I had an interesting questions asked of me, and I don’t know where to find the answer. When the writers go on strike, why not hire other writers, or go and find other stuff that’s already been written by not guild members (like fanfic), and run that, instead of shutting the whole show down?
I wanted to say that it’s in the contract, but I’m not sure, and a quick Google search didn’t find anything.
Professional writing is difficult.
Anyone who is actually good enough to write may wish, someday, to write TV shows for a living, which will be very difficult when you’re blackballed by the writer’s guild for being a scab.
Are you referring to American television shows, and the writer’s strike in 2007?
Hiring non-union workers (typically called “scabs”) to replace strikers may be barred by contract, but even if it’s not it would be counterproductive. Virtually everyone involved in television production is unionized – from the actors to the lighting guys – and they would not cross the picket lines to work with scabs.
And as to the larger question of why not, because the quality of writers on shows that air is incredibly high, and scripts aren’t simply a commodity to be plucked off the shelf. Script writing is intrinsically tied in with the vision of the creators and the producers. They’d never turn to a piece of fan fiction.
People who cross picket lines are called “scabs”. The people on the picket line hold grudges against the scabs. Most writers won’t cross the picket line for fear of being blacklisted and not being able to get a job after the strike ends.
Scabs will *never *get work again after the strike. You don’t fuck with the union.
May the Lord above
Send down a dove
With wings as sharp as razors
To cut the throats of bloody scabs
That keep down poor men’s wages.
As stated in the second paragraph, members of many unions will not work with scabs because they run the risk of being ostracized, or not being supported if they ever go on strike. I have a friend who is a member of a grocery worker’s union and some years ago when there was a picket line at the Frontier Casino in Las Vegas he refused to go there, even though it had always been one of his favorite casinos. Only when the strike was finally settled did he start going there again.
It’s also a fantasy by amateurs that if they submit a script it will be performed as written.
In dramas you’ll usually see two bylines, one for story and one for teleplay. A drama has a season-long arc for the direction of the show and of the individual lives of the characters, even if each episode is technically unrelated to the others. No outsider could know how this is supposed to play out. That’s why good ideas as treated as a mere storyline, but insiders will write the actual script so that the arc will stay intact. And even after the script is submitted, a variety of people on the show will rework it extensively. Dialog will be changed; technical information about the profession will be added by the show’s paid consultants; standing sets will be reused and new sets will be adjusted for budgetary reasons; location shots have to be planned months in advance (if a show shot in L.A. needs an outdoor scene in Chicago, say); all outdoor scenes have to be judged for practicality, etc. ad infinitum.
Comedy shows have all this and more. Scripts will be developed out of a writers’ room, written by one or two people, and then returned to the room where they are torn apart and redone line by line. That process continues through the table read and into shooting as reactions are judged.
Writing for television is collaboratory and ongoing. It has next to nothing that’s comparable with prose writing.
Recycling old scripts has been tried. In 1982 ABC had something called The New Odd Couple, which started off (during a writer’s strike) with eight scripts from the original show. They eventually tried original scripts, but the show was canceled after a half season.
During the 1988 writer’s strike, ABC brought back Mission Impossible using scripts (and Peter Graves) from the original series. After four episodes the strike was settled and the show used original scripts, but it was never really successful.
The person asking was specifically wondering about a certain episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Shades of Gray.” It was a clip show. He claims a fanfic would have been better, and wondered why they didn’t just buy one.
And I know they recycled scripts during that time period. “The Child” was recycled, but heavily rewritten.
It’s entirely possible that a fanfic might’ve been better…but I get the sense that they also didn’t have a lot of time. That episode was produced at the end of the second season of the series. They were under the gun to get the episode done before the production team went on summer hiatus.
To find a suitable, high-quality fanfic, negotiate with the author for the rights, then rewrite it as a teleplay (as Exapno Mapcase notes, prose is very different from a TV script) would very likely have taken far longer than cobbling together a cheap clip / bottle show.
Wasn’t Star Trek (at the time of Next Generation) unusually open to spec scripts from amateurs?
I don’t know, but I’d also bet they did it because they were running out of money. Saving money was definitely one of the reasons for Menagerie on TOS. Two shows for one, and the new one was relatively cheap also, mostly being done on one set.
He probably just wanted to see Riker/Worf slash. (Is there such a thing? Please don’t tell me if there is. shudder)
Do fans write production ready scripts? I doubt it.
I’m going to have to disagree with that…sometimes there is high quality writing, but often times the writing is absolute shit. Even epic shows like The Sopranos had whole seasons of shit-sloppy writing. Big Love’s final two seasons were absolutely execrable…no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Worst TV writing I have ever seen in my entire life. LOST, same deal.
And yet, still better than the average Joe could do. Don’t kid yourself, even the hacks in Hollywood are more skilled than the majority of non professional writers.
Edit: note I say skilled not talented. The hacks are hacks for a reason.
Didn’t we have a big thread back during the writers strike about this and someone went off and tried to write a script? I lost interest before the deadline so I don’t know how it came out.
They’d still have to spend money filming it, and the purpose of clip shows is usually to save money.
[
That was, also, undoubtedly a factor; it was fairly common knowledge that they’d blow several episodes’ worth of FX budget on one big episode, then make up for it with a few “bottle shows”, which used few or no FX.
There is no reason to think that. There are thousands if not millions of non-professional writers out there who are probably writing better material than the horseshit that gets put on TV; they’re just obscure and nobody knows who they are and so of course the public will never see their writing. The writers who get to write for TV are not there because they’re the best writers; they are there because they are the best at networking, making connections and hustling. This has absolutely nothing to do with writing skill.