I have gotten a bunch of e-mails asking me to explain the current writers strike. Why are the writers picketing in front of the movie studios? Aren’t they paid enough? What is this whole thing all about. The good folks at UnitedHollywood have put together a video which explains the major points of debate between the WGA and the movie/television studios. I think you will quickly understand why this is happening.
Wikipedia also has a great round-up of what’s going on including a list of the teleivison shows which will be impacted (and how many episodes they have left in the pipeline).
Office showrunner Greg Daniels and actor/writer Paul Lieberstein talk about what happened when Steve Carell walked off The Office, and the show is forced to shut down production.
Damon Lindelof and Marc Cherry on the picket lines in a video clip titled “Lost & Desperate”, how clever. Lindelof makes a great point at the end of the clip about how the future of television is an on demand internet box.
Photo via: Flickr
November 7th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Thanks for posting that Peter.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Over at The Hot Blog (which is firmly behind the writers) they commented on that very first video in a highly negative manner:
http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2007/11/i_dont_respond.html
They say that although yes, writers should get more, it TOTALLY exaggerates the situation because the studios don’t make even close to a full $19 per sale.
Vic
November 7th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Ill go ahead and post an excerpt from a great article about the strike;
The nation and indeed the entire world were recently saddened after the announcement that the Writer’s Guild of America had gone on strike. It is imperative to our existence that the writer’s strike is resolved quickly, because unlike other workers, we actually NEED writers. If farmers went on strike, we could just grow our own Twinkies and Hot Pockets. And if doctors went on strike, I’m sure my Uncle Larry could do his own chemo. But now that writers have decided to strike, who among us can write our own episode of Ugly Betty?
Writers are important because the masses demand that our entertainment be creative and thought-provoking. Since writers have stopped writing, surely we won’t resort to watching a group of skanks whore themselves out in an effort to hook up with a celebrity who peaked in the mid-80’s. And there’s no way we’ll stoop so low as to watch a group of materialistic 20-somethings have petty arguments with each other in a house. That’s why we need writers. Because we won’t watch literally ANYTHING on TV.
Heaven forbid that we might have to subject ourselves to watching any of the thousands of old movies and TV shows that are readily available on DVD. I haven’t watched anything made before the 90’s and I intend to keep it that way. Let’s be honest, all entertainment made before then was just filling time until modern Hollywood perfected it. People in the past were really stupid. Thankfully we’re in the age of Norbit and Desperate Housewives. If I’d been raised on Sergio Leone movies and The Twilight Zone, I wouldn’t be able to make thinking the way smart poeple do.
Not only is it important to us, the common idiot, that writers keep writing, but to the writers themselves. I shudder to think of a world in which writers would have to do actual work. Rehashed ideas and lame jokes are the only things they have to share with the world. They’d contribute something worthwhile if they could, but they don’t know how. Imagine a scenario where Michael Bay had to construct a building. He’d just repeatedly blow it up or make it say something stupid. That’s why it’s our job to buy and watch their crap, to make them feel like they mean something. Consider it charity on your part.
If the situation were reversed, they would totally support you. If you were striking for better benefits at your turkey-milking jobs (or whatever the hell non-writers do), you can bet your ass that Paul Haggis and the writing staff from Two and a Half Men would stand alongside you in the picket line. That’s why they must continue to receive huge sums of money and wonderful perks to do what every tech-savvy teen in the country does for free on MySpace and YouTube.
Of course, the bigger issue here is not writing, but the concept of the strike itself. People should strike for any and all things whenever they see fit. It doesn’t matter if they get everything they were told they would get when they signed on. If the threat of a work stoppage can get you more stuff, you should do it. Don’t like wearing clothes to work? Strike for a nudity option. Insulted by the fact that your boss has green eyes? Strike and force him to wear contacts.
Treat the corporation generous enough to employ you the way you treat everything else in life. Don’t adjust to fit into the environment which you are in. Make the environment adjust to you. That has worked out great for the planet’s ecosystem, and it will work great at your job. So get to striking. You haven’t earned it, and you don’t deserve it, but you can damn sure get it.
(And, yes, I get the irony here. And, yes, go fuck yourself.)
November 7th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
I agree with the strike, but just realize that Damon Lindelof makes about $1.5 million each year writing and producing for Lost.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Jamie, Damon Lindelof might make $1.5 million per year, but the majority of writers do not. The top people in any field will have huge paychecks, that is a given. The fact that at any given time almost 50% of writers guild members are unemployed says a lot.
Vic, I usually agree with Poland, but the fact that a studio doesn’t make $19 off a DVD further solidifies the point. If you watch the video they try to show how little they currently make off a DVD sale IF the movie sold for $19. The actual percentage they get is much less. That is the great thing about percentages, it always reflects the grand total. The fact of the matter is that the numbers shown in the video are correct. Sure, the studio doesn’t make the 19.99 compared to the 8 cents the writers want. They probably make $10-12 off a 19.99 retail dvd sale. I really don’t think 8 cents is too much to give, considering how much they pay writers for television.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
I didn’t say the majority of writers are making $1.5 million each year. However, I just think people should realize how much a lot of the show runners make, considering they are indeed quoted quite a bit on behalf of the strikers. And also please note, the show runners are not lobbying for the 50 percent of writers who are unemployed. They will still be unemployed after the strike. This isn’t some “give peace a chance” sit-in where all the writers will hold hands and share their money on a commune.
Don’t make the strike something it isn’t. After the strike, a small percentage will continue to make a shitload of money and most writers will not. And I personally have not an iota of a problem with that. But again, don’t make the strike about something it isn’t. It isn’t about equality for writers in the union. Far from it.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Jamie, you are right in a sense but wrong in the big picture. The concessions that the WGA are asking for will help everyone, the little guys and the big. Sure, at the end of the day, the big guys will be much richer than the little guys but the little guys will be making a bigger percentage of the long tail. And everything matters.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Jamie,
I hate to get into hard numbers (because the WGA isn’t fighting for hard numbers, they’re fighting for percentages), and I don’t want to get into Damon’s salary (which, btw, doesn’t include his residual check), but ABC, in a 3-month period (Apr, May, June) generated 2.4 billion dollars in ad sales. And that’s only in one quarter (and a weak quarter at that). ABC for the year will generate in excess of 10 billion dollars just in ad revenue.
When Tom Freston was removed from Paramount, he was paid 64 million dollars. If Damon Linelof was fired from LOST, how much do you think he’s gonna get paid? Zero, baby.
This industry is stupid rich. Somebody in Hollywood is making fat, fat money (and it ain’t no showrunner). Now if you want to argue that Tom Freston and his ABC equivalents deserve their fat, fat pay checks, I’m open to that debate.
But don’t tell me that Damon Lindelof is rich when he’s making .01 percent of what his boss is making just in ad revenue (this doesn’t include DVD, syndication, or other revenue streams). He’s a grunt worker working for a fat cat and it just so happens that their industry generates astronomical numbers. To you 1.5 million is rich. Well, what’s 64 million mean to you? Or 2.4 billion? Or 10 billion?
November 7th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
It’s an important principle and and an important fight. And yes, all will benefit.
But it’s not a fight about the little guy. It just isn’t. This is a fight about the future of media and how writers are paid. Mixing in the “plight of the writers” is a disingenuous tactic. I don’t know why some of the show runners and actors are doing that. Maybe they have “compensation guilt.” I don’t know. Maybe it’s too complicated to explain residuals on a video for someone’s iPod and it’s easier to say “you’re taking food out of people’s mouths.” And yes, in some senses, and for many writers, it’s factually true. I’m just not sure it has anything to do with the 90 percent vote to walk out…
November 7th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I wrote the above before seeing SML’s comment. In response… my mutual feeling that Hollywood executives are grossly overpaid… I still say: what does that have to do with the writer’s strike?
November 7th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Jamie,
“…what does that have to do with the writer’s strike?”
ABC and the Tom Frestons of the world get fat off of the talent that works for them.
I’m not saying ABC and Tom Frestons don’t deserve large incomes, I’m saying they need to distribute that wealth to the people helping to put it in their pockets.
Damon Lindelof, who’s employed by ABC, gets paid less than the guy who said, “put it on the air.†Does that make sense (if it does, explain it to me)?
There is a current revenue model that favours not those generating product, but those distributing it.
Writers aren’t asking to share equaling in this revenue model; they’re just asking for a 2.5% share. And when you look at percentages instead of hard numbers, that’s pretty fair.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Jamie:
It is a fight for the little guy. Years and years ago, before there even was a WGA, Ben Hecht, who helped organize the WGA, said of himself and his peers (and I’m paraphrasing here, forgive me): We’ll always get good deals from the studios, because we have a track record of hits behind us. But the little guy doesn’t have that. He doesn’t have anyone to negotiate his fees for him.
We unionized so that the little guy had set minimums. Minimums that would see him through the rough patches in his career. It’s no different now than it was then. Whether we’re talking residual fees, or fees for new media, we’re trying to put those in place so that writers don’t get taken advantage of, and so they have money to see them through their frequent bouts of unemployment. And whatever those fees may be, they are paltry in comparison to the money reaped by the studios. And by the way, the Sorkins of the industry pay a whopping amount to the WGA out of their salaries, which in turn helps keep the health fund afloat for — you guessed it — the little guys.
Also, in regard to the fees/percentages — a writer must make a minimum amount to qualify for health insurance (currently, it’s a little over $30,000 per year– slightly less than a public school teacher.) As it is, over half of the members (62$ I believe) of the WGA do not qualify for health insurance. They are uninsured. Without fees on new media, and with the rollback of residuals proposed by the studios, that number would drop even lower.
For anyone who isn’t in a union, I’m sure it’s difficult to understand. But a union is a kind of brotherhood. A fraternity. We like to look out for those less fortunate than ourselves.
November 8th, 2007 at 6:52 am
The film industry is today going through a lot of changement and this is due to a fast growing environment of the technology and the way the industry is using it…The WGA is right to go on strike to defend their rights in the chain, but did they really know what are they negociating for? Nowadays there are such various digital interesting and affordable way to produce a film, that even studios doesn’t know how to approach the “digital revolution”…So I do think that writers should be a little more patient and see what will concretly happen with all these new medias who have not secure a viable distribution model yet.
November 8th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Peter,
Hey, I agree that writers’ residuals on digital media should be more, but it wouldn’t have hurt them at all to use the $10-12 number compared to $0.04 instead of the $19.99.
Jay01, you’re funny dude, and I actually alluded to the same thing you’re talking about in a post on my site titled “The Flip Side of the Writers’ Strike”:
http://screenrant.com/archives/the-flip-side-of-the-writers-s-1135.html
And SML:
“But don’t tell me that Damon Lindelof is rich when he’s making .01 percent of what his boss is making just in ad revenue (this doesn’t include DVD, syndication, or other revenue streams). He’s a grunt worker working for a fat cat and it just so happens that their industry generates astronomical numbers. To you 1.5 million is rich. Well, what’s 64 million mean to you? Or 2.4 billion? Or 10 billion?”
Holy cow dude. That’s so dumb I don’t know where to start. Lindelof is a “grunt worker?” $1.5MM a year isn’t “rich” just because someone else is making $64MM?? Give. Me. A. Break.
So I suppose that the CEO of Exxon isn’t “rich” because hey, there are Saudi princes that are worth 100X as much as him, right?
The “grunts” are the guys in the writers’ room whose names you never hear and they’re sure as hell not getting a $1.5MM base salary. I’m for the little guys, but Lindelof and folks at that level?
Cry me a freaking river.
Vic
November 8th, 2007 at 10:50 am
WE might discover there is other entertiainment. I discovered
the BBC issued a movie series called BallyKiss Angel all about
a small town in Ireland…. It was gloriously entertaining.
November 10th, 2007 at 4:47 am
Vic (screenrant.com),
Of course I’m being obtuse. But Hollywood is an obtuse place. It’s not reality. The nameless writers you point to aren’t grunts, they’re serfs. Actually, they’re less than serfs, they’re pennies in a deep, endless well.
And hard numbers mean shit. It’s percent. We currently receive .3 percent of first dollar DVD gross. The WGA, DGA, and SAG (the “above the line” personalities) receive approx. 20 cents for every DVD made. The manufacturer makes 30. And don’t even get me started about the below the line workers. These guys are literal grunts whose hands touch every inch of the films we see, but are paid only slightly better than their real world counter parts…
Hollywood is an economic system all on its lonesome. You can’t say Damon is rich in comparison to Tom Freston. It’s not fair. You can, however, say Damon is rich compared to you (and me :)).
Hard numbers play into corporate propaganda. They expect you to judge Hollywood on real world logic, but Hollywood has no logic. Money is being made, tons of it. Writers are in the least 2.5% responsible for the money being generated. So who would you rather see pocket it – the person who created your favourite TV show or the person who exploits it (the guy who makes 100 million dollars a year, and points his finger at Damon Lindelof and calls him a greedy thief).
(And actually using my obtuse logic – that Exxon guy is poor compared to his Saudi bosses, should be paid a fair percent, and should be shot for killing all those seals…)
November 10th, 2007 at 11:00 am
I understand Eva Longoria was scolded for crossing the
picket line in the act of delivering pizza. While our Governor Sch
is pleading for an end to the strike. Our man Arnie is right on top
of today’s crisis. Hollywood isn’t going to any real help from the
TERMINATOR… Our plastic cut-out gov is just an expensive object
in the Capital.
Sorry about the writers strike perhaps a good time to reflect
the quality of entertainment you’ve produced. Have you folks
ever even once solicted letters from viewers asking them what
we would like to see. Of course not! And final WHY is everyone
under 25 yrs old with the mentality of high school jockon hormonal
overload. We over 50 have little choice in your bubble gum sit-com
of today. I am discovering the world of great books while you guys
are doing the Truman ploy… The buck stops here or somehere in
between.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:31 am
OH! My God thery’re coming just like the locusts in the BIble
every possible stupid challenge that boggles the imgination of
moronic TV excutives. ANything that can possibly keep these
overweight mentally challenged idiots properly glued to the
tube thus retaining those revenues we would be losing should
the intellingent viewers of America discover books and video
stores. But as long as junk food and reality shows are keeping
the tubes from going dark writers can relax as their jobs are
not going anywhere. AS they say Desparate Times call for
desparate measures. Being forced to watch the current circus is
about as desparate as we can get!