SAG-AFTRA Podcast: "Navigating and Negotiating Intimacy"

Intimacy coordinators play a vital role when it comes to the filming of intimate acts on screen. But as the call for intimacy coordinators grows, so do questions about how their presence can affect the work of other professionals working on set, and how audiences ultimately see intimacy depicted on-screen.

The union’s collaboration with intimacy coordinators was first announced in July and this episode more deeply explores the middle ground intimacy coordinators inhabit while advocating for performers’ safety and ensuring a production’s creative needs are met. Joining hosts President Gabrielle Carteris and National Executive Director David White in this discussion is Amanda Blumenthal, founder of the Intimacy Professionals Association, and Alicia Rodis, a founding partner of Intimacy Directors International. Blumenthal and Rodis discuss their work during the pre-production, on set and post-production phases of filming, their involvement with coordinating different types of intimacy and how their presence helps to address long-standing issues within both the film and television industries.

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The views expressed by the guests are their own and not that of SAG-AFTRA. Any mention of products or services does not imply SAG-AFTRA’s endorsement.