Freelance Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

A majority of some 5,000 freelance TV commercial production workers, organizing under the banner of the grassroots “Stand With Production” movement, have signed authorization cards certifying that they wish to unionize with IATSE. According to IATSE, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) has agreed to voluntarily recognize them as a group for the purposes of collective bargaining.

Naman Ramachandran A comprehensive report published by Freelancers Make Theatre Work (FMTW) sheds light on critical challenges faced by the freelance theater workforce in the U.K. The survey, conducted between March and April 2023, had 1156 theater freelancer respondents. It reveals significant disparities in pay between male and female workers, amounting to a pay gap of 37.4%, with more male respondents reported earning 100% of their income from freelance work. The data also exposes an industry plagued by ageism, as the pay gap widens to 47.7% for freelancers with 21-30 years of experience. The sobering picture painted by the report continues, with average earnings for freelancers in the industry falling 17.5% below the U.K. national average salary. Work intensification, where freelancers are expected to do more work for the same or reduced pay, or even for free, was exacerbated as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, as high numbers of freelancers exited the industry, leading to the hiring of inexperienced individuals at lower wages. Consequently, a skills shortage emerges among producers, stage managers and technical roles, resulting in imbalanced workloads, compromised workplace safety and fairness concerns.

UK broadcasting union Bectu has declared a state of “emergency” in the unscripted TV community due to an unprecedented lack of work.

Alison Brie rocks a cute black mini dress for her appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Monday night (April 4).

Freelance Whales, has died at the age of 36.His brother, Glee actor Darren Criss, yesterday (March 2) shared news of his passing, revealing that Chuck had taken his own life after years of “severe depression”.“I loved my brother so much. And I know he loved me.

In Tre’vell Anderson’s L.A. Times piece “There is room for everyone: 14 film critics on making media more inclusive,” he states, “Those who work for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, the Hollywood Reporter and Variety, among others, receive preferential treatment for talent interviews and screening access. And traditional publications tend to have traditional critics. The result is a community of discourse around film and art that is fairly homogeneous and ignores many members of the filmmaking and filmgoing communities across all demographics.”

John Cena has lined up a new action movie role!

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorCreatively, the online professional network designed for freelancers in creative fields, has teamed with fintech firm Orum for a venture that aims to speed up the payment process for freelance workers.Creatively Pay is designed to eliminate the wait times that can be as long as 45 days or more for freelancers to get paid for their services.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFrench actor Corinne Masiero’s politically charged strip-tease during the Cesar Awards last month was just one of many protests staged across France to support freelance workers in the film, TV and live event industries that are still crippled by the pandemic.Labor organization CGT Spectacle has been spearheading a nation-wide occupation of drama theaters since March 4, and momentum hasn’t died down in the last month, with nearly 100 venues still

review from writer Dennis Harvey, which was written at Sundance in 2020, had sparked online backlash and a rebuke from Mulligan herself, who said in a recent interview that the review was “basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough to pull off this kind of ruse.” It led Variety to amend the review with an editors note and apology.“Variety sincerely apologizes to Carey Mulligan and regrets the insensitive language and insinuation in our review of “Promising Young Woman” that minimized her daring

Jake Kanter International TV Editor Netflix has donated another £600,000 ($773,000) to a second COVID-19 Recovery Fund established by the UK’s Film And TV Charity, taking its total funding for the charity to £1.75M ($2.25M).The Film And TV Charity’s second fund is aimed at helping film, television, and cinema workers worst affected by the economic wreckage of coronavirus.

coronavirus pandemic.Organised in tandem with the #WeMakeEvents and #LetMusicLive campaigns, today’s event outside the Houses of Parliament was also backed by the Musicians’ Union.Music director David Hill conducted the 400 socially distanced freelance musicians in attendance through a short section of the ‘Mars’ movement from Gustav Holst’s The Planets, before all attendees then stood in silence for two minutes.The 20% of the Holst piece they played intended to represent the maximum 20% salary

Sept. 4 brought some rare good news for freelance writers in California in 2020.

Jake Kanter International TV EditorAmazon has donated £1.5M ($2M) to two emergency relief funds aimed at supporting workers in film, TV, and theatre through the coronavirus crisis. The pledges are the first in a $6M commitment to help stricken production communities across Europe recover from an unprecedented pause in work.Amazon will donate £1M to a new COVID-19 Response Fund established by the UK’s Film And TV Charity.

a flaw in the CARES Act, many with mixed income across staff employment and freelance gigs have been prevented from receiving state unemployment benefits based on the full scope of their earnings. Now, a new Congressional bill aims to change that.Introduced on Monday (July 20) by U.S.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorA group of leading U.K. theater designers have formed an online forum called #SceneChange, bringing designers together and providing resources on how to navigate the changes across the theater sector.#SceneChange will provide a platform for all theater set and costume designers — established and emerging, associates and assistants.

Jimi Davies, frontman of the long-running Annapolis rock band Jimmie's Chicken Shack, is one of millions of freelance musicians in the U.S. who has lost work due to the coronavirus pandemic. And like so many, his efforts to secure government relief funds established by the CARES Act has amounted to an exercise in futility. "I got so frustrated at

Chasing people for payments can be difficult at the best of times and sending follow-up emails is often uncomfortable, but severely late settlements or not getting paid at all is a growing issue within the freelance industry.

Make-up mogul, Huda Kattan has pledged US$100,000 on Instagram to help struggling freelance make-up artists. 

"HMU I want to work with you"

By Andreas Wiseman

As the coronavirus outbreak escalates in the U.K., union leaders and lawyers are calling for enhanced support for freelance film and TV workers, who are projected to fall at the sharpest edges of a crisis that could decimate the independent production sector if prolonged.

One day after reports that Vox Media is ending business ties with hundreds of freelance writers in the state in part due to Assembly Bill 5, an industry group is suing California on independent journalists' behalf before the law takes into effect.

Vox Media will be ending contracts with California freelance writers ahead of the state's implementation of a bill intended to protect workers from exploitation as independent contractors.