Hollywood strikes spoil
Purdue students' dreams
By Kurt Esposito
Assistant
Campus Editor
Students graduating this May with dreams of moving
to Los Angeles may have to put those dreams on hold.
Both the Writer's Guild Association and the Screen
Actor's Guild are threatening to go on strike when contracts expire
on May 2 and July 1, respectively.
If both guilds were to go on strike, all production
of Hollywood movies and TV shows would cease.
According to the Los Angeles Economic Development
Cooperation, a combined writer's and actor's strike could cost the city
up to $2 billion a month.
"It sounds really scary. Hopefully it will be over
really quickly, with any luck," said Alex Aschinger, a senior in the
School of Liberal Arts.
Aschinger was planning to move to Los Angeles upon
graduating in May to pursue a career in acting. He said he will now
wait until the strikes are over before moving and will work in regional
theater in the meantime.
Richard Sullivan Lee, an associate professor of
visual and performing arts, said both the writers and the actors want
to receive more residuals from TV shows and movies that are shown on
the Internet and in syndication on cable television.
Previous discussions between the writers and the
studios collapsed, but both sides agreed to try to negotiate again on
Tuesday. The actor's guild refuses to negotiate with the studios until
the writers have agreed on a new contract.
"I don't think its going to affect beginners at
all but I don't think it will help them much," said Dale Miller, a professor
of visual and performing arts.
He said beginning actors will not have their union
cards when they arrive in Hollywood so they will miss out on any work
in movies and television.
Eddie Duran, a graduate student in the School of
Liberal Arts who is moving to Connecticut in May to work in theater,
said the strikes will ripple through all people in the acting field.
He said the strikes would affect him only when he is accepted to one
of the acting guilds.
Many members of the guilds will be looking for
other projects and will begin working more in theater, Duran said. He
said this situation lessens the chance that a new actor would be able
to break into theater.
Lee said he thinks the strike will happen but does
not think it will last long because it will involve many high profile
celebrities who have a lot of leverage.
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