Local Members Lead the Way

Member Laurie Hegge checks in guests at the March rollout and outreach event.

Twin Cities Local members hosted a packed rollout event for producers, ad agency creatives and other industry decision-makers on March 9 in downtown Minneapolis, where they introduced the local’s new commercials and Corporate/Educational and Non-Broadcast (Co/Ed) online rates calculator and informed attendees of the new Twin Cities Co/Ed contract waiver.

The calculator website is a “game-changer,” according to Calculator Committee Chair Sue Scott, because it allows anyone from members to producers to casting directors to easily calculate quick “ballpark” union talent costs for themselves and links them directly to union staff for follow up. Twin Cities Co/Ed Waiver Committee Chair Peter Moore explained the Co/Ed Contract local waiver to the crowd, emphasizing that the waiver was developed to be specifically responsive to Twin Cities corporate/educational and non-broadcast producers’ needs.

In addition to some tasty snacks and beverages, attendees at the event enjoyed one-on-one calculator demos by members at laptop stations in the room, using real project examples and including live email queries to SAG-AFTRA staff. 

Since the March event, members have been spreading the word about this cool new tool for calculating rates — and having fun doing it — via informal “donut demos” and small casual meetups to strengthen ties with the industry locally. Local members are seeing success with the new Co/Ed waiver, as more than two dozen projects and queries have followed the rollout, resulting in a number of Co/Ed on-camera and voiceover jobs that have been booked (and more are pending), including corporate projects for local corporate employers such as Deluxe, Cargill, 3M and General Mills, and educational projects for the Mayo Clinic, University of Minnesota, and Minnesota Historical Society. 

Kudos to the Calculator Committee and Co/Ed Waiver activists and organizers, including Sue Scott, Jim Miller, Cathy Fuller, Laurie Hegge, Tammara Melloy, Shelli Place, Shirley Venard, Peter Moore and Elena Giannetti. Want to get involved and learn more about flipping jobs using the calculator and the local Co/Ed waiver? Contact Sue and her committee by sending an email to twincities@sagaftra.org.

This item was originally featured in the September 2015 local newsletter.