Life and Death Concerns

I went to an American Red Cross CPR and first aid class today and as I was watching the demonstration videos, a couple of very important questions occured to me, namely, who are these people and how much did they get paid? Some of the performers may well have been ARC employees, while others almost had to be professional actors. Some of the vignettes were simple demonstrations that were done very straight and without emotion and some of them were staged to simulate real-life situations. Of the latter, some were performed a little lethargically, but that may well have been a directorial choice to keep theatrics to a minimum so as not to interfere with the instructional purpose of the videos. Still, others were very effective and even occasionally moving. I thought the heat exhaustion farm workers and hypothermia fishermen were particularly good. So, it had me wondering if the Red Cross had some sort of SAG waiver like the film schools that allows them to use a mixture of union and non-union actors, and if so, what if anything they pay them. Or if they produce some of the videos in-house as a non-signatory and contract out the rest to a company that has signed a SAG agreement. These are the things I think about now. (Lest anyone think that's all I thought about today, I got 100 percent on my written exam and am now certified in first aid and CPR).