Welcome Huffington Post readers

Hi Craig. Just saw your piece on Huffington Post.

Just a point… … … your analysis is based on the wrong strike.

The strike in which home video was the core issue took place in 1985 and not 1988. The 1985 strike lasted two weeks and not six months.

I’ll leave interpetation to abler minds than mine.

The 1988 strike took place over another issue set.

Paul:

I write this to you from the Board Room of the WGAw, so you can come over right now and sock me in the face. :)

I do know that 1985 was the first residuals strike, but many folks have told me that 1988 was another attempt to get a better deal on resids.

If I’m wrong, then subtract three. :) And if you do wander over here, tell me if you think my perspective is off or not.

BTW, for those that don’t know, Paul is a long-time staffer at the guild. One of the few remaining bastions of institutional knowledge there.

Congrats on Huffpost, I saw it last night, I’m a big Huff fan …

As someone who was there for 1988 and nearby for 1985 (i.e., getting started, knew lots of members of WGA, heard it all), I’ll have to disagree with Paul on this - though I will agree with Craig that Paul pretty much knows what’s what. However, that said, the 1988 strike was very much about the residuals for home video, which by then people recognized as being far more important than they had in 1985. Pretty much, the way people are looking now at internet downloads is the way home video residuals were looked at in 1985, which was one reason why that strike was short, while 1988 was the way people will be looking at internet download sales in 2010 when they see what sort of money they’re talking about.

That said, at the time (1988), home video residuals were primarily an issue for those of us who wrote movies, as opposed to those who wrote TV (the wall between the two was much higher then than now). The movie writers were mostly willing to go along and take what the studios were offering. However, all those TV writers who dreamed of writing movies instead of TV (why I don’t know, the employment in TV was better than than movies are, just like now), and many of them - not being the types who understood (as did the movie writers) that nobody ever beats the @#$%$#@@! studios - they made a “federal case” out of the issue, and this internal struggle (what I referred to in a previous post about the 1988 strike) was the heart of the “internal stupidity” I mentioned there. It had a lot to do with the length of the strike. Had the issue been left up to those most likely to see money from the deal (the movie writers), there might not have been a strike, or certainly not a strike for as long as there was.

The other issue that prolonged the strike was the perception on the part of the writers that the studios were out to kill the union. Jeffrey Katzenberg’s comments back then had a lot to do with that (he was the one making the threat). Thus people ended up feeling that if they compromised, they’d look weak, with the end result that they’d get walked on. Of course, the strike went on, the union lost, we did look weak, and they’ve been walking on us in every demeaning way they can every day ever since.

But the strike was about home video residuals. The bitterness might be today over the money (or resolved itself as such) but for anyone who’s been around any length of time, the real bitterness is how the SOB’s walked all over the niggling little agreement they did finally agree to (like starting the wonderful practice of “free options” and “free development rewrites”) - to the detriment of every writer ever since - and how we had no power to enforce what little we had; that sort of thing definitely leads to bitterness, though those of us who actually know why people are bitter (because we remember when they didn’t do those things) are fewer and fewer in number every year.

I hope this raises the fog of memory high enough you can see down the street to the end of the block. :-)

As an aside, Craig, did you notice in the latest trailer for Grindhouse, there’s a shot where a car smashes through a street sign advertising Scary movie 4 (and Wolf Creek)

Care to comment?

I loved it. Grindhouse is a Dimension film, and apparently Quentin is a fan of the series, hence the name checks on us and Wolf Creek, another Dimension horror flick.

Not sure that’s a compliment, man. Quentin also thinks Psycho 2 is better than Psycho…..

Josh:

I don’t care.

Ah, Josh. Always there to piss on someone’s happiness.