MOVIES - May 12, 1987

Talks begin Thursday between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Directors Guild of America. The producers, representing the major studios and networks, want to stop making residual payments to directors for videocassette sales and theatrical movies shown on pay television. Directors earned $9.9 million from those payments last year. Instead of cutting or eliminating residuals, the directors are seeking to double their videocassette residuals, and to gain a cost-of-living raise for their basic fees and a 4% increase in pension contributions. Though the guild has never staged a strike in its 51-year history, it insists it will not be the first union in Hollywood to surrender videocassette residuals.