Unscripted

The Writers Guild of America strike pushes New Mexico’s film industry to the brink of another transformation

Seeing the ghost town of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design swarmed with artists again was downright eerie. The campus provided the training ground where so many locals learned to make movies—or worked on the likes of Longmire, No Country for Old Men and True Grit. But appropriately enough, the roster of local and international talent gathered outside the dormant art school on May 26 weren’t on campus to create anything. The ranks—including George RR Martin, Nashville screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury, Dark Winds director/producer Chris Eyre (Cheyenne and Arapaho), and even, later in the day, Good Omens author Neil Gaiman—had come to protest what they see as a threat to the nature of storytelling.

“It feels slightly—not to overplay it, but—existential,” explains Harry Werksman (Grey’s Anatomy), a local Writers Guild of America member. The union’s members across the US stopped working and hit picket lines last month in an attempt to negotiate better contracts with production executives.

Film studios have refused writers’ demands for increased streaming residual pay, and viewership data is just one of the sticking points between the two sides. Corporations such as Netflix and Amazon are hesitant to share numbers that could be used to calculate view-based payouts.

“They say, ‘We don’t know how many people watch these shows,’ and I’m like, ‘Whatever we talk about right now, we’re getting ads for it on the way home, right? You’re tracking me,’” Werksman says.

WGA members, meanwhile, argue previous agreements don’t sufficiently account for their work’s success, particularly internationally—leaving them with diminished and often untenable incomes compared to the days of reliable residuals from broadcast and cable television.

After negotiations with studios disintegrated, the WGA officially went on strike May 2 in its first walkout since the 100-day shutdown of 2007-2008—which cost Los Angeles an estimated $2.1 billion in economic impact. Analysts at the beginning of May predicted losses this time could meet or exceed $3 billion—and since then Hollywood strikers have proven more focused on actively obstructing production than in 2007. The ripple effects are now reaching Santa Fe.

Local anxiety surrounding the strike has as much to do with the act of writing professionally as with associated wages.

“I’ve had my work adapted to Hollywood movies and TV, and I’ve felt very taken advantage of,” Douglas Preston, Santa Fe co-author of the Agent Pendergast series and president emeritus of the Authors Guild, tells SFR at the protest. “You know, AI and ChatGPT were trained ‘reading’ our books. I went to ChatGPT and said, ‘tell me about [the character] Aloysius Pendergast.’ I got every detail. And obviously it can’t be stopped, right? You can’t turn off the internet. What we want is to set up a licensing system.”

While such a system might reimburse writers for existing work, guild members also fear use of AI to supplement script revisions and “mini rooms”—small groups which pre-prep storylines to slash staff writer hours.

“It’s very short-sighted,” says Game of Thrones scribe George R.R. Martin, who attended the demonstration with a friend dressed as a dragon. “I mean, these newer writers are in mini rooms and writing scripts, and then they’re sent away. They’re not allowed to be part of the production. That’s crazy. Writers are a valuable part of the production process—and that’s also valuable to the writers because they learn about production. The staff writers of 2023 are the showrunners of 2033—except they can’t be if they’re never allowed near a set.”

Figures like Martin represent the complexity of the situation. He has proven a vocal advocate of the strike, helping to organize the SFUAD action and sharing similar supportive sentiments on his blog. Yet, not all productions of his work have ceased in solidarity. Wild Cards, which was seeking a platform when the walkout began, is on pause from development, and writers rooms for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight have shut down. But House of the Dragon, on which Martin is credited as an executive producer, is still under production in Europe—with no staff writers on set.

If it was increasingly difficult for new WGA members to access such sets pre-strike, it’s impossible now—and will remain so until the parties reach an agreement. Under union contracts, production can only move forward on “locked” scripts—those officially finished with the editing process—and no major changes can be made on-set, since writers’ approval would be needed. In theory, that might not sound like an insurmountable complication. In reality, it can creatively and pragmatically hamstring a project.

Beyond giving actors confidence to improvise (a complex gray area under current strike rules—Ryan Reynolds, for example, is prohibited from ad-libbing on the set of Deadpool 3 because of his status as a writer), the freedom to edit text can make the difference between a lost day of production and a successful pivot when something goes wrong.

If a location in Diablo Canyon gets washed out by a monsoon or an actor misses the day’s last flight into Santa Fe and an entire scene must be changed, only members of the screenwriters union may tweak pages to accommodate the issue. And especially in New Mexico, where many productions depend on local guild members to ensure cultural authenticity, shooting through the strike could yield unintended consequences.

Some writers believe current industry conditions pose far greater threats to representation than the strike itself.

“Hollywood is a privileged industry; writing is a privileged job.” Chelsea Devantez, a New Mexico native and recent head writer for The Problem with John Stewart, tells SFR over the phone from LA. “If things are this bad here, it’s a bad sign everywhere. And the way the pay has broken down, you can’t get a start out here unless you’re rich. It’s going to make it impossible for economic diversity, which has a racial and ethnic tie-in. I don’t want everything to come from a trust fund baby, and if we don’t win it’s going to be even harder than it already has been.”

The current strike is far from the first time the New Mexico film industry has faced a serious threat. A chart of the economic history of filmmaking in the state (see page 14)features a series of alternating dips, peaks and pauses to survey for real or perceived danger.

Before the strike, the number of New Mexico worker days on set and overall industry spend were swelling. According to a March press release from the governor’s office, New Mexico productions created $1.5 billion in direct in-state spending over the past two fiscal years, with the industry supporting around 8,000 jobs at a median wage of roughly $32 an hour. But take a spin through the archives of any major trade paper such as Variety or Deadline for mentions of New Mexico and you’ll quickly spot a pattern: Numerous stories from the past two or three years touting Tamalewood’s cinematic virtues; a smattering of enthusiastic coverage from 2006 through 2011. In between? Almost nothing, save an article every four years or so with sweaty headlines like “New Mexico: Film Hot Spot on the Mend.” On the mend from what? For that we have to rewind further—to 2002.

That’s the year New Mexico adopted its film tax credit—which became one of the first five incentive programs in the country (alongside Louisiana, Minnesota, Hawaii and Missouri). The process was largely shepherded by former Gov. Bill Richardson and producer Eric Witt (Army of Darkness), who served as Richardson’s deputy chief of staff and later helped found the Santa Fe Film Office.

“The heyday was during the Richardson administration,” Witt recalls. “I remember a dinner with Richardson and [then-governor of California Arnold] Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger looks at Richardson and says, ‘Bill, stop stealing my fucking movies!’”

The tax credit in those early days was fairly simple, offering a 15% rebate on qualified in-state spends (local rentals, resident crew wages, location fees, etc.). By 2006 it rose to 25%. During that time the number of productions being shot in New Mexico more than quadrupled. And these were memorable titles: From prestige pictures like 3:10 to Yuma to blockbusters like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the ubiquitous Breaking Bad—notable for being set in New Mexico exclusively as a result of tax incentives. Direct production spending climbed too, from $62 million in 2005 to $276.7 million in 2011. The latter was, after all, the year The Avengers came to town.

It’s hard to imagine from today’s Marvel-drenched standpoint what might have been if our state remained the franchise’s home throughout its multi-billion-dollar 2010s ascent. Instead, Marvel left New Mexico the same year Susana Martinez was sworn in as governor.

“They whacked it.” Witt says, explaining the Martinez administration’s early approach to the film industry.

Martinez started her term by firing the director of the film office (leaving the seat empty for half a year), slashing its budget and adding new hoops to the incentive such as a $50 million annual cap and delayed payments for projects with budgets over $2 million—a category which includes nearly all Hollywood productions.

“[Then] In 2013-14,” Witt continues, “They started to realize, largely hearing from their own constituencies and supporters, ‘you’re hurting us, not Hollywood—they’ll just go somewhere else.’”

By 2014, total direct production spending had dropped to $162.1 million—less than half what it had been in Martinez’s first year. Under economic pressure, New Mexico launched another attempt to seduce Hollywood, starting with the so-called Breaking Bad Bill, which offered episodic projects and features shooting in qualified facilities a rebate boost to 30%. Benefits were later extended to TV pilots, and additional provisions were added to make it easier for companies to leverage rebates in attracting financiers.

By the time Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham took office in 2019, big-budget productions were tentatively returning to the state. But Lujan Grisham, unlike Martinez, embraced the film industry from the start—especially the streamers.

Within months of her swearing in, Lujan Grisham signed a bill upping the annual rebate cap from $50 million to $110 million. That law also opened a loophole: The cap wouldn’t apply to any companies signing a 10-year commitment to New Mexico. Netflix had already made just such an agreement through its purchase of Albuquerque Studios in late 2018. By mid-2019, NBCUniversal followed suit with a similar 10-year Albuquerque-based deal. It’s no wonder film business was booming the past few years; the major players were operating in an environment that catered directly to them. Until now.

Those same companies making long-term commitments to New Mexico are now among the biggest forces in opposition to the writers’ strike—which puts our state in a complicated position as the walkout continues. And locals predict the struggle has only just begun.

“This strike is going to be no less than 100 days long because [production companies] tipped their hand that they have enough in the pipeline to weather 100 days,” says Santa Fe writer Kirk Ellis (John Adams). “But solidarity is holding. Back in 2007 the situation between the unions was very different.”

The 2007-2008 WGA strike ended after the Directors Guild of America signed a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers—which promptly used that agreement to leverage writers into a contract. On June 3 of this year, mere days before the negotiation deadline, DGA’s board once again approved a deal during a WGA strike (terms now move to members for ratification). Some points, such as streaming residuals and restrictions on AI, relate directly to the WGA demands while other concerns, such as mini-rooms, remain unaffected.

But the new agreement may not bring such a swift end to the 2023 strike. The ‘23 DGA deal came relatively early into the WGA walkout, when morale among strikers like those outside SFUAD remains high. And even before agreement was reached, the WGA telegraphed refusal to allow a repeat of 2008.

“The AMPTP playbook has been to divide and conquer…labor,” the WGA wrote in an email to members on June 1. “That strategy, however, depends on divided unions. This year is different. Every union in town came out in support of the WGA, both during negotiations and after the start of the strike…Our position is clear: To resolve the strike, the companies will have to negotiate with the WGA on our full agenda.”

One point in that new DGA deal will stand out immediately to film workers in New Mexico—the banning of live ammunition on sets. It’s a clear response to the still-looming specter of Rust, on which actor/producer Alec Baldwin accidentally discharged a live round from a prop gun—killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza in an incident inextricable from the complex dynamics of film unions in our state.

Productions in New Mexico (including those that apply for tax credits) are not required to hire union workers, though most do. Given the bottleneck of union labor when multiple productions shoot here simultaneously, it’s not uncommon to see non-union crew on what started (or were intended) as union sets. When union crew members walked off the Rust set the day before the fatal shooting, for example, they were replaced by non-union workers. And First Assistant Director Dave Halls—who was convicted of negligent use of a deadly weapon earlier this year for his role in Hutchins’ death—is not a DGA member, even though the film was being produced under a DGA contract. So while mixed union and non-union sets aren’t hard to find locally, such undercutting has been associated with danger.

That same tangled and congested on-set workforce has one other distinctive impact on New Mexico’s strike dynamics. When Hollywood productions come to our state, most locals hired are “Below-the-Line,” or BTL—a term that encompasses positions ranging from cinematographers to costume designers to production assistants. Directors, producers, stars and writers, on the other hand, are known as “Above-the-Line” (ATL). But where demand for local BTL workers has been reliably strong, ATL positions are almost always staffed out of California.

Of course there are plenty of ATL workers here. But not all of them have the same opportunities to qualify for unions as their BTL brethren. Part of this is likely a matter of studios hesitating to offer such positions to unfamiliar locals (a bit of a catch-22); yet in-state film programs also tend to favor BTL avenues. The newly announced state-run New Mexico Media Academy, for example, plans to partner with Netflix, NBCUniversal, BTL union IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) and others to offer a program-to-union accelerated pipeline for BTL positions. And while requirements for each union differ according to the skills represented, no comparable ATL union partnerships have been made public.

This yields an unusual dynamic in New Mexico—BTL union members, despite often having less control on-set, hold a more stable position in the local landscape. Under typical conditions the situation can play into existing dependence on Hollywood productions, rather than self-perpetuating through homegrown projects. But in the midst of the strike, it offers a trial-by-fire for local ATL to BTL union relations. If the overall atmosphere of solidarity holds, it could potentially open doors for shifts in the current power balance.

In typical Santa Fe fashion, the on-the-ground reality is slightly behind the rest of the country. The SFUAD protest on May 26 was not meant to halt production, as progressively more WGA actions are angling to do.

By contrast, earlier Albuquerque demonstrations indefinitely shut down filming on Duster—a project that, much like House of the Dragon, saw its executive producer join pickets long before production ceased. And protests in LA increasingly institute crack-of-dawn start times to establish pickets before crew members arrive—barring production on many scripted series still attempting to shoot. Both writers and producers across the US are planning for a narratively grim stretch, with ABC already announcing a fall season utterly devoid of new scripted content.

That said, local momentum continues to build. The New Mexico branch of the Screen Actors Guild, for example, openly urged members to vote for SAG-AFTRA strike authorization (which allows threat of strike as a bargaining tool, rather than immediately beginning a walkout) before the overwhelming approval of authorization on June 6.

“The industry has changed dramatically, and we need a contract that protects you,” wrote local president Marc Comstock in an “urgent message” posted to the SAG-AFTRA website on May 24. “I’m heartened by the solidarity I’ve already seen from members when the news of this action was announced. Ensuring our negotiators have the leverage they need has never been more important—now is the time to demonstrate our unity.”

Even Mayor Alan Webber indicated support for the WGA strike by visiting the picket line on May 26 in Santa Fe.

“The movie business is big in Santa Fe,” Webber tells SFR. “The writers make the movie business go. We’ve got facilities here, and typically they’d be going full blast. But until this gets settled, they’re gonna have to slow down and get their house in order.”

And evidence of that deceleration is starting to show.

“New Mexico currently has 19 projects in production.” says Amber Dodson, director of the New Mexico Film Office. “The work stoppage will impact production, as shows get delayed and postponed. However, New Mexico has a strong pipeline of inquiries. We are confident our experienced crew and talent base, unique locations and ecosystem for film and television are resilient.”

Yet data the film office released last year on the state’s 109 productions highlighted catering and hospitality, equipment supply, travel and vehicle rental and construction as among the film-adjacent industries which benefit most from Hollywood business—with one vendor attributing 5-10% of its annual sales to production. Such sectors are likely to face particularly quick repercussions as local sets leave town.

“Productions we’ve had are wrapping in the next few weeks…for the first time in years we have one of our stages open,” notes Santa Fe Film Office Commissioner Jennifer LaBar-Tapia. “A lot of the studios have been in a holding pattern. Normally [Santa Fe Studios] would be booked almost immediately.”

For example, when the studio’s previous tenant Roswell didn’t make it to a fifth season, the Walker, Texas Ranger prequel Walker: Independence swooped in to claim the space within days if not hours.

Today’s vacancy is not entirely surprising. New Mexico specializes in landscape-centric narrative filmmaking, not the unscripted projects (reality television, certain documentaries, etc.) studios rely on to feed streaming pipelines during the strike. It’s hard to imagine Bravo launching a Real Housewives of Albuquerque, for example. Short term, this means the state might see greater dips in production than coastal areas with more diversified content industries. But LaBar-Tapia believes it also could cause a corresponding rush when the strike ends and backlogged scripted work returns.

“The floodgates are going to open and everyone’s going to be calling looking for a place to shoot,” she predicts.

Union members will likely wait until at least mid-August (Aug. 10 will mark 100 days from the start of the strike), if not later, for agreements. But action on this scale, whether successful or not, marks a moment of shift in the industry both nationally and locally. And historically, such seismic adjustments have often been ground zero for new voices breaking into a notoriously insider industry.

“The [1988] strike launched my career,” asserts Santa Fe local Melinda Snodgrass (Star Trek: The Next Generation) from the picket line. “It happened because the strike ended and they needed material, and so I’m hoping for a lot of younger writers this will be the same result—that when the strike ends we’re gonna have this influx of new, fresh talent...There’s a ton of talent here. All they need is a shot, these young writers. There’s no reason why the writers’ rooms have to be in LA. They need to be here.”