07/12/2023
I've had a lot of people asking how the WGA strike has been affecting the industry here in the PNW, so I thought I'd offer my humble OPINION on the matter.
In years past, we tend to have a slow trickle of low to medium budget films, throughout the year, but we often see a rush of film casting in April/May/June, for shooting in June-Sept. This has been the trend for quite a few years now, and note: I'm only speaking of Film and TV episodic work here. Commercial work is a totally separate deal, and has it's own annual schedule, and trends. To put numbers on film castings, I think we cast around 18 films in the PNW (SEA & PDX) in 2022, and nearly half cast between April - June. This is including projects that are budgeted and paying actors, not student or unpaid indie films. Most of those 18 films were SAG from Ultra-low, to SAG theatrical rate.
This year, things were on their normal-ish track, with 1-2 film castings per month as the winter months waned, but just as we prepared for the "rush" to start in May, the WGA went on strike, and abruptly, there were no more film castings since mid-May, and no new TV castings either. We're now moving toward what would be the end of "film casting peak season", and nothing significant has come in since May. My belief is that those projects that were close to going into production for summer shooting, are now stuck in pre-production until the strike ends.
The commercial side of the business feels completely unaffected though. We're seeing all the normal commercial business, from casinos to tech to medical, exactly as we would expect at this time of year. Maybe even an uptick from 2022. It's really only the bigger budget films that are abnormally quiet.
There are differing opinions on what will happen when the strike ends, and I believe it will depend on the season at that time. IMO, if the strike ends in late summer or early fall, I believe we'll have a rush of films hoping to shoot before the rains arrive in the PNW. If it's more towards fall or later, I believe that many projects will get pushed to 2024, and we'll see a strong and early film casting season next year.
Only time will tell...