WGA Members: Your Chance To Be Heard On Credits
For as long as I’ve been a Guild member, our credit policies have been the single largest nexus of discontent among our membership.
Many years ago, the Guild won the right to determine the writing credits on films, and since that time, the policies have been debated and massaged like the U.S. Tax Code.
And still, no one seems very happy. Just like the U.S. Tax Code.
There are two main areas of credits policy. The first is the Great Quagmire—our credits guidelines. These guidelines are the rules by which our member arbiters determine who ought to get credit. Any changes in those rules must be ratified by the membership.
The second area is the administrative, or procedural aspect of credits. How are participants notified? How does Guild staff interact with them? What are the qualifications for arbiters? How do appeals work? Should arbiters work together or separately?
At Monday night’s Board Meeting, we created a new subcommittee of the Board that would only work to make recommendations about the administration of credits. We can’t touch the guidelines at all. If a recommendation requires membership approval, we’re not allowed to make it.
The committee is co-chaired by Ted Elliott and me, and it also includes Robert King, J.F. Lawton, Aaron Mendelsohn and Irma Kalish. That gives the committee a nice mix of first-writer advocates and subsequent-writer advocates. Better yet, those divisions are essentially irrelevant to a committee like this.
Our mandate is improve the process of credit arbitration in the hopes of reducing the level of emotional trauma that seems to go hand in hand with credits determination.
If you’re a WGA member, go ahead and use the comments function to suggest any ideas. Remember, we can’t touch the credits guidelines themselves. Stay tuned; I’ll have more updates on opportunities for you to be heard on this issue. Member input is crucial to this committee.
Hi, Craig. Always enjoyed your posts on WA and just found this site… well done. Two thoughts:
1) Regarding notification, is there any way the guild can attempt to contact writers via phone or email to let them know that the notice of credits has come in? Friends of mine (actual friends, not me) went through a nightmare situation where a temp at their agency received the notice and proceeded to get rid of it without telling anybody. By the time they caught on, weeks had passed, the guild wouldn’t/couldn’t reopen the case— and they got no chance to arbitrate. I’m sure this is incredibly rare, but could the WGA allow writers with upcoming credit determinations to register for an email notification, for example?
2) Are you empowered to investigate/reform the appeals process? I think a meaningful review of disputed results is critical to people’s confidence in the system. It doesn’t seem that we have that today… or am I wrong?
Thanks, Craig. Glad you’re out there. Phil
Phil:
The notice of credits comes directly from the studio. As such, we’d have to negotiate with the studios to tell US (the WGA) when they’ve sent you the notice…unless they cc: the notice to the WGA.
If they cc’ed it, we could certainly follow up with a phone call. Good suggestion.
We are empowered to examine and reform the appeals process to some extent. I couldn’t agree with your comments more. In our first meeting, I stated that our membership had lost faith in our jury system, and it was this, more than anything else, that was killing us.
Invigorating the appeals process will help restore faith. Absolutely!
Craig, just in case you haven’t checked, the thread Ted posted along this same line is now very active at WriterAction.
Click here.
Oooh, the click-through HTML links work here.
This site is terrific. I am unfortunately in the exact same predicament as the aforementioned letter regarding the person who lost out on a credit because some minimun waged temp smoked a bowl while taking food out of my kids mouth. I not only had two movies shooting at the same time but both Notice of Tentative Writing Credits somehow failed to make into my hands. Luckily, one of the credits worked in my favor and the other is going to make my lawyer work for his 5 percent to correct. Perhaps I need to smoke a bowl now. At the end of the day when a writer’s livihood is based on produced credits, and not all the expensive paper weights littering executives offices across town, there is something wrong with the system.
Stay Gold Pony!
Keith:
Glad you’re digging it. I’m glad that you’re pursuing that situation with the missed NTWC. Please let me know if that ever happens again. It’s a very very very bad thing.
I am a recent high school graduate starting college in the fall. And I began reading your blogs a few weeks ago. I started from the beginning because I figured this way I will learn more. Thanks for the opportunity.
I am a recent high school graduate starting college in the fall. And I began reading your blogs a few weeks ago. I started from the beginning because I figured this way I will learn more. Thanks for the opportunity.