Here’s to hoping that the strike will be over soon.
good. I really hope that the WGA decides to break the studios. The studios put profit before all else, to the point that they screw themselves out of billions more profits (“Yes, we know you would have paid for this movie if it were available on DVD, but it’s not so since you downloaded it, we’re going to spend far more than it would cost to actually put it out on DVD, and make far less than we could if we sold it, by suing you. Oh yeah, if we do actually make any money off the lawsuit, we’re not going to share it with the writers.”), while the writers are actively looking for new ways to get their product out there.
Sunrazor, I don’t know if Letterman’s still getting paid or not, but I do know that he and a lot of the other actors and performers have paid their employees out of their own pockets during at least part of the strike. They’re getting shafted on intarweb profits just like the writers are, and the only reason they’re not on strike as well (though many of them have refused to cross picket lines) is because their contract isn’t up yet (IIRC, it’s next year that happens, so we could come out of one strike and into another one.). Like you, I generally find unions to be parasitic lamphreys of the worst kind. (Jobs I’ve lost because of unions: 2 Jobs I’ve gotten because of unions: 0) In this case, however, the union is right on the money.
Yep, he is - at the same time, though, he has been supporting some members of his staff on his own dime and he IS trying to come to an agreement with the WGA so he can return to work with writers without having to break any picket lines.
Leno and his other buddies are actually returning on the air with the intent to write their own material, breaking picket lines and pissing off a bunch of their fellow guild members in the process.
You are right, though - we have been standing up for what we believe in and we’ve been fighting the good fight. We have been helping one another out AND we have been helping out EVERYONE who has been affected by this strike – actors, stand-ins, make-up artists, techs, cameramen, grips, you name it. Our showrunners have been spending money out of pocket to keep folks paid. We’ve been holding fundraisers – not for ourselves, but for groups like the Actors’ Fund (they help folks in the industry, across the board, not just actors).
Ugh. Everyone is keeping an eye on this thing. We were the first ones up, basically. Following us are the directors, then the actors. Even the Teamsters, with whom we’ve had strained relations in the past, know that their entire Health and Pension plans were built on our negotiation of residuals, years ago. Others in the industry also know that what happens to us and this New Media crap will set the stage for what happens to them – actors, musicians, other writers, visual artists… this could reach into many disciplines and be felt for a long, long time.
Not to turn this into Ask the Striking Screenwriter, but I was wondering what the general consensus was on Leno’s return to work. Not generally regarded well, huh?
SAG/AFTRA contracts are up in June. If our stuff is still unresolved, they’ll be joining us. They’ve been out with us since day one, supporting us wherever and whenever they can. The actors who work on the show(s) I work on have been very supportive of us all along. We couldn’t ask for more. They’ve been troopers. They’ve come out to every rally they were able to attend, they’ve shown up at the one last Tuesday for Crime Writers in both LA and NYC…
The Unions in Entertainment are very strong and they’re necessary to our survival. I’ve been a member of them since I can remember and I thank my lucky stars. If they hadn’t been around, we’d be getting shafted left, right and center by the Networks and/or theatres, production companies, owners and so on. It’s one of those industries where unions have always been strong and have somehow never lost their integrity.
(I’m WGAe, AFM, AFTRA and formerly AEA, retired in order that I might join my students on stage without having to file every time.)
It’s getting mixed responses. Mostly disappointment. Some people are furious. Others feel like he’s selling out. He’s a guild member, so going back and saying he’s doing it “for his non-writing staff” doesn’t fly with the rest of us. Think about all our workmates and crews - just as large if not larger than his, thanks - who have been laid off… He claims he’s going back without writers and he will write his own material. Being a member of the WGA, he’s essentially going to cross the picket lines and go work?
Dude – my showrunner could say the same thing: our cast and crew of 110 people have been laid off, so he’s calling us all back to work on Monday. For the good of his people. If we all did that, where the hell would we be?
I think that’s part of the general sentiment out there.
The only ones who can really get away with that are the Late Night shows and some of the daytime talk shows. It will be interesting to see how it affects them in the long run, as far as their relationships with fellow writers go. Some of the die-hard union activists don’t take kindly to this kind of thing.
As a side note, that’s been the one thing that has been good about this strike – as a captain, I’ve had the opportunity to get together with other writers and actually meet a lot of other local screenwriters too. We’re often hermits and tend to work on our own stuff, or work with our teams and never really branch out much. Working as a captain has allowed me to meet some very interesting (and well known) vocal screenwriters and make new pals – and new contacts… as well as spark some new project plans. Very very cool stuff.
'course it’s all moot if we’re still on strike in June… 
Part of the reason I’m pulling for you is that the game industry is currently NOT unionized. The result is the sort of abuses that came to light in the “EA spouse” controversy a few years ago: mandatory overtime, poor compensation, no long-term security.
I don’t think the game industry is ready to be unionized quite yet. Production practices are still in flux and standardized team roles are not fully defined yet. However that is changing, and changing rapidly. “Garage band” developers are fewer and fewer. The move is toward large studios that have multiple projects running simultaneously. As production practices become more standardized across the industry the result is a more “assembly line” approach to game production. It’s cheaper and more efficient, but it also is more ripe for abuse.
So five or ten years from now the case for organizing the game industry will probably be much stronger. A high-profile win for labor in the movie and television industries would help demonstrate the value that unions can provide for workers in the entertainment industry.
May I ask what you think your prospects of getting a settlement are?
(My only interest here is as a consumer, who would like everyone who entertains me to get a fair slice of my money…)
Pochacco – I think you guys have a good chance at forming a union over time. Unfortunately, you face a HUGE corporate beast. It’s going to be an uphill battle. There will always be an anti-union sentiment in the software engineering end of the tech sector. It’s hard to get people to get behind union movements if they ARE willing to do the extra grunt work just to move up the ladder and get the bonus. Your best hope, in the end, will be to bring in labor organizers from the entertainment industry and educate folks. Of course, the situation may just keep on deteriorating. Once the Big Guys with Deep Pockets keep abusing the workers, even the siren song of six figure salary just doesn’t feel so appealing anymore.
glee – we’ll settle in the end. Something’s gotta give. The sad truth is that it would cost the Companies very little to give in to our proposals. Right now, the WGA is winning the public opinion war… but in the end, it will come down to who has more to lose. My feeling is that it’s the Mouse House that will start whining soon. Last week, they started feeling a little antsy when they realized that their two cash cows for 2008 were NOT ready for shooting - their two big Features, aimed at the Tween market need a lot of work before they can begin production… and right now, that ain’t gonna happen.
The Mouse House is probably one of the nastiest of the Companies when it comes to negotiations, unions, writers, staff rights, and “happy shiny people” (remember, they own ABC).
For those who know a little about the inner workings of the industry, this will make you giggle – as you might know, many writers and especially showrunners (writer-producers) in NYC and LA are Jewish. Most of us have come to refer to the Mouse House as “Mouschwitz”
Here’s hoping that this gets resolved sooner rather than later, and that it works out so you and Joe can afford solid-gold houses and rocket cars for all. And most of all, that this doesn’t get in the way of you and yours having a Merry Christmas!
Here’s hoping that this gets resolved quickly.
Hoping you have a happy holiday anyway.
The are several major challenges that we will face. One is the international nature of the game business. Two of the three major console manufacturers are Japanese corporations and there are big studios in Europe as well. Even if every game developer in North America went on strike the big companies could fill the gap for quite a while with content from the other territories. It’s not an insurmountable obstacle, but it does make things harder.
The other big roadblock (as you point out) is the reflexive libertarianism of the programmers. The entrepreneurial boom during the heyday of the dot coms created a mindset that sudden freaky wealth is a natural career path for software engineers. It still hasn’t dawned on a lot of people that they may spend their entire careers writing pathfinding code, and that maybe they should get decent pay for doing so.
I have not really been following the news on the strike because I don’t really follow any “entertainment” news. I knew it was happening, but not why or anything.
In the beginning I was a bit mad because my daily ritual of TV watching was effected “Hey, haven’t I seen this Daily Show before? This Colbert Report is weeks old!”
Now that I know why this is going on I support you. After seeing (and watching) so many television episodes online, I can see why not getting any of the money made with that would piss someone off.
I do still hope the strike is over soon. But, now not only so I can get nice new shiny Daily Shows, but so you can get back to work and not have to starve. Good luck. 
Stick 'em for all they’re worth. American media companies are universally regarded morally as the lowest a corporation can sink without going Enron.
I like Letterman, I’m a fan and all that. But it’s pretty hard to shaft a guy who’s made millions of dollars off of the talent and hard work of people like Elenfair. That he’s paid some of his staffers out of his own pocket is a warm fuzzy, but it doesn’t come anywhere near equalizing the salary differential.
I think it’s great that Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno are writing their own shows – it’ll show the public just how much these guys need writers.
Hey, I was just wondering why we hadn’t seen something like this yet. Seems like with a bunch of out of work, presumably fairly bored and increasingly broke writers and a public deprived of its TV shows, someone would try and fill the demand and make a on-the-fly sitcom for release on iTunes only. Granted a drama would probably require too much start up money, but to an outsider anyways, a sitcom like Fraiser appears to only require something like 2 sets, a few actors and some stationary cameras. And I sorta figure at least a few writers are already sitting on half-developed or unused concepts for comedies anyways.
Granted publicizing it without a network might be rough, but there seems a lot of sympathy for the writers, I bet you could get the word out. And the press loves: 1) Entertainment News, 2) stories about the Internets 3)Opal, so they would eat it up (especially if you could tie in Opal somehow).
Personally I’m looking forward to being able to download episodes of The Smoffice, more or less like The Office except all the actors have been replaced with similar looking doubles and You-Tube quality camera work and editing.
Funny you should mention that. At Saturday’s DC Dopefest, Opal commented in passing that she had been shirking on her world domination project. I would think she’d be willing to come to some sort of deal.
There are reports of talks, already, between some writers, directors, and “internet broadcasters”. Who knows where this will lead.
I can tell you for sure that iTunes would not be the way to go for release, though
Good luck and best of luck to you!!! If it helps, I miss the work you and your colleagues do, as it tends to brighten parts of my day.
Some perspective: the additional compensation the writers are asking for each year, spread across all of the studios, is less than Disney, one studio, paid one executive, Michael Ovitz, to go away when they fired him.