Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/370852
47 SEP-OCT 14 / CINEMONTAGE injured, including Marion Morrison, better known by his stage name, John Wayne. Following this, the first film safety laws were passed, but accidents continued with alarming regularity. Fast forward to Midnight Rider. Most at risk are cameramen and women, who are usually closest to the action, but with little of the protective gear given to actors and stunt people. In February of this year, camera assistant Sarah Jones was killed while filming Midnight Rider, starring William Hurt. The accident happened while filming a dream sequence on a railway bridge, when, without warning, a freight train approached. Cast and crew ran for their lives but Jones was mown down, apparently as she tried to rescue equipment, writes Smith. Hurt, who quit the movie, recalled in an e-mail given to The Los Angeles Times how he'd asked the producers "how long the crew had to get off if by some impossible chance another train came." He was told 60 seconds. "I said, 'Sixty seconds is not enough time to get us off this bridge.' There was a communal pause. No one backed me up. Then, we…just went ahead." Then the train came. "We didn't have 60 seconds; we had less than 30." SAG-AFTRA DEAL BUILDS ON DGA TEMPLATE The process of merging the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) continues, writes Jonathan Handel in The Hollywood Reporter. The new deal reached in early July by SAG-AFTRA and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) addresses some significant union concerns. It unifies the legacy SAG and AFTRA television agreements, incorporates basic cable into a national agreement for the first time, and includes wage increases and new media improvements in line with those agreed to recently by the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and Writers Guild of America (WGA). The television provisions in the new agreement are based on legacy SAG terms rather than AFTRA provisions. The basic cable terms will reflect the residuals formula used in the SAG, DGA and WGA agreements, rather than the AFTRA approach that frequently paid lower residuals or none at all. Handel at The Reporter also believes that primetime minimums in the new agreement will be based on the legacy SAG wage rates, not the slightly higher legacy AFTRA rates. Handel also asserts that the annual wage increases in the new agreement — 2.5 percent the first year (and a 0.5 percent increase in pension and health contributions) and 3 percent in the second and third years — apply across the board. Legacy AFTRA shows, even though paid at a higher rate, will also get the benefit of the annual wage increases, as will legacy SAG shows. The SAG and AFTRA benefit plans still remain separate entities despite the merger of the two unions in 2012. Also yet to be addressed is how to reconcile SAG and AFTRA's separate pension plans. RAISING MINIMUM WAGE DOESN'T LEAD TO LAYOFFS Those who argue that increasing the minimum wage will lead to large numbers of layoffs have a problem, writes Jared Bernstein in The Washington Post, who says, "They're consistently wrong." Job losses from moderate increases in the minimum wage have repeatedly been shown to range from none to "small," the latter meaning many more low-wage workers benefit from the policy than are hurt by it. For example, a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study on the impact of raising the national minimum wage to $10.10 an hour (and then indexing it to inflation) shows that 24.5 million workers would benefit from the increase. The CBO predicts that half a million low-wage jobs would be lost. That's 49 beneficiaries for each person who loses a job. The New York Times documents a number of fast-food eateries that pay well above the minimum, even while competitors pay less. How do these employers survive? They get better service from their higher-paid staff and less turnover. That means fewer vacancies and lower training costs — all productivity gains that offset the higher wage costs. Lillian Gish being filmed on an ice floe for D.W. Griffith's Way Down East (1920). Courtesy of Madame Pickwick Sarah Jones.