A Widening Chasm, Part I
Two weeks ago, I terminated the services of my manager. Since I had been without an agent for a number of years, it was time to go out and get one…and I hit the shark-infested waters like a nice bucket of bloody chum.
This essay isn’t about whom I’m choosing or why. It’s about the gap between writers and businessmen in the way they perceive our business, its future, and what ought to be done about it.
Over the course of the last week, I met with fairly high-level agents and occasionally the highest-level agents at CAA, ICM, UTA, William Morris and Endeavor.
While each agency has its own personality and each group of agents is unique, the perspective that the agencies have about the future of the business is fairly uniform. It’s also shockingly different than the perspective of the average writer about the same topic…and it’s miles apart from current WGAw leadership’s point of view.
I’ll attempt to articulate the two viewpoints, and in doing so, I suspect you’ll begin to see just how far apart the two groups are.
The WGAw leadership views the business through the traditional lens of management and labor, i.e. management exploits labor, thus labor must form a collective to demand fair treatment from management. Furthermore, since there are only five or so conglomerates that form management but thousands of individual writers that form the bargaining collective, numbers are key. Current union leadership believes that if striking is the ultimate gun to management’s head, jurisdiction is the caliber of the bullet.
The WGAw theory is that the more writers they represent, the more powerful they are.
In terms of the future of the business, the union’s viewpoint is that no matter what the future brings, be it digital delivery or an all-reality TV world or developments yet unforeseen, labor must continue to be fairly compensated through minimums, pension and health care and residuals. If not, then it’s war! We will strike and cripple the industry! And above all, massing numbers and creating labor unity is essential because the studios have become global conglomerates.
They’ve increased their power, thinks the Patric Verrone acolyte, therefore we must increase our numbers.
While it’s hard to characterize the perspective of the rank and file of the WGAw, I think I’d be fairly safe in saying that it’s pretty close to this: writers want more job opportunities, want to be paid better for those job opportunities, want to be treated better by their employers and want to participate more in the exploitation of the properties to which they contribute authorship.
Got it? Okay, good. That’s one side of the chasm. Let’s walk across the bridge to the—
Wait. Can’t build a bridge that long.
Helicopter?
Not enough gas.
Let’s get into a 747 and head on over to the other side, shall we?
First off, remember that I’m talking about businessmen who advocate for writers, directors, actors and filmmakers. If the other side were the companies, then their perspective would be an obvious set of antipodes to the writers’ views. We ought to be paid less and get no residuals, because that’s what their shareholders tell them to think.
The advocates are far different. In fact, the advocate businessmen seem more pro-writer than most writers or their union.
Well…scratch that. More pro-good-writer.
They don’t view anything through the prism of labor vs. management, a dichotomy that’s always been questionable in an industry like ours. Instead, they look at the business as swirling circles of financial interest.
And they see changes.
They see studios drastically cutting development budgets and even more drastically reducing output of self-generated films (for instance, Disney and its affiliates put out more than a movie a week in the early 90’s, but they’re now planning to make maybe eight total for 2008). They see massive layoffs of creative executives who used to be charged with sheparding film development. They see fewer and fewer “open” writing assignments, and more and more films being birthed by creative nuclei (writers and directors and producers and actors).
Most interestly, they look at the globalization and corporatization of the studios as an opportunity for artists, because to a one, the corporations that comprise Big Hollywood are more risk-averse today than ever before in their entire history.
The businessmen advocates don’t really care about strikes. To them (and probably to the companies), strikes are short blips on a long-term radar. The WGAw and many writers are looking at Hollywood as employers they have to fight, and the businessmen advocates are looking at Hollywood as a business in trouble that they can exploit.
And how?
Since the first schmuck with an Underwood typed “Fade In”, writers have believed that they contributed the thing of most value. By value, some might argue creative value, but I’ll demur on that for the sake of this argument, and stipulate instead that writers contribute the thing of greatest economic potential.
Sorry. I did it again. Good writers contribute the thing of greatest economic potential. Put a good writer together with a good director, and you have the two people who contribute the lion’s share of what constitutes economic potential. Throw an actor on there, and you’ve got 99% of the economic potential.
Take that fact, add two cups of studio fear and mix in a quart of modern economic realities…and you get the thing artists in Hollywood have been clamoring for since The Great Train Robbery.
Ownership.
More to come….
Craig:
This subject is near and dear to my heart because I operate outside of Hollywood (New York), and birthing “creative nuclei” is what it’s all about.
I too agree that the studio model is changing. This is mainly because the distribution model has changed so drastically. As an agent, I’ve always consuled my clients that what they should be striving for, more than anything, was choices. As a Director, Writer, and Producer, I love the fact that I don’t have to “sell” anything to a studio or be beholden to other factors other than the project I’m currently working on. As of now, independent productions have an amazing ROI and with the advent of digital media that doesn’t look like shit, professional productions are gonna ramp up in the next couple of years where it truly will be like the 80’s and 90’s.
By the way, once I heard that Peter flew the coop, I knew you’d have to part ways.
Don’t stop now - it’s just getting interesting!
I hold the dream of someday being a professional writer.
Seriously though, why can’t the companies that are running away from risk see that their strategy of hanging their economic hopes on a few films a year (the really expensive ones) is extremely risky. And what does “They see fewer and fewer “open” writing assignments, and more and more films being birthed by creative nuclei (writers and directors and producers and actors)” mean? Does this mean that it will be even more difficult for new writers to break in? That studios will only buy from people that have already sold? Or that more content will be created by writers/directors/producers/actors, and less conceived by “Executives”? Or both? And are there really fewer creative opportunities than there used to be? Or are those opportunities no longer at the major studios, but spread around their subsidiaries?Stop scaring me.
If Disney is making fewer movies, are Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax, Buena Vista, and Pizar making more?
If studios are making less original product, where are they going to get it from? Don’t tell me YouTube is that important. And yes, continue with this line of talk. Quickly.
And what does ?They see fewer and fewer ?open? writing assignments, and more and more films being birthed by creative nuclei (writers and directors and producers and actors)? mean?
I think it means that the “But what I really want to do is direct” line will become “But what I really have to do is direct, in order to make it as an ‘auteur’, or at least be friends with a director so we can make a movie together, ‘cos the studio isn’t going to hire some schmuck with a laptop to write movies for them anymore”
That’s how I interpreted it anyway.
A new age is coming, my friends. A new Reneissance, in which a few good men - men with skills in more than one branch of the art will prosper, while those of limited practice, such as writers or directors, will slowly fade out.
And as an actor/writer/director (who is actually making a movie. Ferreal this time) I see myself on the head of the new revolution, proudly holding the flag of…
…um, sorry, I got a bit carried away. Ad I’m late for my Party meating anyways.
Stay well, comrades.
But has the line between writer and everything else been all the clear? Hasn’t the path to becoming a director or producer always started at writer? Isn’t a script the key to opening any creative door?
Or are you saying that there is no longer a door at all? And we have to build one ourselves?
Yes, here in the UK we’re just wising up to that fact. Membership of the Writers’ Guild here is much lower than in the US, the very idea that we could go on strike makes me chuckle. But we’re about to renegotiate our core contracts with the BBC, and they’ve been laying the ground for us to look at the hard truths that confront us. We, in turn, are planning to sell it to our members as an opportunity rather than a crisis. Fact is, in the time it takes you, and me, and every other genius writer to sell our idea, develop it, get it made, and finally shown, a million idiots armed with just a camera and a computer will have posted their own masterpieces on the net, for the world to see. Instantly. Most of it will be dross, but some of it will be so good those big companies will want a slice. So the only thing I disagree with in your excellent article is this - the corporations are not slashing their development budgets, they’re going to divert them all to the next best thing to come out of You Tube. This isn’t the end of the world as we know it, because we’ve all been around long enough to know these things go round in cycles - but as writers we have to be aware that the written word is no longer enough to keep us afloat. Yes it’s scary - but it also reminds me of when I was a teenager in the late 1970s, when punk rock came along. The message was: you don’t have to have money to succeed, any kid can pick up a guitar and become a rock star. Just because I’m now bald and deaf with three small kids and one big mortgage doesn’t mean I can’t share in that excitement.
Craig:
Yes, there are fewer studio features getting made. But where I think the “total numbers” argument means something is in television, which requires a huge numbers of writers — whether they’re called “writers” or not.
Disney can scale back to eight movies a year, but they’re still making thousands of hours of television. They don’t need David Mamet writing for the Rachel Ray show. But they need someone. A lot of someones.
Okay, so the usual thanks for talking about important stuff, even if you did stop mid-stream…
On a more personal level, I have to thank you for clarifying what my next writing project will be. I’m taking away the idea of branding myself (not the painful hot iron kinda branding) and putting myself in a position of power. We’ll see where it leads me.
Muchas gracias, Suz
John:
While television requires many many someones, not all someones are created equal.
For instance, let’s run a gedanken experiment, in which the only bad thing that happens to the WGA in the next year is that Dick Wolf decides to resign from the union, takes all of his shows non-union, and pressures all of his employees to follow suit, at no effective cost to them.
That would be very, very bad.
Of course, one could argue that this kind of hypothetical is mere Cassandraism, but then again..
http://wolfstories2.tripod.com/id83.htm
Read down for his views on a strike (which roughly mirror mine).
In television, unlike features, the key writers are the writer/employers, who operate in circles far closer to management than anyone is comfortable to admit.
The simplest rebuttal of the “more bodies equals more power” theory is the WGA strike of 1988. It was the longest strike in our union’s history. It came at a time when we had nearly total jurisdiction over the ENTIRE primetime television schedule.
And we lost.
But this is a bit afield of my actual point…which is yet to come.
That’s an interesting article, a sinister one but an interesting one nonetheless. I was wondering Craig if you could add a muse on the implications of the current trend on new screenwriters trying to break into the industry.
If the implications are weakening an already seemingly futile attempt to make the break; do you have any thoughts on what the screenwriter, both professional and amateur, will have to do to acclimatise to this new economy? What does the future hold for the craft?
The only revision I would make to your statements thus far is that it is a misnomer to say, “good writers.” I think the more appropriate term would be “branded writers” or “writers who deliver a specific audience every time.”
I love when you blog this stuff. I really do eat this stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now going to read part 2…
Has anybody heard of independent movies? And What with all this Mel Gibson post-apocalyptic, Hollywood writers are a dying cohort, better get on YouTube so you can become a basic schematic that will soon become mundane and predictable?
A story is a story. It could be great and it could be bad. Which one you write decides your future, not some internet prophet or half-baked, psuedo-trend analyzing intuitive.
It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow someone some good. I guess now I know what that smell is.
This column makes me sad and a bit angry. As an actor phasing into my writing career (even though I am a lifetime writer in many formats), I have always told others: “Diversification is the key to longevity in this business.” For me, writing was diversifying.
But I’ve come to love JUST writing. The solitary psychosis and the collaborative conformity. It’s the one thing that drives me to the computer when I come back from my 7-to-5 pushing paper at a bank. It drives me more than acting ever did.
That, and my psychological need to have a full shopping cart at Whole Foods for once in my life.
Since I’m just getting started, this change in the cinematic landscape pushes my timetable up a whole lot. The joke is: I finally found the right club, only to be told they’re setting up for a private party I can’t seem to get into.
Well… guess there’s always catering.
BTW - since we have one Sammy already— name change!
Sorry for any confusion.
Sterc