OK, so you finally became a full-fledged card carrying member of the world famous SAG-AFTRA
You put in the work, you got all the wavers, you paid the membership fee and now you're in!
Now you're a professional. Now people have to take you seriously. Better jobs should be coming your way any day now.
But what if they don't? What if you're now missing out on very lucrative work because it's non-union?
Sure you're in the guild. But what does that really do for you? Does SAG help you get union work? Does being a member open doors for you or help you network with the right people who were previously unknown to you?
Now that you're a member and global rule 1 is keeping you from making as much money as you were before, keeping you from working at the job you love, do you go fi-core so that you can start working again?
Yes or no?
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SAG membership is no guarantee of work. Skill, training, who you know and sometime "right place right time", gets you work.
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This has been a question of mine for some time. I'm not with the union but I've gained a reputation overseas. Now, I understand that most of the work I do overseas will not be recognized by SAG and that's fine. I came here to gain experience, make mistakes, etc.
Nonetheless, if things keep going the way they do. Fi-Core is an option for me because films overseas don't meet the SAG requirements. Unless it's a co-productions of some kind and even then it can be questionable. And at the end of the day SAG doesn't pay my bills.
I understand that some union actors don't like it when actors go Fi-Core. I've heard of bullying within the union, directors don't like it Fi-Core actors...blah, blah, blah.
At the end of the day I say do what you have to do to provide for you and your own. But take my words with a grain of salt. I'm coming from an expat actors perspective. I don't know the American struggle, not yet.
When I get to America, you never know, bull#$%^ might walk.