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    Actors are Turning to Cameo Amid SAG-AFTRA Strike

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    Others are using the service, through which fans can pay for personalized videos, to engage with followers while not publicly promoting work.On July 24 Cheyenne Jackson, an actor, posted a photo on Instagram that showed him shirtless, with glistening abs, veiny arms and his lips parted.“This is me subtly letting you know I’m back on @cameo,” its caption read.Cameo is a service through which celebrities and others can be paid to make personalized videos commemorating birthdays, bachelorette parties, divorces and the like. Mr. Jackson, who has appeared in the “American Horror Story” TV shows and in “30 Rock,” said in a phone interview that he reactivated his account because of the continuing strike by SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union.Mr. Jackson, 48, charges $95 for a video message and cited bills — “I have two kids” — as one reason he is on Cameo. “There are only so much sources of income,” he said.“My husband cringed a little,” he added. “But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”Since Cameo debuted in 2016, some actors have used it when traditional work has dried up. In 2021, as the pandemic raged, the actor Andrew Rannells joined Cameo to raise money for the Entertainment Community Fund, a nonprofit formerly known as the Actors Fund. On a recent episode of “And Just Like That…,” the “Sex and the City” reboot, the character Che Diaz, played by Sara Ramirez, starts making Cameo videos after a TV pilot is canceled.According to data provided by Cameo, there was a 137 percent increase in the number of accounts reactivated or created on Cameo in July compared to June (the strike started on July 14). The number of orders for videos remained about the same for each month, but Cameo said orders usually drop in July because there aren’t events like graduations and holidays like Father’s Day.Some of the new and reactivated accounts were for people unaffected by the strike, but others were for union actors like Mr. Jackson and Alyssa Milano. Fran Drescher, the SAG-AFTRA president, also reactivated her account, according to Cameo, though it is not currently accepting bookings.The actress Alyssa Milano, who charges $250 for a video message on Cameo, said she was using the service as an income supplement while traditional work has dried up.via CameoThe actress Christa B. Allen said she reactivated her Cameo account as a way to engage with fans at a time when she is making fewer public appearances.via CameoMs. Milano, 50, who charges $250 for a video message, said in an email that Cameo “is a great way to supplement some income during this idle time.” Ms. Drescher’s representatives said she was unavailable to comment for this article.While the actors’ union is on strike, its members are forbidden from filming most projects and from promoting most projects at movie premieres, film festivals and events like Comic-Con. But making Cameo videos, for the most part, is allowed, said Sue-Anne Morrow, the national director of contract strategic initiatives and podcasts at SAG-AFTRA.“As long as there’s no promotion of struck work within the Cameo, there’s no problem,” Ms. Morrow said in an email.In May, around the time that movie and television writers’ unions went on strike, the actors’ union finalized a deal with Cameo that allows its members to have earnings from certain bookings applied toward their health insurance minimum earnings requirement, Ms. Morrow said. Those bookings must be made through Cameo 4 Business, where corporate customers like insurance companies and grocery store chains hire talent for promotional videos.Ms. Morrow said that the union pursued the agreement because Cameo is one of many ways actors can support themselves when they’re not acting.The average price of a Cameo 4 Business booking is $1,700, said Steven Galanis, a founder of Cameo and its chief executive. Non-business bookings — the types of videos Cameo is most known for — average $70. Cameo receives 25 percent of the fee for any booking, and the rest goes to the talent.Mr. Galanis compared the opportunity created by the strike for Cameo to the period of time in the early pandemic when, as he put it, “every other income sort of dried up” for actors and other entertainers. “I’m hoping that the strike ends tomorrow,” he said. “But if it doesn’t, we’re going to be here.”On July 18, days after the actors’ union went on strike, Cameo announced a round of layoffs, which happened a little more than a year after the company laid off 87 workers in May 2022. Mr. Galanis declined to comment on the number of people affected by the recent layoffs, or on the number of people now working at Cameo.Some actors who have started reusing the service since the strike said that making money was not the only reason that they returned to it. Christa B. Allen, who has appeared in the TV show “Revenge” and in the film “13 Going on 30,” said that Cameo offers an opportunity to engage with fans at a time when she is making fewer public appearances.“We’re nothing without our fans,” she said. Cameo, she added, lets actors “connect with the people that love them and have supported their career in a time when they’re not going to be making traditional media.”Ms. Allen, 31, who uses the stage name Christa Belle, reactivated her Cameo account during the strike after using it sporadically since 2017. She charges $75 per booking and said she has made about $1,000 to date.“Cameo is not something I think of as a moneymaker,” she said. More

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      in Movies

      How Much to See a Movie at AMC? It Will Soon Depend Where You Sit.

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      By the end of 2023, the movie theater chain will offer tickets at three different price tiers, with middle seats costing the most. You’ll pay less if you like the front row.Some middle seats at AMC movie theaters will be more expensive than others as part of the company’s new ticket-pricing strategy, announced this week.AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest cinema chain, said in a news release on Monday that this new pricing system, known as Sightline at AMC, would be in place at all of its United States theaters by the end of the year.The seats in the front row of the theater will be the least expensive and seats in the middle of the theater will be the most expensive, the company said. However, new prices will not affect showings before 4 p.m. or tickets sold at a special discount on Tuesdays, AMC said.AMC’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Eliot Hamlisch, said in the news release that the tiered system “more closely aligns” with the reserved seats and pricing models of other types of ticketed events, such as sporting events and concerts.Mr. Hamlisch said that the change would give people “more control over their experience.”Critics of the new system, including the actor Elijah Wood, have said it would give wealthy people an unfair advantage.“The movie theater is and always has been a sacred democratic space for all, and this new initiative by @AMCTheatres would essentially penalize people for lower income and reward for higher income,” Mr. Wood wrote on Twitter.Under the new system, the most common seats available, the Standard Sightline tickets, would be priced as traditional movie tickets, AMC said.If you’re willing to crane your neck to see the screen, you’ll be able to pay less to sit in the “Value Sightline” seats in the front row. Some accessible seating for people with disabilities will also be priced in the value tier. To access the value tier prices, people must register with the AMC loyalty program, which includes one free membership tier.The seats in the middle of the theater will become “Preferred Sightline” tickets. The extra cost of these tickets will be waived for members of AMC’s top-tier loyalty program, A-List.A map outlining seating options will be available when buying tickets online, through the company’s app and at the box office, the company said in its announcement.AMC did not specify what the price differences would be for each ticket or whether prices would be consistent across cities and films.In New York City, the price differences were about to take effect at some locations later this week. At AMC’s 34th Street location in Manhattan, tickets were listed under the new pricing system for Friday’s showings of films, including “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” and a 25th anniversary screening of “Titanic.”For the 6:45 p.m. showing of “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” the front row seats, a space for a person in a wheelchair and a seat for the companion of someone in a wheelchair were described as “Value Sightline” seats and colored blue on the seating map.A key for the map explained that the value tickets were $2 off and that the preferred seats were $1 extra. Those were the five middle seats in each of the four back rows of the theater with gold-colored icons. Discounts for children and older moviegoers remain in effect.The “Standard Sightline” tickets for this showing included the two to three seats on either side of the preferred seats, the second-row seats and the six other seats made available for people in wheelchairs and their companions.Movie theaters have been experimenting with new tactics to boost ticket sales in response to two decades of weakening attendance, shutdowns during the first years of the coronavirus pandemic and the widening availability of digital streaming of first-run movies.In September, Cineworld, the London-based company that operates Regal Cinemas in the United States, filed for bankruptcy.Cineworld is the second-largest theater chain in the world behind AMC, and the company’s chief executive, Mooky Greidinger, said in the bankruptcy filing that “the pandemic was an incredibly difficult time for our business.”AMC said that by the end of the year, its new pricing system would be in place at all of the company’s theaters in the United States. AMC has about 950 theaters and 10,500 screens worldwide. More

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      in Music

      New York Artists in Need Can Apply for $1,000 a Month

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      A $125 million program offering guaranteed income to 2,400 artists across New York State who can demonstrate financial need is now accepting applications.The offers promise to appeal to struggling artists. One would provide $1,000 a month for 18 months, no strings attached, to make it easier to spend time on creative work. The other is for a $65,000-a-year job with a community-based organization or a municipality.Artists who live in New York State and can demonstrate financial need are being invited to apply for either beginning Monday as part of a new $125 million initiative called Creatives Rebuild New York that is being supported by several major foundations.The new initiative — which will provide monthly stipends to 2,400 New York artists, and jobs to another 300 — is the latest in a series of efforts around the country to give guaranteed income to artists. Programs are already underway in San Francisco, St. Paul, Minn., and elsewhere. The idea gained support during the pandemic, when live performances ground to a halt, galleries were closed, art fairs were canceled, and many art and music lessons were paused, leaving artists to suffer some of the worst job losses in the nation.“There are guaranteed income programs that have been launching across the country, many of them pilots to understand if this work has been working,” Sarah Calderon, the executive director of the program said in an interview. “Creatives Rebuild New York has seen that data and really believes that it does work.”The intention, Calderon said, is not just to generate guaranteed income for artists, but to make sure that any broader guaranteed income programs that are being considered take into account the needs of artists and the importance and value of their work.The program is supported with $115 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, $5 million from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and $5 million from the Ford Foundation. Funds for the program are overseen by the Tides Center.Who can apply? The program’s definition of an artist is fairly broad, describing it as “someone who regularly engages in artistic or cultural practice” to express themselves, pass on traditional knowledge, offer cultural resources to their communities or work with communities toward social impacts. Disciplines that fall within its definition include crafts, dance, design, film, literary arts, media arts, music, oral tradition, social practice, theater, performance art, traditional arts, visual arts and interdisciplinary arts.Elizabeth Alexander, the president of the Mellon Foundation, said that the idea stemmed from her work on a state panel, the Reimagine New York Commission, which brought together people from a wide array of fields to consider how the state should rebuild from the pandemic and become more equitable.“As we continue to envision and work towards our post-pandemic reality,” she said in a statement, “it’s critical that we not overlook the artist workers whose labor is an essential part of our economy and whose continued work sustains us.”Emil J. Kang, who directs the Mellon Foundation’s program for arts and culture, noted that many artists have to take on multiple jobs to make ends meet. With these programs, he said, hopefully they could devote more time to their art.“We need to actually value the hours and the labor that artists have put into their work that extends beyond what we see on these stages and gallery walls,” Kang said in an interview. “We need to understand that there is labor that goes into all these things that ultimately the public sees.”The program, which will accept applications through March 25, will attempt to reach communities that are historically underserved by philanthropy. The application process will include accommodations for non-English speakers, people with disabilities and those without internet access.“This isn’t just about the pandemic,” said Calderon, who added that the goal was to find new, better ways to support artists.“Often funding is merit-based, often funding involves rather burdensome processes to get the funds,” she said. “And often there’s not enough to go around.” More