Vancouver: On July 3, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for a new three-year contract.

The previous contract expired on June 30 and the 135,000 members will vote to ratify the contract offering through a secret ballot mail referendum as soon as it can be arranged.

In the meantime, actors can continue to work and audition under the terms of the tentative agreement.

At press time, full details of the new agreement were not available. However, the unions report there are increased minimum standards, wage increases for guest stars and stunt co-ordinators, increases to basic cable residuals, additional contributions to the SAG Health Plan and new provisions for the Internet similar to the new contract for the Writers Guild of America.

There was no landslide of calls from U.S. producers to the B.C. Film Commission immediately following news of the actors’ agreement, reports Julie Bernard, manager of production location services. But most of the industry booked off July 4 Independence Day and the rest of the week, given the uncertainty of negotiations with the actors, she notes.

‘It will be a mad house here next week,’ Bernard predicts, adding there are 18 series prepping or proceeding and another four waiting for the green light. ‘It will be slower than usual, but it should pick up.’

The commercial sector is already busy, she notes. Producers introduced to Vancouver because of last year’s commercial actors strike have come back as repeat customers and there are more commercials from Europe and Japan.

Tom Adair, executive director of the B.C. Council of Film Unions, is more specific in his appraisal of production volumes in the post-settlement business environment.

‘We’ll be at 50% capacity for the rest of the year,’ he says, with series as the principal employer. Most of the studios and networks spent their budgets for the whole year in the first six months, he explains.

While production will slow, Adair predicts yearly tallies will show that B.C.’s industry has grown again because so much production was completed before the SAG contract expired. *