TV network broadcast, which Ronald has helped to solve. The other is to allow TV stars belonging to the AFTRA union to participate in the SAG award, which is very difficult to solve.

The difficulty lies in the fact that when TV stars participate in an award ceremony presented by the Screen Actors Guild, they are naturally at a disadvantage. Taking a SAG award back will not bring them any glory and may easily lead to backlash from AFTRA.

In particular, in order to prevent this problem, AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) has also made a special rule that does not allow their union members to receive any performance awards that are not recognized by AFTRA.

That is to say, if you win any non-AFTRA certified award for a role in a TV series, you cannot go to the scene to receive the award, otherwise you will be punished by AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists).

However, Ronald was one of the earliest producers of "Seinfeld", and he used his connections to ask the main actors to participate. As for AFTRA, he and many other producers persuaded them...

……

"The first SAG Awards, an award for actors to vote for actors. Stars attending tonight include Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Defries, Michael Richards, and Jerry Seinfeld..."

On the day of the award ceremony, as expected, the four main actors of "Seinfeld" and many supporting actors all cooperated very well and came to the NBC studio in New York and sat among a group of movie stars.

"Also present at the event are Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Helen Slater, Helen Hunt... a huge cast of stars..."

Since Helen Slater got a guest role in "Seinfeld" and the industry knew who was behind her, she was also invited to attend this year's awards ceremony. Her best friend Helen Hunt was nominated for Best Actress in a Drama Series for the TV series "Crazy for You".

This award has a sleazy feel to it. The film awards imitate the Oscars, with only four awards: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actor.

However, the TV awards imitate the Emmy Awards and the Golden Globe Awards, with many categories. There is no distinction between leading and supporting actors and actresses, but there are three major categories: drama, mini-series and TV movies, and comedy, with a total of six awards.

Ronald and other film and television producers have also achieved results in negotiations with AFTRA. AFTRA no longer insists on punishing union members who violate the rules to participate in competitions, but it will not approve of it either.

This is equivalent to neither recognizing nor denying the legitimacy of the award. If you want to go, go ahead. AFTRA will not punish you, but it also does not say that it is legal to do so and you can do it again in the future.

This ambiguous attitude has resulted in many protagonists of popular TV series not being present, such as Kelsey Grammer, the star of NBC's own hit drama "Frasier," and Cybill Shepherd, the heroine of the TV series named after her.

It can be said that none of the major TV stations' main hit dramas sent out their biggest stars to participate. However, the supporting actors of these main hit dramas and the protagonists of the second-tier hit dramas all came to the scene.

This can be considered a compromise by AFTRA. They believe that the audience will not be very interested in this approach. If the ratings are average, the event will not be able to be held next year. By then, AFTRA may be able to hold its own awards.

"Best Actor in a Motion Picture, winner: Tom Hanks..."

Helen Slater was the presenter, and she stepped aside after reading out the winners. Her presence at such an awards ceremony, and her appearance on a national broadcast, was another reminder of who she was, and she smiled from ear to ear.

However, this Screen Actors Guild trophy is much larger than the Oscar. It is a bronze trophy with two open hands, similar to the Oscars. It is obviously a poor imitation.

However, this imitation still made the remaining four nominees who did not win the award very depressed. They are all old acquaintances and old faces. Morgan Freeman from The Shawshank Redemption, John Travolta from Pulp Fiction, Paul Newman from Nobody's Idiot, and the only newcomer is Tim Robbins, who plays Andy in The Shawshank Redemption.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards are professional. The people who vote are members of the Screen Actors Guild, which means they all have SAG membership cards and have starred in movies.

For them, although the voice-over of Shawshank Redemption brings the audience into the perspective of Morgan Freeman, who plays the black prisoner Ryder, the main axis of the drama still revolves around Andy, played by Tim Robbins.

Tom Hanks was relieved, stood up and kissed his wife Rita Wilson with a beaming smile, then went on stage to receive the award with great pride. Rita Wilson also smiled very happily. Many people who don't know much about it say that the Golden Globe Awards are a weathervane for the Oscars.

In fact, the biggest indicator is the major union awards. This is because the judges of these awards are highly overlapped with the Oscars. In the past, the Screen Actors Guild did not have awards, so the Best Actor and Best Actress were often unexpected. But after today, there will be the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Hanks may have a chance to win the Best Actor Oscar for the same year.

The other four nominees sitting in the audience, except Paul Newman who was calm (he had already won the Best Actor award), all looked unhappy. They could think of what Rita Wilson could think of.

Morgan Freeman is black, so his expression didn't change much. John Travolta's smile was very stiff. Weinstein made a lot of promises and did a lot of public relations work. Travolta won almost all the awards from the local film critics associations.

But this most important Screen Actors Guild Award before the Oscars was actually won by Tom Hanks.

"Don't worry, he won the Best Actor award last year, so it's unlikely he'll get it again this year," Travolta's wife, fellow actress Kelly Preston, comforted her husband.

This time she wore a one-shoulder off-shoulder dress, but the TV broadcast camera was given to Rita Wilson. However, she still held out hope that she could beat her opponent at the Oscars and win the close-up shot of the actor kissing his wife.

"Thank you, thank you everyone. I like this trophy very much. This person holds comedy in one hand and tragedy in the other. These two seem to be mirror images of each other. They can both keep you awake at night, make you doubt yourself, and make you doubt why you chose the profession of actor in the first place...

But if you are really crazy enough to take the first step and become an actor, then in addition to your eternal image on the screen, there is also a small thing that represents the difference between you and others...

That’s the Screen Actors Guild card…”

Tom Hanks took out his SAG union card and waved it. "We all have our first step. I got this card for playing a supporting role in a movie, and my wife Rita got this card for playing a cheerleader in another movie. By the way, my wife was Miss SAG in 1982..."

"Ha ha ha ha……"

This acceptance speech made the actors sitting below feel very emotional, as they all experienced the excitement of appearing in a movie for the first time. Tom Hanks' acceptance speech showed that he did not forget his roots and put himself together with many less famous actors.

This little design made the actors on the scene like him even more.

"If you're lucky enough and do well enough, then your name can be listed alongside actors like Morgan Freeman, Paul Newman, John Travolta, Tim Robbins, and be recognized by your fellow actors. This is really a blessing..."

"Wow, wow, wow..." Now even the few losers had to applaud. This was said very skillfully and gave the four losers enough face. His humble attitude also made many actors in the audience recognize that Hanks was one of them.

"Best Ensemble Performance in a Drama Series, the winner is Seinfeld..."

The last two awards of the night were thought up by Ronald with the help of SAG. Since AFTRA was dissatisfied with the actors receiving awards individually, they replaced them with the group performance awards.

From Jerry Seinfeld to Jason Alexander and others, they all lined up on the stage and gave speeches after receiving the awards.

In this way, the winners of the first SAG Guild Awards were not just actors from second-tier hit dramas. The hottest hit drama, Seinfeld, and another TV series reflecting the life of the NYPD, NYPD Blue, both won the ensemble acting award.

With a precedent set, the stars of these hit dramas will no longer have any burden when the second session comes next year. What’s wrong with having one more opportunity for exposure?

Anyway, not many TV viewers know that Hollywood actors belong to two unions. Actors belonging to the AFTRA union also want to enter the film industry, and the SAG award is a win-win for them.

In the future, actors from the AFTRA union will also be invited to SAG awards, but not vice versa. If this continues, SAG will gradually surpass AFTRA...

Ronald pressed the remote control and turned off the TV. The first awards ceremony went beyond expectations, with ratings and audience share both at 60% of the Emmy Awards level, Forrest Gump was recognized for his acting, and an Oscar nomination was imminent. Ronald felt that this was the best chance he had of winning the Oscar.