WGA On Strike
Kevin D.
As some of you may already know that WGA (Writers Guild of America) has gone on strike. I'm not going to link any articles because a quick search using the title of this post alone will bring up all you need.
This is the first time the guild has gone on strike since 1988 and that was over "a dispute over residuals from repeat airings and foreign/home video use of scripted shows and made-for-TV movies. This time [it's] over writers' share of revenues from DVD releases and from Internet, cell-phone network and other new-media uses of programs and films written by members."
One of the gains of the 1988 strike was that the WGA agreed to a $0.04 cut of video sales, tending to believe production companies when they said that the cost of making and marketing the tapes were of a huge cost and there was little profit to be made. The WGA has regretted the decision ever since and has vowed not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
It's hardly news that DVD sales are a huge boon to productions companies, many times pulling a box office failure out of the red and into the black. Sometimes even going so far as to rationalize sequels. Kevin Smith is just one example of this trend. His films tend to do weakly in the theater but remarkable well on DVD.
Internet-based markets make selling films and television programs even more profitable to networks and production companies as it removes manufacturing costs and the outlets that sell these items see very little profit while charging close to retail prices for the product.
It may not be hard to tell but I tend to side with the WGA on this issue. As an aspiring screenwriter (I've written two feature-length screenplays, two short film scripts, a spec script for Stargate: Atlantis, and I'm currently working on additional spec scripts for Smallville, Supernatural, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent) I try to keep an eye on how writers are treated and perceived in the industry and it's downright depressing. If something fails it's typically blamed on the script (or, at least, in addition to the script) and if something succeeds it's because of the vision of the director, or hard work of the crew, or the actors. Rarely is the script given consideration. Unless written by the director, producer, or an actor in the piece.
So, what does this strike mean for you common folk? Depends how long the strike lasts. Late night talk programs will be hit first. Leno, Letterman, O'Brian... they'll either go off the air or repeat segments from previous episodes. You should see the effects, well, today. Soaps will get hit next. Network and cable television programming may take a bit of time to show any signs that something is amiss. Production companies for television typically stockpile scripts in case of such occurrences. Still repeats may become more common.
We may see more reality-based programming getting aired to fill the void.
Any effects to film we may not see until next year or the year after given the long development cycle involved with them. Any films that are currently in production will continue however no new films will begin production until the strike is resolved.
The strike of 1988 cost the industry $500 million. That may not sound like too much (maybe the price of two summer blockbusters) but adjusted to 2007 dollars we're talking about almost $1 billion. Nothing to sneeze at. And some industry analysts say Hollywood never recovered from it.
Personally, I hope this is another thing that pushes the 'Big Media' toward rethinking their royalty and monetizing structure for the digital age.
However this almost always happens with translation work.
That is to say, if a writer is writing a book then his value is recognized because he's the author, the frontman for the product. His value is perceived immediately by both the publisher and the audience, as he is fundamental to the product produced.
When a person produces a work, but is not seen as the frontman for the work (for instance a writer produces a screenplay, but the director directs it and the actors act the roles that the author wrote) then the writer is not seen by the general public as the frontman, indeed he may never be either known or recognized by anyone other than those who have a personal interest in who he is. Technical specialists. (Technical specialists by the by, although necessary to every enterprise, make no money, cause nobody knows or gives a shit who they are. Except other technical specialists.) That is, everytime works goes through a process of dilution, and/or that process of dilution from genesis to finished product includes shifting the public appearance, aspect, or "face" from work-originator to work representative (director, actor, etc.), then as a psychological matter the public redirects credit from originator to public representative. (Speechwriting for instance, is no different. It is a translatable work, there need be no direct connection between writer and the man or woman who delivers the lines.)
Therefore although it is perfectly just that the writer profits at least as much, if not far more so than the actors, since the actor translates the words and thereby becomes the public face of the script, the actor becomes the valued commodity, and not the source. If the writer wants to profit more significantly, then they have to take a direct and public concern in representing their work to the public, so that the public "face" becomes associated with the writer, such as with the case of Rowling. Rowling is as recognized, if not far more so, than the actors in the Harry Potter movies.
Of course many writers eschew such publicity, and many with good reason, and I fully understand this, as this is my method of operating as well. But truth be told, if writers want to profit more from their work then there is a simple and easy solution, publicity. They should get representatives and agents not just to represent their work, but to represent their public persona (which may indeed be a completely artificial and fake persona, as is the case with many actors) as well. PR men to front them, and of course they should front themselves. This goes against the natural background observational (indeed to be a good writer one must be a good undercover operative, observing, without disturbing, the events and people you record) character of the truly ingenious writer. Nevertheless it is part of the price you pay for being well recognized in a free and very public market, and it is the well recognized who are lucratively rewarded in this world, not the modest, humble, and unknown. So if writers want to be profitable all they really need to do is to become a character, a "personality," as happens with so many of the people in peripheral orbit around their work. Actors never fear being controversial or a character, they know it makes them profitable (up to a degree, when they sour their reputation), directors the same. Publishers and producers the same as well.
My personal advice: develop a false "Persona" and character for yourself, in the same way you'd write a fictional character, and then exploit and act out that character in public for maximum Public Relations benefit. Think of it as a cover identity, whenever you are working in public or publicly representing your work, then you are in Cover Identikit and you can, and should, fully exploit every opportunity to become famous, well known, and profitable. At all other times, you're just yourself. But I can warn you about fame. It is extremely profitable, and extremely limiting. So do not mix your public persona and your real life or it will soon limit what you are able to do, that is if you become too easily recognized then you will not be free to operate undercover in many environments and therefore you will not be able to undertake the kinds of observations fundamental to being a great writer, who is by nature also a great detective and undercover operative. You just have to find a balance between maintaining the privacy necessary for your success, and the publicity necessary for real profit.
This does not mean that I think one should develop an unconscionable and slimy persona merely to generate publicity, profit, and controversy. But it does mean that you should have a public persona ready to act in your own best and most profitable interests and then fully exploit that character in real life in the same way one of your fictional characters would exploit their talents, and maybe even their own pseudo identities to obtain whatever objective they are after. Role play your success, and not just your supposedly "brilliant ideas" or your brilliant ideas will become the property of another, more easily recognized public agent, and your brilliant ideas will profit you little.
In other words if you can create a brilliant and successful character for the screen, then you should be able to do the same for yourself in the real world. It takes time and effort, but it is much more profitable than bitching about the injustices of the world. You will never correct the injustices of the world, you can fix a few, but you won't fix the world, or the industry, inequities will always exist. Better to exploit those inequities for your own advantage, and then secretly use your profits for good, than merely bark at the moon for ebbing too dark to hunt under. The moon doesn't give a damn about you, she has other business. Cycles of her own. But if it is too dark for you to hunt as you normally would with your eyes, then it's dark enough for you to hunt well with your nose. And remember, if it is dark for you, then it is also the kind of dark that probably puts your opponent at the disadvantage as well.
So, don't just strike when the iron is hot, strike to make it hot. Then others will see the sparks of your fire, and come to you. And when that happens, be waiting...
I got in too late. Sorry, I meant I am with both Martin and Kev. Though I got no argument generally speaking with what Dan or Sandi said either.
One of the less discussed issues the WGA objects to in the studios' negotiating proposals is the request to *remove* the rule requiring that the writers be mentioned in studio promotional material.
No one should ever allow themselves to be dis-credited from any work they produce.
If they do it, they deserve credit.
Ryan
How would you know? Do you work in the industry? Just because a particular writer's name is slapped on a product doesn't mean they had anything to do with what you see.
I'm reading a book on screenwriting right now and the author tells a story about a episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air he wrote and sold freelance. When it came on he was shocked to see not a single line of dialogue he'd written was aired. His name was credited as the writer, but not a word he wrote was ever heard by the public.
Is this man one of those untalented writers you're talking about?
Please, do yourself a favor before you start hurling spears and learn about how films and television programs are made. In film the writer rarely, if ever, has say what's to be done with his work after he's sold it. Even if his name is still on it.
Television is considered the "writer's medium" because the producers are typically writers themselves but that doesn't protect you all the time either (see the above Fresh Prince story). And those writer/producers still must answer to the guys holding the purse strings in the network.
Want a quick story about how stupid network execs can be? A writer submitted his script for an episode of the show he was working on to the network. A network exec calls the writer in and says he love the script but has a problem with a something. The episode's antagonist remarks, "I never knew I had my own personal Ahab." The exec wanted to know who this Ahab bloke was because he never came up earlier in the script. The writer, to his amazement, told the exec it was a reference to the classic novel Moby Dick. "Never heard of it," the exec retorted, "And if I never heard of it I can guarantee you no one else has either. Change it."
Just because the writing on television is bad, don't be quick to blame the writer. I'm not saying every writer is perfect but there are many spoons involved in stirring the pot that creates the television and film you so detest.
I never said that. If you're going to address something i say it would serve you well to actually read what I write. here, I'll help you:
Emphasis mine.
I said there are many people involved in making television and movies and to blame writers alone, when they have the least amount of power to ensure the integrity of their words (in film especially) is ignorant.
You're not speaking out of ignorance are you, Dave?
J. Michael Straczynski tells would-be screenwriters to write what it is they want to say in what they sell. After the work is sold it's out of their hands. If/when the work is produced it's very possible their baby will look nothing like what they spend blood, sweat, and tears writing. It sucks but that's the reality of the business.
You're not a writer, I can tell. If you were you'd never have written what you just did.
A writer must write. It's what we do. We go insane if we can't. Just because the system in which we must try to make a living is all kinds of screwed up is no fault of our own. We simply want to tell stories and maybe, just maybe, squeeze out a living doing so.
Say.
Can I get one of those jobs where I get paid for not making anything that anyone ever sees? They need some scabs to break up the strike, right?
Now if you can stand by and watch your hard-crafted art get butchered and broiled, more power to you. Go ahead and scab. But true writers are cursed: they care what happens to their stories.
And there's another part of the curse, as I mentioned up above: when it's believed that "anyone can do it", no one values your work. Dan writes of how writing, production, and acting are all parts of a good show. Yeah, but one of those parts gets paid astronomically less than the other two.
Ryan
Or maybe, since so many other hands grab the spoon and stir, lousy scab work looks just like quality Kevin work by the time they're done.
Or maybe they'll go towards more "reality" shows and fewer writers.
...
Please, do yourself a favor before you start hurling spears and learn about how films and television programs are made. In film the writer rarely, if ever, has say what's to be done with his work after he's sold it. Even if his name is still on it.
Kevin,
It makes no difference what-so-ever to me how TV programs or films are made. There is no reason for me to know what goes on behind the scenes, but only whether or not I enjoy their work. Nor is it a slam if their work isn't to my taste in learning or entertainment.
At least with TV, if I am going to watch something it really has to be either interesting or entertaining. Except for the News, Science channel and a couple others, I see little on TV is interesting enough to hold my attention past 5 minutes.
As far as film and my comments were basically towards television anyway. I wouldn't know about films because I rarely watch one, and never in a theater.
It isn't personal, it is just that I don't see material that interests, or entertains me.
To date, there's no Spielberg film on Neanderthals. The writer's name doesn't appear on any film credits. But it sure made a nice fillip to his book royalties.
I'd be very happy if we could retire the word "scab". It's an ugly word for a simple business reality: The union thinks it's in their best interests strike. So the studios can either meet their demands or route around the damage, and hiring non-union labor is a perfectly acceptable alternative. If freelance writers or union members choose to cross that line and fill that void, then more power to them. Given sheer numbers it's inevitable there's a lot more talent outside of the union than inside.
Just for the sake of argument, why should screenwriters expect to get residuals on future sales, anyway? There are very few other jobs where one can expect to make fresh money from work finished years ago. I mean, if someone wants to give them residuals I have no moral objection, but I'm not sure why I should be sympathetic to their demands when work-for-hire is the norm for most everyone else. Even in professions that once depended on resales and royalties for an income stream, like professional photography.
So essentially screenwriters are asking for a pay increase in a form that's influenced by performance and sensitive to the high-risk nature of the business.
Hey, hey, hey. I paid good money for that bombast and I'm gonna see it used!
Sandi,
Then say just that and leave it. That's not what you said though. You said:
You advocated a position that would keep writers underpaid and taken advantage of and then judged their writing skills as deficient when you, by your own admission, know nothing about the process involved in getting anything from script to screen.
It's that I take issue with. You can dislike what you see on television, that's fine, but you are in no position to sit in judgement of a television writer's skill with their craft when you've not taken the time to understand what goes into making television.
I have no problem with you or anyone else judging a show poorly. But I will not stand you judging the hard work of many underpaid individuals whose true talent you've probalby never actually seen due to forces outside their control.
Something, by the way, this strike is trying to remedy in some small way.
And they're only asking for an additional $0.04. They're asking for $0.08 on every DVD sale after sales of those DVDs reach $1 million.
The studio is trying to remove writer from receiving any residuals at all.
And let's put this into perspective for a moment:
Residuals is what many writers live off of. Few sell regularly and often go a year or more between sales. Those residuals keep them from having to get other employment in order to keep food on the table and bills paid.
There's this idea that if you work in Hollywood you must make gobs of money. It simply isn't true. Most writers pull in $30-$50K a year. No big checks to be found here.
So, those residuals make it possible for writers to scrape by until they sell something else. They need every cent they can get.
That's what I meant. It doesn't matter as a measure of success how brilliant the writer (of a film or telescript) is, it matters what the public sees and likes, as ultimately they are the one's purchasing the product through the medium of the delivery network, distributors, producers, film makers, channels, stations, advertisers, etc.
In other words telescript and film writers aren't writing for art's sake or to produce important literature, they are writing for a commercial product (not that art and literature can't be very commercial, it's just that the motivations differ) with an end objective. Commercial success. No commercial success, no impact. Literature can be very successful as literature and not really discovered as such for decades or centuries later.
Telescripts and films don't work that way or wait that long. With scripts it's Bread and Circuses, entertainment of the masses, it is the Speculative Market of Writing. It sells now and that makes good, but most buyers want the product now for their purposes, they are not interested in future artistic development or in developing a series or film fifty years from now. Generally speaking art that doesn't pay a bill or return a buck with interest is just so much crap that would be better flushed out in the book market (or maybe not). And a lot of writers don't understand that and they think it horrible and unfair. And maybe it is, but it don't matter at all to people buying your stuff. You give them what they want. If you wanna write Shakespeare then don't delude yourself that film or TV is where you oughtta be going. Most of the time if you're making art that's not your destination. And the audience doesn't care either. Think about how many programs you see, if you view a lot of TV, or how many films you see compared to all of those released that you could really consider art. Film is an art medium about 2 to 3% of the time, TV, far less. Writers should understand that. And they should also understand that art sells very well over a long period of time, but it rarely buys the groceries any given week. You've got a lifetime to work your art, so do that, but if you wanna eat today then sell and learn to whom and what they want and why that is and how the system you're fishing actually works. And I'll give ya hint, it doesn't give a good tinker's damn about either fairness, or talent.
That's right, and that is as it should be in my opinion. Most everyone in a fee market should be either penalized for poor performance (less pay, slower advancement, fired, etc.) or rewarded for good performance (higher pay or stake, faster advancement or better opportunities, etc.). If a writer thinks he has a really good product which will elicit a lot of interest then he is foolish to take a one time cut up front if he really thinks he can sell. By all means writers should seek to retain as big a stake of interest in their product as they can, and take that risk and shoot for success, rather than taking up-front fees alone for piece work. Because if you can't sell what you're pushing then either you're doing it wrong and need to adapt your methods and approach, or you're writing crap that no-one cares about anyway, and so you oughtta be in a different line of work. But writer's for the mass market shouldn't ever delude themselves into thinking they will own what they scribble. They won't. They'll own a share, big or small, depending on how smart they are and how well they can negotiate.
Because they can and it's a free market. If they can negotiate it, then they can get it. Just like athletes should not be paid the ridiculous sums they are paid, their work is simply not that important to society. But they are paid that, and so, they are.
Athletes don't deserve to be paid like that, cops and soldiers and others should be, but they are, and so they are. If people want to change the world to make it more equitable and fair, then like you I've certainly no objection, but people get what they can get because they are willing to go after it, not just wait for it. And any man who waits for the world to be fair and just is in for a long, long night. And a long, cold, dark, probably penniless life to boot. If a man will go after something, then he will, if not, he won't, but that's his gain or loss depending upon what he will try for.
If you wanna change the world, by all means, be my guest and you have my best wishes and even my enthusiasm, but if in the bargain you don't exploit the world for the way it really is, rather than just the way someone thinks it oughtta be, then good luck with that. The world simply doesn't care of your opinion of what is just, or mine for that matter, it cares what works, and is willing to pay someone who will understand and exploit that system and give the world what it wants, and will not pay those who never get it, or simply won't try.
But whether you or I think something is fair or not is not gonna cause a Marine to get paid like a pro football player. That's just the way it is. And let's face it, entertainment writers, and that's what film and TV writers are for the most part, Maniakes has that dead to rights, simply not as practically valuable to society as a nurse, or teacher, or some such, but our society is "entertainment obsessed" and so it will pay through the nose to be entertained, distracted, and diverted - to kill time and to masturbate the imagination. So if writers are smart, they'll exploit that. In other words it doesn't matter the real value, it matters what people will pay, and modern people will pay damn near anything these days to avoid the long silences between one entertainment and the next. That's where the money circulates. Right or wrong. Or put another way, if you want water you go to a lake, you don't go to the desert.
Just like if you want to produce real art don't go into television. You're pouring your water down the Black Hole of Calcutta. Now if you wanna get paid for your writing, and sometimes well, then film and TV can be decent gigs. But you don't own what you write, and may never in the most important sense - like you do with your books (it's like inventing for the market versus inventing for a corporation, if you want the security and lab resources of the corp. then invent for them, you'll get paid and a plaque on the wall, but you won't own what you produce, you've already signed that away, if you want to negotiate a higher stake, good, but you'll never own your invention outright, but even with books you own only your words, not the physical product - with scripts you don't even own that), and so you're doing it for the money, not to become Dante. Nothing wrong with that and get all you can, but if it seems unjust the way it works, tough break. TV doesn't make Dantes, it makes sitcoms and Survivors. As a writer you just gotta eat that and be satisfied with it, or go elsewhere.
I'm not saying a writer can't be both an artist and a commercial success, what I'm saying is realize what you're getting into and how the system operates, and if you can live with that then exploit it fully, to the absolute most profitable maximum, and if you can't live with it, then go elsewhere. But it's not gonna change in nature, for you, me, or most anybody else til the society that feeds it changes. And good luck with that happening.
It's that I take issue with. You can dislike what you see on television, that's fine, but you are in no position to sit in judgement of a television writer's skill with their craft when you've not taken the time to understand what goes into making television.
I have no problem with you or anyone else judging a show poorly. But I will not stand you judging the hard work of many underpaid individuals whose true talent you've probalby never actually seen due to forces outside their control.
Kevin,
I don't have to know how to build an Edsel to comment or judge them on their quality if most Edsels run poorly. It may be management and not the workers (writers) but I don't care who is at fault. If the poor shows leave the air, hopefully they will be replaced with someting with a little more entertainment value.
So yes, don't hurry back, but that isn't personal against the writers, only their end product that gets on TV. If the producer shitcans their good work I can understand your point, but that doesn't help the viewer get more satisfaction from the lack of entertainment in the scripts that get used.
Don't get me wrong JeffG, I agree that it's the free market at work. I don't want to control anyone's salary or stop any two parties from making whatever payment arrangements they prefer. Which, of course, is why I think freelancers have just as much right to sell their services as any union member does.
I don't think that residuals arrangement will last, is all. Studios will eventually get tired of losing massive amounts of money because the writers pitch a fit over something.
I'm glad Kevin, Jeff, and others are defending the writers because the rest of you sound like uneducated asses right now.
Good example:
Massive amounts of money? Baloney. The studios are NOTORIOUS for using accounting tricks to make even the most popular shows look like money pits. Fox released financial info last year in which they said the Simpsons is STILL losing money. It's all smoke and mirrors, and this is why writers rely on residuals and not percentages of profit or anything like that.
Further, the studios make enormous amounts of money off of advertising, syndication, DVD sales, etc. They are not losing "massive" amounts of money to give a couple thousand to the small number of writers (perhaps 2 or 3) who made that possible.
The studios are attempting to shut the writers out of the profit. They want to pay us shit and not benefit when our work is good enough to play again and again and again.
Yet all you guys can do is snicker. Thanks.
I'm not in the WGA yet, but I truly appreciate what these guys are doing. They're not fighting for themselves, they're fighting for Kevin and I -- the next generation of writers who's going to live in a completely different "reality" where TV is downloaded as much as it is broadcasted.
Time for the studios to admit to that so we can get our fair share of profits just like we would in any company.
Assuming you guys mean me, I'm not Jeff, but my best buddy is, so I'm not complaining.
He's a stand up fella.
There's reality in Hollywood?
You coulda fooled me. But I'm willing to ruminate on it and see if something snuck by me when I wasn't looking.
Like getting paid? I understand your point, and am not arguing just to argue. And eventually something better will come along than residuals, when somebody figures out how to do it. And I'm the last person to say that writing, and I am one (that is, it is one of the things I do for money, not the only, but one thing I do), is like curing cancer. No art is that big a deal in the big scheme of things, if all you ever do is art. It's just not that important an occupation in real life. But then again neither is being a studio executive or a producer, or a business man in the entertainment industry, and they get paid a lot more than most writers. Being a studio exec or producer is hardly Brain Salad Surgery. Or going to Mars, or developing the next breed of hydrogen powered automobile. Or would even be very taxing on the "I'm just thirteen credits short of my technical degree from my local Junior College" crowd. I've never met a studio exec who is exactly scintillating or stimulating conversation (though I guess the odds say there is one somewhere) or prepared to discuss much of anything other than the latest demographics. So it's all equally entertainment as far as I'm concerned, meaning it's all equally unimportant, other than who turns the most buck for the outfit. And because of that, pound for pound, and firing-on-all-cylinders brain cell to brain cell to make, instead of lose money for the organization, in general, the writers have at least just as good an argument as the execs about actually getting paid for their work. That is to say, I'll bet if you simultaneously fired most execs you could replace them overnight and probably accidentally end up making a bigger profit overnight by the experiment, whereas if you fired most of the writers all at once, it'd take at least a week or two to get up running again. But that's just my take.
I sure would like to see it tried sometime though. Just for fun. I really would.
and watching reports on TV.
As the song says,
“That’s en-ter-taaain-ment!”
J. Michael Straczynski writes:
It's messed up. In fact, if anyone actually wants to get educated about what the WGA is fighting for and what writers deal with, you'd be well served to follow the above link and do some reading.
Because I kinda get the impression that the gaming industry is still increasingly eating Film&Television's lunch.
Anybody have any idea, or have any contacts who could expound sensibly and knowledgeably on the subject?
While there may be more and more films and such based upon gaming properties the WGA only represents those that pen the screen adaptations. That's as far as the "lunch eating" goes.
The WGA strike will have no impact upon games or the gaming industry.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.