What this strike will do is force changes to the entire industry. I hope and pray that the WGA files a federal lawsuit forcing everything to shut down including pretty much everything that is airing including all reality TV. The only thing that could really air would be the NFL, NBA and NHL though NBC could air its entire Olympic library. In the end, I hope and pray that the current system is turned on its ear and that the writers are actually running the studios, than we would get much better programming.

Still, players were in the wrong because the owners were fair on any offer or close to it while the players declined to negotiate in good faith so they can get what they want and that was a strike.

If baseball had a commissioner at the time of the 1994 strike, I am sure he would have filed a grievance with the US Court system on that trust issue and would have forced the players to play past the August 12 strike deadline and back to negotiations. If negotiations failed, the players went on strike, and any cancellation of the 1994 World Series would result in the use of replacement players for the entire 1995 season and beyond.

That isn’t saying that the WGA is wrong regarding the DVD issue because they deserve a good payday and as others said, writers are the backbone of the entire creative arts industry. Just remember this line from the Simpsons while you are out on the picket line:

“So we’ll strike day and night by the old cooling tower, They have the plant, but we have the power.

Stick a fork in Hollywood, it’s deep-fried past over done.

It’s very telling that the producers won’t budge on the new media issue. At the moment, it’s such an incredibly tiny portion of their overall finances that it should be something Zucker alone could pay out to writers everywhere with the cash in his wallet at any given moment.

Their stern stance is a clear signal that they know, and all their internal projections and studies confirm, that new media will become a MUCH GREATER revenue stream. Not in the distant future, but within the timeframe of this next contract. Within three years time. They know this, and that’s why they want to pay as little as possible now.

From a purely business standpoint with no morals, OK, I get it. But at least admit the above instead of flat-out lying…

Residuals benefit the producers, not the writers.

Yep. It’s true.

Residuals are a way for the studios to defer paying us a portion of our salary until the project becomes successful (reruns, sells on DVD, sells on iTunes, sells internationally, etc.) Residuals help reduce the financial risk that the producers take on a project.

If the producers were smart (and not the type of people who give notes like the one I was once given after the table read of a TV episode which was part one of a two-part cliffhanger, the last line of which was “to be continued” — “Um… I feel like there are a lot of unanswered questions at the end.”) then they would be trying to increase residuals instead and hold upfront minimums where they are. They would be trying to shift a greater portion of wrtiers’ (and actors’ and directors’) salaries to the back end.

In fact, they should insist that all of their employees (especially the executives) only receive the second half of their salaries if the projects they develop (sic.) become successful.

Why don’t they get that? Just one more unanswered question, I guess.

Storytelling is essential to our species and the industry needs to give mad props to the architects of story. Let us hope that a day of reckoning and redress is on the horizon. If it’s not, I think I’d rather be a starving poet than a disrespected screenwriter anyway.

In passing: The WGA needs to stop supporting a climate where massive rewriting has become the norm in the industry. Spec writers get their work trampled on by a plethora of other writers (usually all fat from feeding off the inherent weaknesses of the system). What the WGA should consider is expanding its domain to include representation for writers and thereby replacing the current Agency system. Whether that’s possible or ideal I don’t know. The current Agency system is erroding the WGA’s overall powerbase.

If the first sentence of Kyle’s post didn’t make it painfully clear he’s not a writer, the use of the word (sic.) “pizzaid” sure did.

This isn’t about movie downloads.

It’s really about TV show downloads: Currently, when a TV show goes into repeats, there’s an established formula for what writers get paid, which is a fairly healthy second payment on the episodes they wrote, and so on, into syndication.

As TV moves into streaming media - where first run shows are available on the net either simultaneously, or a few days later, the producers are suggesting that these fall under the category of DVD sales - a mere pittance per sale - as opposed to the “real” money paid for either a rerun, or syndication.

So what you’re not taking into account here is the real economic picture, which involves not just the WGA, but SAG and the DGA as well: As all TV goes online (and/or on-demand,) the syndication and second-run payments that used to help keep the gardeners, restaurants, talent agencies, dentists, stock brokers, valet car parkers and insurance agents afloat will disappear, or be severely reduced, under the DVD formula.

The writers are first here, but the DGA and SAG are looking at exactly the same problem.

Fuck ‘em.

This is not Haymarket Square, writers are not fighting for an 8 hour work day…

I hope this comes to a reasonable and fair conclusion soon. There are a lot of people riding on a reasonable outcome.

Everyone knows that crummy old joke about the blonde wannabe starlet who wanted to sleep her way to a movie career - but was so dumb she slept with the WRITER…

The thing is, that’s not just a joke. That’s how the movers and shakers really feel, and how, for the most part, the writers are treated. There to be used. Powerless. Generally unnecessary. And yet nothing can begin without the story.

I recently made the error of sending a note to a studio head about a project I had just delivered. We’d traded notes before, and what I sent wasn’t anything outrageous or controversial - just a note. But it opened the floodgates of wailing and gnashing of teeth and calls and emails between the studio and producers and lawyers all panicked over the CONCEPT that a WRITER had the temerity to contact HIS OWN EMPLOYER DIRECTLY.

I understood fully that it was ‘not protocol’, and one of the producers explained it away to the others as the result of my inexperience. I simply didn’t know any better. I did understand (after talking to him) that it was more appropriate to have contacted the exec (regarding the project) in tandem with the producers, but that was the logical part of my brain doing the processing.

The rest of it was stuck on the sheer outrageousness expressed that the writer would contact the exec. The sentiments expressed (and the directive given: “you are NOT to do that again”) told me exactly what my value was to the process.

I had written the book which I subsequently adapted into the screenplay which will be produced by the person I wasn’t even permitted to contact. That project, that story, exists because I made it.

On the publishing side, I can phone, email, or meet with the President of the company any time it seems appropriate, and for any reason. Even to just suggest lunch. My editor, publisher, associate publisher, and the President all make me feel like we work as a team. And when one of us needs to talk to the other, no one stops it, or worries about other agendas being compromised.

Of course, as in Hollywood, here are times when protocols must be followed. There is a proper order to things. But - I’ve always felt respected, and that they valued my work.

I don’t know that this opinion does, can, or should have any bearings on what the WGA is negotiating. What I do think is that if we, the writers, actually felt as if our work were valued, as if we were respected equally with the other members of the team, then we’d be a lot more receptive to anything being discussed. Anything.

The reason the comparison between our compensation and the cost of the packaging is so compelling has much less to do with the numbers and economics than it does with the fact that it sends a clear message: you are worth less to us than packaging.

If the execs can figure out how to change that message, he numbers will become much easier to discuss.