Of course, those are the notes he’ll get if they actually liked the script.
Okay, my only ‘credentials’ to join this conversation is that I’ve been ordinary-level friends for years with a TV scriptwriter, and have listened to her stories and gripes. (In fact, she’s gone from new hire to showrunner over that time.)
Anyway, she spent several years on the writing staff of one-hour drama, at least five years on three different shows. Going by what she’s said, the process starts with a writer coming up with a basic idea for the plot, and then it gets chewed around and tweaked during meetings all the writers on staff and their immediate higher up. Then the writer does a more detailed scene by scene breakdown of the show, that gets gone over, tweaked and commented on, finally okayed – and only then is the writer is assigned to actually write the script.
The thing is, there are at least 3 or 4 full time writers on the staff, meaning you really aren’t turning out a script every week. You’re doing prelim stuff, groping for ideas, helping other writers get the kinks out of their idea all the time, but only producing a script maybe every third week.
Assuming this is at least roughly true, I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable for Dio to take two weeks to write his script. He doesn’t have to be helping other writers, true, but he still needs the planning/tweaking plot time on top of the actual writing.
Yes? No?
Well, because it takes special skills to be a financier, but anyone can be a writer. 
In any case, two points:
First - So what? Who’s talking about about financiers?
Second - There’s no guild or union preventing people from **financing ** something, only guilds preventing people from **working ** on them. In fact, a lot of movies are independently financed, no? Robert Rodriguez, to name a specific name, has done so. Speaking of, I recall the story of Sin City, in which Robert Rodriguez quit the Directors Guild because their rules wouldn’t let Frank Miller share co-directing credit. Which meant Rodriguez had to drop out of directing A Princess of Mars, and I just don’t agree with that philosophy.
The entire exercise is unrealistic. The point, if we ever get there, will be to demonstrate that even under the best possible conditions, where someone is free to generate, develop, and execute his own material, it still isn’t as easy as people generally think it is.
Which is why, you probably noticed, my sample notes were practical and structural.
And Gangster Octopus is right. My sample notes are, all things considered, extremely mild. On another day, the script might be met with: “Sucks. Missed the point of the story conference. Review the exec summary and do it again.”
Why is it anti-capitalist? According to the post you quoted, the producers agreed to it. Aren’t they allowed to agree to something? And then once they agree, aren’t they expected to live by the agreement?
A new reality show (and this would be perfect timing): “So You Think You Can Write”
or, alternatively, “Who Wants To Be a Screenwriter?”
Half hour format. (To spare the audience, mostly.)
Week one: Eight wannabe writers (I’m sure we can find them) pitch their ideas to producers. This round should eliminate half of them, if not all of them.
Week two: The four (?) remaining writers bring in their scripts and get notes. Some of the notes eliminate two more writers.
Week three: Actors do a run-through of the rewritten scripts, pointing out flaws. The producers decide which two 7-minute scripts will go before a live audience the next week.
Week four: Two seven-minute scripts. The audience votes. Then three critics give their scores and the audience vote is then made public.
The winner gets a job that enables him/her to do this every week! Complete with elimination process.
Related thread on broader, abstract moral notion of royalty payments:
And they will broadcast it exclusively over the internets, call it promotional, and not pay anybody anything!
Capitalism isn’t the slavish devotion to agreements uber alles, IMO; just because the producers agreed to exclusivity (thus creating a monopoly for the WGA) does not make it a desirable capitalist outcome, any more than PC manufacturers agreeing to pay Microsoft for machines on which they didn’t install Windows was a desirable outcome. Capitalism ought to be about competition and choice, and in ensuring that anyone who wants to be a writer has to come through the WGA, the producers were arguably complicit in subverting these goals. As with any other organisation, if a union stops having to compete to attract members/customers, it will stop trying as hard to serve them.
This is not to say that the writers aren’t entirely justified in their current actions (to me that looks beyond dispute), but it’s not inconsistent to believe that they are right to engage in collective bargaining here, yet feel uncomfortable with the idea of a closed shop.
Because that’s who screenwriters would be negotiating with for a contract, whether individually or collectively.
So there’s no problem.
It’s not a philosophy. It’s part of a very practical, and negotiated, set of rules.
Rodriguez made his own free choices. He chose to put Miller’s name in the credits instead of working on the Mars movie. The guy is a rich film director who gets to choose exactly what he wants to do. He doesn’t need any sympathy.
The basic issue seems to be that you don’t believe in collective bargaining. Well, the screenwriters do believe in it, and given the history of employer-employee relationships in this country, they’re perfectly justified.
Anybody can call themselves a producer and work with anybody they want, whether they are in the guild or not. And the two of them can agree on whatever compensation they want. This is an agreement between two organizations, folks outside the organizations are free to work as they feel.
Elenfair, are you using this down time to “get ahead” on your scripts? Writing some now so that when you go back to work you won’t go directly back to the same 4-day turnaround demands?
Sure, and the writers already agreed to 4 cents per DVD sale, so they should quit their whining. Tell you what, I won’t *tu quoque * if you won’t.
No, what I object to is the idea that if you don’t join the guild, you’re prevented (to a large degree) from working, and individuals negotiating contracts aren’t encouraged (perhaps not even allowed). Who cares who agreed to it. It’s still objectionable from a capitalistic viewpoint.
I think you’re missing a part… they agreed to 4 cents per DVD sale, and that contract has now expired. It’s over. They realize that they gave up far too much in the last contract twenty years ago and decide that in their next contract, that will be remedied.
This strike didn’t happen now just because they felt like whining. It happened because their contract expired, and negotiations to improve their situation were fruitless. The only leverage they have is to refuse to work until they’re offered a contract that they’re satisfied with.
I think people are trying to make “capitalism” mean whatever good result they want.
I know that, I was addressing the tu quoque. I find it fascinating that the writers are frantically pointing fingers at other areas and saying “but that’s what theeeeeeey do” as if it justifies anything.
Dead Badger said everything I needed to say. The writers deserve to be compensated, whole-heartedly agreed. Screenwriting is difficult, whole-heartedly agreed. The last contract was a total clusterfuck for writers, whole-heartedly-agreed.
That doesn’t mean I think there **should ** be a contract, and that doesn’t mean that I **wouldn’t ** mind seeing the guild system collapse. I find the philosophy (and it is a philosophy) that I **have ** to be a member of a union or guild to work distasteful. As pointed out by myself and Gangster Octopus, people can be successful outside the system, so why have a system? Obviously, there are flaws with this “very practical, and negotiated, set of rules” or there wouldn’t be a strike.
That said, in no way do I want people to remain out of work, so I hope the strike is ended with all parties happy at the outcome. Mostly with the writers, who are definitely the underdog getting screwed here. Of course, I realize this means my entertainment is ultimately going to cost more, but oh well.
No, I reserve my anger not for the current situation itself, but rather the situation that put those involved into this mess. The irony of the negotiators for the writers having a lack of imagination all those years ago in the last contract doesn’t escape me…!
Funny you should mention that .
If the writers aren’t entitled to the residual value, then who is? The distributor that bought all the episodes when it looked like they were already bled dry? Why that guy?
For my two cents, I say let NOBODY get residuals off old episodes. Put them into the public domain, like the rules were when they were first made!
Over the years the distributors have bribed officials to extend copyright far beyond protecting the real creators, and now just pouring free money on the sharpies that bought final rights.
So what? Who cares what’s objectionable from a purely theoretical viewpoint?
And without the anti-capitalistic closed-shop collective-bargaining union system, you think their situation would improve? You talk about the principles of capitalism as if they are in and of themselves some kind of ideal outcome.