Expert: Rusty Meyers - 1/6/2008

Question
I work for a non-profit organization in Chicago that is interested in hiring an actor to narrate one of their promotional videos. (several spots running a variety of 30 seconds-10 minutes) This actor is actually a good friend of our president here and this actor (a somewhat well known celebrity) is willing to do the job for free.

However this actor is also a card carrying member of SAG and from what little I know, either SAG members cannot work for free or if they do, the union needs to be informed of this and certain paperwork needs to be completed.  Of course my organization knows very little about how SAG works since they specialize in a different industry altogether, but they are still keen on utilizing their good friend for their cause.

What are some of the steps we should take in order to use our SAG member friend without his violating union rules?  I appreciate your help.

Answer
Well the easiest way would be to call SAG and ask them.

There are a lot of options for you and very few for him.

SAG offers a variety of relatively inexpensive contracts, some things they don't have jurisdiction over at all and can be done without compensation.

His options are to do it anyway and if it's an in-house thing, just hope that nobody turns him in.

Which I don't suggest, or going what is called Financial Core (with SAG) which is becoming quite common for a lot of actors.

I would just make a call to SAG anonymously and ask them.