Whether it’s a big-budget Hollywood Blockbuster; a low-budget Indie Film; your favorite long-running Network Television Series; a popular Cable TV Series or a brand new Web Series, make no mistake, without professional Union Background Artists (Working Actors who are dues-paying members of the AFL-CIO Affiliated Union known as the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists “SAG-AFTRA”) - many of whom have extensive experience and training for stage & screen - the audience would see nothing but an empty museum; an empty train car; an empty Yankee Stadium; an empty hospital hallway or an empty Grand Central Station in these popular television shows and movies. 

So, unless producers plan to abandon Union Background Artists all together - and, thereby, bust the Union, as Background Artists are the Majority Membership of SAG-AFTRA - or if WGA Union Writers decide to undercut Union Background Artists, by changing the narrative and only writing scenes that are set mostly indoors and require no actors other than the Principals, producers can not make the donuts without us.

And while Background Artists are just that - the blur that fills the space in the background of a scene - the value we add to any production is incalculable. In other words, we are the secret sauce; a bit of the magic that helps the stars to shine and the story to be told. 

Just imagine the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair with an empty museum. Or think about what it would have looked like had Emily Blunt been riding an empty train in and out of Manhattan in the film version of Girl on a Train.

Or try and picture what the long-running procedural drama Law & Order (any iteration) would look like if the courtroom scenes were empty, but for the Principals, with no jury and no one sitting in the courtroom gallery.

The fact is that film & television productions could not be made with any sort of verisimilitude without the hard work and dedication of talented Background Artists.

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And yet, despite the fact that Union Background Artists constitute the Majority Membership of the Screen Actors Guild, we are sorely under-represented in Contract Negotiations affecting our health, safety and livelihood, and as Background Artists are also disproportionately underrepresented on our own Union’s National Board, and as SAG-AFTRA failed to keep its promise to advocate for a Raise for Background Artists in the 2017 SAG-AFTRA Contract Negotiations, and as SAG-AFTRA has given away a substantial number of our Union jobs to Non-Union Actors, and as our SAG-AFTRA has repeatedly ignored or made worse Background Artists’ serious grievances regarding unsafe and unhealthy working conditions for Background Artists on sets all across our nation, and as the Hourly Wage for Union Background Artists is at least $14 below the average hourly rate in film & television industry in NYC (where most U.S. production work has been done in recent years), and as Background Artists have not received an actual raise for many years (other than the historic glacially paced incremental cost of living increase which does not even constitute an actual cost of living increase in NYC and LA where most production work is done), the Background Artists Coalition advocates for fair pay, proportional representation and safe working conditions for all Union Background Artists. Please also visit our Facebook Page @ Background Artists Coalition. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for your kind support!