Before Elenfair jumps all over me again, I’d just like to say that this is what I hope comes out of this strike. The idea of unions and guilds seriously bothers me and I think we would get a lot more quality entertainment if it wasn’t one huge monolithic corporation dealing with another huge monolithic guild.
I don’t have to agree with any group of “workers” just because they’re fighting against “management.”
And yes, I do think there are plenty of talented people out there working outside of Hollywood. Kevin Smith made Clerks with his own script, a camera and a bunch of local actors. The Chad Vader guys (http://www.blamesociety.net/chadvader/index.php) made a hilarious bunch of Internet shorts with just a video camera and a dream.
The ideas behind making TV shows and movies are changing and it scares everyone in the current power structure. Not just the “suits.”
I’m not going to “jump all over” you, Justin. I just think you have a bit of a warped sense of what the “union” is actually like. It’s anything but monolithic. I’m sort of hearing you say, in a way, that you’d like the industry to be more leftist… but don’t believe in unions. I mean, the median yearly pay for a WGA writer is 5K a year (unlike what AMPTP wants you to believe). At any given time, 50% of us are unemployed. Most of the WGA writers have “dayjobs”. Few do this full-time (especially those who write movies).
I mean, half the time, we’re actually surprised we can put two writers on the same picket line and have them march in the same direction. Screenwriters – especially the movie-only writers – tend to be introverted.
To be honest with you, we’d rather negotiate with companies individually too. It’d be a lot better for everyone concerned.
I think this is the other major thing that cheeses me off about this strike. Using the word “unemployed” and citing such a ridiculously low average salary seems like outright lying.
For the people that are “unemployed” a good portion of the time or who pull down less than 5K a year, writing is not their job. Writing is something they do on the side and would like to do as their job. Whatever they may do as a “dayjob”, whether it’s teaching or working in a restaurant or whatever, that’s their real job.
Propaganda is coming from both sides, and I don’t think the writers want to admit that yet.
For professional writers, I was really hoping to hear something a little more eloquent on news stories about the strike other “We’re the writers, of course we deserve all our demands.” It’s very offputting and if the strike ends up pushing into next fall’s TV season, I can imagine the public will turn on this attitude very quickly.
Don’t shoot the messenger, dude. In order to fall within the union job jurisdiction, they have a certain number of credits/hours/writing jobs to their name. They also have residuals coming their way.
I work full time as a writer, but not everyone does. I know quite a few film screenwriters who also teach screenwriting. You’re more than welcome to argue with the oscar nominee that he’s a teacher and not a writer because his “dayjob is teaching screenwriting”, even though he has a couple of scripts in the works and a movie in production. Me, I’m happy to tell him his work rocks, because it does. Another of the writers here on my picket line is also a playwright. He does both. Most of these people do a handful of things, all related to writing in some way. I’ve got one of the 5K writers. He’s also a comedian.
Many writers go from one contract to another. At any given time, about 50% of us are between jobs – this is, indeed, very true. A television writer who is not on a writing team but is a sought-after episode writer may write about 4 episodes a year for different shows. Technically, this means that they can be (and often are) without contracts or without jobs at various times. It can also mean dry spells for them, depending.
It’s not an easy job to have, at times, despite what many people seem to think.
> Before Elenfair jumps all over me again, I’d just like to say that this is what I
> hope comes out of this strike. The idea of unions and guilds seriously bothers
> me and I think we would get a lot more quality entertainment if it wasn’t one
> huge monolithic corporation dealing with another huge monolithic guild.
Even if we could get rid of the writers guild, how do you propose to get rid of the large corporations that do most of the production and distribution? Someone like Kevin Smith couldn’t make all the episodes of a long-running TV series.
So, when the actors go on strike and ask for the exact same thing the writers are asking for, it’s ok with you? Actors rejoice, for you have been given the Diogenes seal of approval to get what’s due you!
I love actors but I’d argue that they’re the ones who are a “dime a dozen” in that for every role, there’s going to be hundreds of actors who can do great job in it, but it takes a writer to write the role.
I live in Chicago, where there are a lot of movie theaters and a lot of movies showing. Here’s a list of everything playing in the Chicagoland area this week (thanks to the Chicago Reader). Some are in first run theaters, some are in second run theaters, some are old movies playing in retrospective theaters, some are in arthouses. Some are playing in the city and some in the burbs:
Across The Universe
All About My Mother
American Gangster
Atonement
August Rush
Bad Guy
Bee Movie
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
Beowulf
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
Charlie Wilson’s War
City Lights
The Cocoanuts
Dan In Real Life
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Enchanted
Fireworks Wednesday
Fred Claus
The Game Plan
The Golden Compass
Gone Baby Gone
The Great Debaters
Hitman
Horse Feathers
I’m Not There
In A Lonely Place
Into The Wild
It’s A Gift
Juno
The Kite Runner
Knocked Up
Lola
Michael Clayton
The Mist
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
A Night At The Opera
No Country For Old Men
No Greater Glory
One Missed Call
The Orpahange
Paprika
The Party
The Perfect Holiday
Pickup On South Street
Pigs and Battleships
Platform
The Price of Sugar
P.S. I Love You
The Rape of Europa
The Savages
Saw IV
Showgirls
The Sound of Rio: Brasileirinho
Starting Out In The Evening
Stolen Desire
Superbad (double-feature with Knocked Up)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Taare Zameen Par
There Will Be Blood
This Christmas
Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory
The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep
Welcome
With the caveat that I’m not familiar with all of the films (the older, or extremely indie, or Bollywood films) I see three sequels: National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Saw IV and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. There’s one remake: I Am Legend. Two if you count Alvin and the Chipmunks (which has never been a movie before, but I think it was a TV show. I’m not sure about that though.)
What about all the rest? There’s a lot of writing going on there that isn’t “endless sequels and remakes” and a whole lot that are “quality, original scripts.” Sure enough, some are absolute crap (Fred Claus? The Game Plan? Ugh) but many more are excellent films.
Perhaps the scripts as written aren’t quite right. Have you NEVER heard of tales of scenes being re-written that turn out much better, or scenes added that enhanced the final film, or scenes that were jettisoned because they didn’t quite work? Have you never listened to any commentary on a DVD?
That’s just mean. They identify themselves as writers, even if that’s not how they make their money to pay bills. To give a similar example of someone close to me, Happy Rhodes has been making music for over 20 years. She’s released 11 brilliant albums. She has a worldwide cult following. But, because she’s so obscure, she can’t make a living off her music. Her day job is hand-building high end pro audio equipment. Should she not call herself a “musician” because she doesn’t make money at it?
So all the talk about solidarity with unions doesn’t apply to the IATSE when it comes to whose union animation and reality writers belong to.
If you say so, I’ll believe that because you are certainly more attached than I am. On the other hand, unless you can prove to me that all reality and animation writers want to be union, I won’t agree with forcing them to join.
I’m sorry, but no. If you absorb reality and animation writers, then they will be forced to join your union or not work. There is no gray area there, no sugar coating.
Well, I have my opinions on that, but I’m sure you’ll disagree with them.
Seth McFarlane on the strike (Day 5), and comments about animation comedy shows joining the guild at Fox.
Sure, it’s Union propaganda – it’s a speech at a rally at Fox Plaza – but it’s the perspective of someone in Animation and it’s not actually tearing holes in everyone up in the Networks, either.
And I know you love Happy Rhodes (we all know you love Happy Rhodes), but that doesn’t change the fact that the same logic applies to her. Sure she’s musician, but that’s not her job. It’s what she does on the side from her job.
That’s just the reality of life when you have one job that puts food on the table and the rent check in the mail and another job that brings in a few bucks and you do it because you love it.
So, to recap here, because of the writer’s strike, the ceremonies presenting awards to people involved in movies that, in a generation or so, most people will say, “WTF were they thinking?”, are canceled. Because of this, those same people will not have the chance to make long, drawn out speeches thanking everyone (including Jesus, who has been spending His time vigorously lobbying the judges on behalf of the person giving the speech, instead of doing something about global warming or mass starvation or terrorism or anything else). Am I right? Or did I miss something along the way?
Mind you, I’m not saying that the WGA doesn’t have a valid case to make. My point is that with any awards, the top prizes tend to go to those folks who are popular at the moment, while quite often, the works which have real staying power get few, if any, awards (Citizen Kane being a prime example of this). The Oscar’s are nice to watch because, occassionally, someone who really deserves an award get’s one, and there’s a nice memorial for the folks in Hollywood who’ve passed on (and for many, it’s sadly, the only large memorial they’ll get, even though they were in more films than the current panty flashing starlet who’s getting an award and will be quickly forgotten), but the awards often go to people and movies which are mere flashes and have no cultural impact whatsoever.
… and then, people ask me: “Do you sometimes base characters on people you come across in real life? Do people like this really exist?” It’s usually because their minds are totally boggled by some dude we’ve created – more often than not, it’s a variation on the theme of the “Intellectual masturbator with an over-inflated sense of self-importance who, no matter what you say or how you say it, will come back and try to show you how he, in his great wisdom, is simply the superior being.”
And on these words, this little Sea Cucumber (a bottom feeder, of course),writer of drivel that has consistently done really well in ratings this year until the strike, needs to go to bed. Tomorrow, there’s a meeting with Fans4Writers. You know, those who will drop us like a ton of bricks after the big National campaign they plan to launch in a few weeks. Then there are actions to plan, meetings to organize, things to do, people to corrupt, animation writers to set on fire… You know. The usual nasty union things.
I can’t think of any Oscar speech that thanked Jesus. I’m sure there may have been a few, but you normally hear that at music and sports awards, not film awards.
Speaking as Jane Average, I don’t give the single smallest shit about the Hollywood writers’ strike. But I like award shows, especially the Oscars; they’re an excuse to get together with friends, eat chips and dip, criticize the dress sense of people far more attractive and wealthy than we, and talk about movies. So I will be pissed, in the mildest way, to have no Oscars this year, and I will be pissed at the entity causing my inconvenience. That’s you, writers. Not management.
In the past, I can remember totally undeserving actresses like Marissa Tomei, Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Helen Hunt, Renee Zellweger Catherine Zeta Jones and Cher walking away with Oscars.
It doesn’t seem to happen as often with male actors but even that category has a tendency towards “makeup” and “lifetime achievement” awards.
Surely I don’t have to tell someone as well versed in the film industry as you that the awards selection for the Oscars (or any other artistic award ceremony) aren’t that great. Weren’t you complaining in another thread just the other day about folks and films not getting nominated who deserved it? Did you not say:[
Given that you’ve said those things it seems a bit odd to me that you should be bothered by what I might think of the Oscars. Especially since you seem to think that: [Crash shouldn’t have gotten an award.
So now you want to “call me out” for saying basically the same thing as you? Get a grip. You want to know what would make me say that the Oscars (or other) awards were really a valid judge of what’s good and what’s bad? If they said, “Quite frankly, there weren’t any good candidates for the award in _______ category, so we won’t be handing one out this year.” Some years just aren’t that good for movies in terms of quality (box office is another matter entirely) and in those years, instead of handing out an award they should just bitchslap everyone involved and move on.
This is going to come out sounding snarky, but I can’t figure out how to word it to sound otherwise. You blame the writers, but, writers should care what you think…why? You’re not hiring them. You’re not paying them. You have no say in them getting hired or how much they’re paid. You have no say in their lives, so what difference does it make?
Your not being able to get together with friends to eat chips and dip, criticize the dress sense of people far more attractive and wealthy than you, and talk about movies is a temporary inconvenience and doesn’t affect the writers one bit, whereas their livelihood is at stake. Which is exactly why the WGA shouldn’t back down.
Switch your Oscar night to the SAG awards (January 27). All the actors will be there (movies and TV) and there won’t be any of the production numbers or artistic categories of the Oscars to make it a time suck. If that’s too soon, do the same for the Independent Spirit awards (February 23). The glitter factor won’t be quite as high, and people tend to dress down, plus it’s in the daytime, and there’s no TV awards given, and some of the movies are far more indie than the Oscars, but it’s an option.
Not that I wouldn’t have preferred other winners too (Burstyn over Roberts, Dench over Hunt, Montenegro or Blanchett over Paltrow, Aghdashloo over Zellweger, Moore over Zeta-Jones) but I don’t think any of them were “totally underving,” not even Tomei and Cher, both of whom were great in their roles. With the exception of Julia Roberts, I don’t recall that any of those people were insanely popular either. They, or their roles/movies just struck a chord in a majority of the voters. In any case, people who aren’t popular in a mass market sense have won Oscars far more often than those who are, especially in the last 4 decades.
And you know, I don’t think a one of those actresses has ever been accused of being a panty flashing starlet. I’m still waiting for THAT list.
What? You totally misunderstood what I said and the context in which it was said. It was in context of some people being tired of movies they’ve never heard of getting nominations. My view is to hell with them. So what if you (general you) haven’t heard of the movie? Should it not be nominated unless a certain number of the population has seen it? There is an awards show for that. It’s called the People’s Choice Awards. For the “real” awards, they should award quality, not popularity. When I said “Sometimes the two line up” I meant that sometimes a popular movie also gets nominations/wins (the Lord of the Rings movies, Titanic, Chicago), but that rarely happens. More often, you’ll see awards given to movie that the general public don’t know, haven’t seen, and may not have even heard of.
It doesn’t matter, and I don’t. I just, out of curiousity, wanted to know which people won strictly from popularity, and which actresses were panty-flashing starlets. Especially the panty-flashing. That’s such a talked-about event in today’s gossip-mongering world that it’d be a big deal if a panty-flashing starlet won an Oscar, or even a Golden Globe. I thought I’d missed out on some juicy gossip and wanted to know who. Of course, if you can’t actually come up with any names, then that means that you were saying something about an awards show that was nothing but hyperbole. Again, I was just curious.
I didn’t say the same thing as you.
But that’s silly. There are ALWAYS movies that are of good enough quality to nominate, in every category, and there always will be. If the studios don’t provide enough prospects, the indies will. If the indies don’t provide enough prospects, the foreign-language arena will. Every year is a good year in cinema, for those who look.
