As a seasoned gamer with countless hours spent navigating the complexities of virtual worlds and labor laws, I find myself deeply intrigued by this real-world drama unfolding between SAG-AFTRA and UFO Pictures. Having dabbled in my fair share of indie productions, I can empathize with both parties to some extent.
As a devoted supporter, I’m sharing that I, along with SAG-AFTRA members, are pursuing legal measures against a certain production company. The reason? They breached our collective bargaining agreement by shooting a movie overseas in Romania instead of adhering to the terms set within the U.S. boundaries.
On Monday, the guild initiated a legal action in a federal court in California against UFO Pictures, with the aim of collecting an arbitration award of $163,000 that was meant to compensate the talent further for their work on the production titled Beyond the Law.
Micah Brandt, founder of UFO Pictures, refuted the allegations. “My production company is not at fault, and we don’t owe them money,” he stated. “My company wasn’t financing the project; it was one of our subsidiaries.” He chose not to disclose any other parties involved in this issue.
In 2019, UFO Pictures joined SAG-AFTRA’s “Ultra Low Budget Film Agreement,” designed for American productions with a total budget not exceeding $300,000. This contract modifies and eases some conditions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, such as minimum wages.
In a 2020 arbitration case, SAG-AFTRA argued that the movie “Beyond the Law,” featuring Steven Seagal, Johnny Messner, and DMX (Earl Simmons), which was filmed in Romania, activated the minimum payment requirements as outlined in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Since UFO Pictures did not respond to these allegations, the arbitrator ruled in favor of SAG-AFTRA.
The producer has been instructed to make payments to SAG-AFTRA for the owed compensation to the affected performers in the project, late payment penalties, pension and health contributions, as well as an estimate for employer taxes and payroll expenses totaling $163,665.67. This ruling was made by the court based on the arbitration.
SAG-AFTRA, who didn’t provide a prompt response regarding our inquiry, filed a lawsuit on Monday due to UFO Pictures’ failure to pay them. Some of the other movies produced by this company are “Verotika”, “Captors” and “Blood Heart”.
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2024-11-19 00:54