Vancouver: Texas Rangers – a feature by Miramax that is already in production in Calgary – is the first official signatory to the ‘Gold Book Interim Agreement’ being offered by ACTRA Performers Guild to producers hedging against a national strike that could happen as early as July.

‘The interim agreement is taking away some of the uncertainty,’ says Alex Gill, communications director at actra. ‘We’re saying go ahead and budget until we can negotiate a lasting contract.

The interim agreement, which was unveiled two weeks ago, is based on actra’s last offer in negotiations with employers and states that employers should:

* pay principal performers a minimum of $500 per day plus use fees. All other categories increase by 8%;

* define the principal performer category as actors having four lines or more;

* allow 12-hour turnaround from door-to-door;

* maintain prepayments at 130% for features and 105% for tv, but the buyout period is capped at three years instead of four;

* increase the Producers’ Insurance and Retirement contributions by 3% to 12%; and,

* pay stunt coordinators the same as stunt performers, including use fees.

The advance (use fee) option is only available to Canadian-content production. All non-Canadian, non-resident sag members are to be engaged on sag contracts.

actra is offering this option to producers while it continues negotiating its new master collective agreement.

Even with a minimum increase of 11% offered by the Interim Agreement, Canada is still a bargain, says actra national executive director Stephen Waddell, referring to the value of the Canadian dollar and federal and provincial production incentives.

Waddell was unable to comment on earlier reports that features such as The X-Men and Shanghai Noon have signed on to the Interim Agreement. However, actra is clear that it is not signing independent ‘show deals’ with producers.

On the West Coast, meanwhile, there have been no changes in the negotiations between the Union of BC Performers (a branch of actra that is negotiating its own collective agreement with producers) and employers with productions in b.c.