Joan Rivers Faces Potential Fine, Expulsion in WGA East Trial (Analysis)

The penalties could be severe – but Rivers may have some unexpected defenses.

With the WGA East sending Joan Rivers off to a trial board for alleged violations related to Fashion Police, the star will be facing what’s likely to be a tough tribunal – and a fine that could be as high as all the money she’s made on the hit show in the last year, plus expulsion from the union.

What’s more, she may have to face her accusers without an attorney present. The WGAE rules say that a member at a trial board “may be represented by a Current member in good standing,” but there’s no provision for counsel.

And yet, as tough a jam as it may seem, Rivers may have some defenses – and might even be able to prevent a hearing from taking place at all. Let’s take a look at the accusations against Rivers, the procedure that comes next and her possible arguments.

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.



Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.  -->

How Talent Loses if Aereo Wins

Follow the money and discover an unstated reason the Hollywood unions weighed in with briefs opposing the new service.

Several weeks ago, Fox, PBS and several other companies were hit with a 2-1 federal court of appeals ruling rebuffing their attempt to shut down Aereo, a new service backed by Barry Diller. Last week, they filed a petition for a rehearing en banc, in which all thirteen judges of the New York based court would rehear the case and potentially reverse the ruling, resulting in the preliminary injunction that the networks seek while the matter goes to trial.

Interestingly the Hollywood unions – DGA, IATSE, SAG-AFTRA and WGA – signed on to an amicus brief supporting that petition, as they had also done when the original appeal was heard. But why do the guilds care?

As a reminder, Aereo is a service that allows users to watch and record local TV for $8/month without a cable subscription. The service is available in New York and, soon, in Boston. It’s drawn the ire of broadcast networks because it would facilitate cord-cutting, reducing revenue to networks.

As a result, News Corp. president and COO Chase Carey has threatened to make Fox cable-only if Aereo prevails in court. There are potential downsides to this, and some analysts are skeptical that Fox would make the move, but the threat can’t be dismissed out of hand.

One reason the guilds are concerned ...


Details: The Hollywood Reporter.



Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.  -->

New book - Entertainment Labor: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography

A must-have for academics, union staff and attorneys working in entertainment labor, ENTERTAINMENT LABOR: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography is a 345 page annotated bibliography of over 1,500 books, articles, dissertations, legal cases and other resources dealing with entertainment unions and guilds and various other aspects of entertainment labor.

The book is the product of hundreds of hours of research and of compilation of search results from almost twenty databases.

Also included are:
 * Annotations (where necessary to explain the relevance of the book or article)
* Capsule descriptions of legal cases
* Page references (where only a portion of the book or article is relevant)
* URLs (for those full-text articles that are available online at no charge)
* A detailed chapter on materials available from the unions and guilds themselves
* A 90-page index

Email me (jhandel99 at gmail dot com) for sample pages, or just click here to purchase.


Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.

VFX Town Hall Meeting Urges Trade Association and Union

However, panelists also acknowledged the difficulty of achieving either goal.

Pi Day – a multi-city international meeting of VFX artists – took place Thursday evening amid rising concern about the state of the industry.

VFX vet Scott Ross and others outlined a plan that involves the formation of a VFX union for VFX artists and of a trade association for visual effects facilities, all aimed at addressing the troubled VFX business model.

“Fear has stopped us because we have six clients [the studios],” Ross told them. “We are fearful of losing our jobs; [but] we are losing our jobs. … It’s going to get worse until we do something.”

Ross – a co-founder and ex-CEO of Digital Domain, a former GM of Industrial Light & Magic and a senior vp at LucasArts – also stated that through outreach “almost all” of the major facilities in North America  “have agreed to investigate the possibilities of a trade association. … They seemingly want to effect change.”

Details: The Hollywood Reporter.



Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audiobook. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets. 

Canadian Talent Consultant Charged in Alleged Actor Visa Scam

Actor Andrew Boryski was charged with multiple criminal counts for cheating aspiring actors out of thousands of dollars in an immigration visa scam, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office said Thursday in a press release.


Boryski is charged with 32 counts; “this suspect, who’s an aspiring actor himself, has landed a role in a real life crime drama” says a federal agent.


The Saskatchewan native allegedly operated a Los Angeles-area immigration consulting business that sought O-1 visas on behalf of aspiring foreign actors.The O-1 visa is intended for established entertainment professionals with work pending in the United States – not for newcomers to the business without actual employment, as was the case with Boryski’s alleged victims.


Details: The Hollywood Reporter.



New! Check out “The New Zealand Hobbit Crisis,” available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Subscribe to my blog (jhandel.com) for more about entertainment labor. You can also follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook. If you work in tech, take a look at my book How to Write LOIs and Term Sheets.