On The Verge...

Question is, how much will Verrone and Young settle for? I expect they’d be thrilled with a penny on the dollar for internet. A half penny on DVD would seal the deal for sure.

What if Counter lowballs? Will V & Y go for a half penny rate across the board?

All that said, I really hope this thing is settled by this time Monday. (Sometimes, turkeys really can fly.)

People hate uncertainty and people have a neurobiological compulsion to find an orderly pattern in chaos. That’s one reason rumors can spontaneously generate in a situation like this.

Do you know what’s mightier than a quill and ink well? A sword and blood.

So, in the redesign I would like to see some swords and some blood and some rendering of knights and maidens and the like.

Good move going over to WordPress.

Too bad about the quill. I liked it.

Somewhere, Shroedinger’s Cat is purring.

…while simultaneously grinning a stiff little death rictus, of course.

But here’s hoping it’s the purring we’ll hear when they finally crack open the box…

I understand your position with regards to scabbing, but I was curious as to what your advice would be to aspiring writers who want keep in line with the guild.

Should we stop writing even though nothing we write is being paid for? Or is it fine for us to keep writing but wait until the strike is over before trying to sell?

Luckily I’m not even close to being in such a position, but I’m sure there must be many people who are.

Schrodinger’s cat?!? And I was called out for a pithy Derrida reference.

If Counter and Verrone hug in a forest and no one is there to record it on their iphone and post it on Youtube - did it really happen?

Josh “OIson” isn’t Olson, but O-capital-i-son.

Which is cute.

But also lame.

The entire point of the registration was to avoid ID spoofing, but an additional bonus of registration is that it allows me to ban people.

Fake Olson is banned.

If you spoof someone else’s ID, I’ll ban that ID. In an age where everyone has fourteen million different email addresses from which to choose, it’s not the end of the world. Find a better ID and come back.

‘Curiouser and curiouser’, said Alice.

New poster, non-Guild, not scabbing. When I check on the main page, it says the “Have you emailed me?” blog post has 116 comments, but then when I actually view the comments, only 3 are showing. That leaves 113 comments floating about in the ether, most of which were people picking fights over whether the rally turnout was good. Perhaps they all got nuked as un-Thanksgiving-ish.

There were some other items in that thread, though, including a question of mine I was curious to have answered. Maybe it belongs more in this post anyway, as it bears on what the Guild should be looking for out of these negotiations.

It’s simply (or not so simply) this: if the contract a writer signs with a studio gives that studio universal rights to any and all products and spinoffs of the writer’s work covered by that contract, then why aren’t the writer’s residuals universal as well? That is to say, why should we be having to negotiate specific rates for different channels of distribution (and dropping the ball on them, as with the DVD rate)?

It seems to me there should be a standard residual rate formula that covers any and all existing and new distribution mechanisms, including channels developed after the contract is signed. By the time the media conglomerates are beaming content directly into cybernetic implants along our optic nerve, we’ll have just managed to negotiate an internet downloading rate…

Other than the obvious profit disincentive for studios trying to pay out as little as possible, wouldn’t this be a much more fair and straightforward construct?

DA Emerson said:

It seems to me there should be a standard residual rate formula that covers any and all existing and new distribution mechanisms, including channels developed after the contract is signed. By the time the media conglomerates are beaming content directly into cybernetic implants along our optic nerve, we’ll have just managed to negotiate an internet downloading rate…

Just curious — how does the 1991 Peggy Lee precedent apply?

From Entertainment Weekly:

I’m surprised I feel as good as I do,” says Peggy Lee, splashing around in the swimming pool of her Los Angeles home. ”I guess when you’re a winner you feel good.” The 70-year-old chanteuse has every reason to feel cheerful. She has suddenly become a heroine among Hollywood’s old guard, the only victory symbol thus far for yesterday’s stars as they confront today’s mammoth home video industry. In Los Angeles County Superior Court last month, Lee, who suffers from a weak heart and diabetes and uses a wheelchair most of the time, emerged with a $3.83 million award in her lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company. Lee charged that the entertainment giant had violated her contract by releasing Lady and the Tramp on videocassette in 1987 without her permission. The singer had created four character voices in the 1955 animated classic and cowritten six of its songs. Her contract, signed in 1952, paid her only $3,500 but gave her the right to approve (and profit from) ”transcriptions for sale to the public.” According to the court, that includes videocassettes, an invention neither Disney nor Lee ever dreamed would exist. Lee’s case opened an ancient wound in Hollywood, where older performers have routinely been victimized. ”Nobody saw (video) coming and the studios took advantage,” snaps Celeste Holm (All About Eve). It wasn’t until 1971 that the Screen Actors Guild demanded-and got-residuals from movies used in ”supplemental” markets, which would later include videocassette. But the decision has also pumped new life into the town. Stars are dusting off decades-old contracts, hoping to find clauses that will allow them to share video’s $10-billion-a-year revenues.

DA Emerson:

I see all the comments.

Anyone else having this problem?

Leif Smart said:

Should we stop writing even though nothing we write is being paid for? Or is it fine for us to keep writing but wait until the strike is over before trying to sell?

The WGA will take a dim view of any non-member who worked for or solicited employment with (including trying to sell work written on spec) struck companies, the signatories to the WGA collective bargaining agreement.

Writing spec work on your own isn’t working for a struck company. Attempting to sell it to a signatory company during a strike is, or is the equivalent, because your spec work would substitute for work that’s being struck.

Working for a non-signatory company is not under the WGA’s jurisdiction. (Just keep your fingers crossed that the non-signatory company doesn’t engage in a deal with a signatory company regarding your project during the strike….)

As always, I am open to correction by those with more expertise.

I would just like to add my response to a comment in the previous posting in regards to the Zucker grudge.

Think of the process this way: your financiers are akin to your parents, which means they are children. You, the writers, are akin to their children; which means you are parents. Parents can and will act like infantile destructive children when they want, how they want, and why they want. You, however, are supposed to be responsible beings, more so than your parents. Thus, you need to do the responsible and right process and negotiate your deal immediately without continued childish behavior responding to childish behavior. The moguls in this dispute will not act or become responsible at all; you, the writers, have a duty to be responsible and productively calm.

In addition, the shareholders and heads of GE will and are thrilled and pleased with Jeff Zucker’s grudges. Remember what I wrote about the Cartmanland approach: it apparently works, giving the moguls leverage in greater news and sports, and increasing profits. You see, they can and will be children; you, however, have no measures to do such things for fear of calling upon one’s crap. And yes, it will occur that by January, if not sooner, American Gladiators will be on five nights a week for all eternity. The docile public love that malarkey, and will continue to demand the junk.

Something to ponder out loud while you restart negotiations today. Do the right thing and take responsibility, else your childish parents will expand their childish behavior. It is not a pretty sight, let me tell you. Do well today and in the future.

In hope for peace,

Lax24

Lax24 said: Something to ponder out loud while you restart negotiations today.

Don’t you mean the AMPTP restarts negotiations?

Lax24

Are you saying?

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1321252252/bctid1321238320

stuiec:

Caught your plea on last thread (although my original well wishing for Thanksgiving to all seems deleted).

Any stuffing will do, but sadly had none this year. Nor any cranberry come to think of it. But it was a big affair with about 30 people. Tons of other good food.

How was yours?

DA Emerson,

“Universal rights to any and all products and spinoffs of the writer’s work” isn’t really the state of things at the moment — in fact, one of the ugly features of the AMPTP’s big “Rollback Fiesta” proposal was an attempt to replace the current arrangements regarding separated rights in written material into something much more like what you’re describing. We very specifically didn’t want that.

And although the concept of “universal residuals” is nice in principle (and I’m entirely in agreement with it, in principle — our work should never be used without payment, period), the devil is and always will be in the details where any given medium or distribution machanism is concerned. Writers should get a cut of the money — absolutely — but what do we mean by “the money”? Distributor’s gross, producer’s gross, net profits (ha ha), licensing revenues, advertising revenues…? All the questions we’re negotiating and striking over today will come up in every new medium, and someone will always try to claim that our cut (assuming they even concede that we’re owed a cut in the first place) should be calculated based on whichever of those numbers they expect to be most advantageous to them and least financially rewarding to us. (Now try to extrapolate all that to cover future, as-yet-not-invented media whose revenues may come in forms that no one’s even conceived of yet, and it’s safe to say we’ll be having these arguments more or less forever.)

To echo something Ted posts about here a lot, our real disadvantage relative to, say, book authors is that we don’t retain ownership of our copyrights, and therefore we always have to approximate the rights of authorship after the fact, via contracts (the MBA plus whatever better concessions we’re able to negotiate individually in a given deal). This puts us on an inherently bad footing whenever a new, previously-unimagined distribution channel arises, because the studios/legal copyright holders can always claim (accurately, albeit shitheadedly) that the contract we signed with them didn’t grant us any right to get paid for the reuse of our work in that new medium — by definition, since that medium didn’t exist at the time.

You can’t really pull that kind of shit with a book author because, as the copyright holder, s/he has to specifically grant you the right to [sell / republish / adapt / whatever] the book in a new medium before you can legally do so — which means they get to strike their deals after the parameters of the new medium are (at least generally) known and understood. Whereas in our case, with the studios as legal copyright holder, the creators of previously-existing work almost always get screwed out of any payments whatsoever when a new medium in which to exploit their work arises: old movies rebroadcast on TV or sold on VHS/DVD (let alone on the internet), “classic” TV shows sold into syndication, etcetera, etcetera. The people in those cases are being paid nothing to this day. Not having any recognized authorial rights inherently dooms us to fight defensive, after-the-fact battles, in which we may win rights for the creators of current and future works, but the creators of earlier works frequently get left behind.

…On which note, the Peggy Lee case that stuiec brings up, like the case of Alan Spencer with the Sledge Hammer DVDs, doesn’t really seem like a “precedent” in any meaningful sense. Lee and Spencer were both lucky enough (or smart enough…but mostly lucky, I suspect) to have added some non-standard language to their contracts with an eye toward re-use of their work in an existing, thoroughly unprofitable medium (“transcriptions” in her case, “discs” in his), which the courts later held to also apply to a much more lucrative medium that hadn’t existed at the time. They’re heartening individual victories as far as they go, but in a broader sense, they mainly serve to illustrate just how much money everybody else lost out on when those later media came along and they didn’t have any intrinsic authorial rights to guarantee them similar benefits. These stories are notable and newsworthy because they’re isolated and abnormal, and that’s the real shame, in my opinion.

And I’d note that all this provides yet another answer to that whiny, oft-repeated, vaguely accusatory question, “Why are you guys striking over internet rights now, when it’s not even a viable business yet?”

(Sorry for such a long-winded response, but long-windedness seems to be the nature of the beast where these issues are concerned…)

Brian, impeccable timing! Like the HAL 9000, I could feel my sanity slipping away….

We had a relatively small gathering at my mom’s place - my wife, my kids and myself accounted for half the crowd. One kind of stuffing — plain bread — and three kinds of cranberries. Way too much food, but it was so good! My wife says next year we have to do it at our place so that more of the family can come.

Come on, Craig. You know the Santana situation. Your beloved Yankees will end up with him in a year. No team is going to be dumb enough to trade away prospects now so they can keep him for a year then watch Steinfuhrer buy him up. I’m guessing he’ll stay with Minn another year then head to the millionaire mercenery’s club.

You just had to use the analogy to rub it in a little, eh?

I liked the magic cake analogy better ;)

Then I’d start looking for a man called Dave.

My fam is on the other side of the country, so it was just a gathering of friends. There was the husband and wife hosts competing over who’s food was best. A spontaneous singing of Santa Lucia by an opera singer (where we accidently clapped too early in the song). Tango lessons in the courtyard by a man with a good eye for the ladies and succeeding (but was sadly not I). And plenty of discourse over what will happen with the strike (it still being Hollywood).

As far as Santana goes, he probably won’t move til the middle of the season at trade deadline. If Twins are in it, they’ll keep him. If out, they’ll move him. But jghoward is right, the deal will have to include an extension to get made. On a side note, love how the Yankees have spent $400 million dollars and haven’t addressed a single need yet.

I loves me some Mike Lowell. :)

Now that Torii Hunter’s gone, maybe the Twins will be interested in Coco Crisp for Santana.

(Hey, ya never know…)

Naw, not straight up. But maybe for Pat Neshek and another reliever.

Brian, the irony is that my late father’s name was Dave. Maybe that’s the problem….

since we’re doing sports analogies…

Over on another site, a fellow writer is losing his composure because he heard a less-than-auspicious rumor about today’s progress.

This made me think of how the kind of negotiation situation today, for the WGA & co., is very much like a football game (a very strategic game) with the WGA serving as the quarterback in the pocket.

A quarterback in the pocket appears exceedingly vulnerable — but a quarterback who can keep his focus, makes time work for him. While the crowd is screaming “throw!” and the coach is sweating bullets, the quarterback stays cool and dances till he finds the right opening.

stay cool. a delay is not the same as a setback.

Yessssss, pluck the quill! Pluck it, and burn it!!

Can someone explain what happened today?

I brought donuts to the main gate at Paramount and offered to walk the line. Was there for an hour and half, fully prepared to stay til 4 or 4:30. Suddenly, 3pm comes round and everyone packed up and left. Was there some kinda rally I missed out on hearing about? Went to Raleigh and Sunset/Gower and found no one there either.

I’m confused.

Brian, ya gotta check the schedule at http://www.wga.org/subpage_member.aspx?id=2536

They’ve mixed things up a bit.

Keaton:

Uh, what other site? What less than auspicious rumor?

Keaton,

Please point us to other site…

Muchly appreciated.

Craig,

Nikki’s already caught some heat for publishing that rumor. There are many people on the line whose response to the story was to wonder why they should bother coming out if there’s already a deal in place. If it’s true, great, but it still undercuts people’s resolve to picket. If it’s false, then it does more damage.

I see you posted the story before her. I wonder if you’re one of her sources.

Why are you so driven to keep posting “insider” rumors? Your track record’s bad, and you’ve been called on the fact that sometimes they damage what we’re doing. Why don’t you stick to commenting, and resist the urge to make yourself part of the story?

Also, I asked this earlier, and got no response: Is Ted on the line every day? If not, why not?

Clifford:

Thanks. Would’ve thought it important to keep the show of resolve up regardless of negotiations, but okay.

Dan Z,

Craig and Nikki do no harm by spreading a rumor. It’s the idiots that believe it as fact you have to worry about. And if this rumor quashes the strike, well, then we ain’t cut out to strike.

Dan Z:

I don’t know if Ted is on the line every day, although I can easily answer the “why not?” in a general sense….the Guild asks members to serve…lessee…I think it’s 12 hours a week now.

So if you do three four hour shifts…you don’t need to be on the line five days a week.

On Nikke Finke:

I’ve never spoken to Ms. Finke, nor have I had any dealings with her of any kind.

On Dan Z:

You seem a little preoccupied with the moral fitness of other people.

Dan Z - Chill out. Good gracious.

Like everything else on the internet, it’s buyer beware.

Plus, just because you give a certain level of importance to a blog post, doesn’t mean everyone is like you. In fact, most people don’t even read Finke or Mazin (sorry to equate you two, Craig). Even most writers or AMPTP stooges. Like Cliff said…if writers saw her post and acted on it, sheesh…you got bigger issues.

So…take everything with a grain of salt and let’s just hope she’s right (and Craig).

Stooge

Guess it was SML, not Cliff. Sorry.

Stooge

First of all, the Jonathan Handel post is superb. It breaks down the demands, consequences, and costs of any new writers deal into simple math. Thanks for linking to it.

As a supporter of the WGA, but not yet a member (Script Coordinator on several TV shows) I have to admit that I searched for a way for a studio to pay me to do work on a script, which I would then do badly. That would have taken money from said studios and given that money to me, while reinforcing that WGA writers are more skilled than others. I just couldn’t figure out how to do it without being known as an incompetent and a scab. Not the ideal reputation.

Support the strike, don’t break it.

LAX24, dude, parent/child, child/parent? Have you mistaken this blog for your 12-step group?

If that was supposed to be an answer to my thanking you for informing all of us, GE and GE investors about Zucker’s precarious mental state…

You might want to try again. Maybe hire a writer to help you out. Oh, wait, all the writers are on strike…

Jabborwocky, indeed.

I don’t mean to sound like a crank, because the Handel article really is quite useful, and it’s great to actually see someone wrestle with the numbers behind the sloganeering. But as far as I can tell, he’s assuming some kind of steady growth rate for prime-time broadcast revenues even as new media advertising takes off, whereas even this year, the network ad market already seems to be shrinking in terms of gross, and the consensus among the media buyers I know (well, there are only two of them, so I can’t really call it a consensus) is that at some point, there’s going to be a ‘tipping point’ when the online ad market cuts into broadcast and causes it to tank. So I’d guess the AMPTP financials are assuming (correctly, perhaps) an offset which Handel isn’t.

Which is another way of saying that the paragraph in his post about negative costs and how much needs to be apportioned to the DVD market, also needs to be thought about, big-time, in the streaming / downloaded TV market. And I think that might have a pretty big impact on the growth he’s projecting.

wordsmith: let me rephrase it for you in layman’s terms…

It sounds funny, I know, But it really is so, Oh, I’m my own grandpa.

I’m my own grandpa. I’m my own grandpa. It sounds funny, I know, But it really is so, Oh, I’m my own grandpa.

Now many, many years ago, when I was twenty-three, I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be. This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red. My father fell in love with her, and soon they, too, were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life, My daughter was my mother, cause she was my father’s wife. To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy, I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad, And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad. For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother Of the widow’s grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my stepmother.

Father’s wife then had a son who kept him on the run, And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter’s son. My wife is now my mother’s mother, and it makes me blue, Because, although she is my wife, she’s my grandmother, too.

Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I’m her grandchild, And everytime I think of it, it nearly drives me wild, For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa!

I’m my own grandpa. I’m my own grandpa. It sounds funny, I know, but it really is so, Oh, I’m my own grandpa.

I leave it to you to determine if the singer is Patric Verrone or Nick Counter.

StuieC,

“Creativity is great, but plagiarism is faster.”

From Unknown source.

I tend to think that the AMPTP and WGA won’t come to an agreement anytime soon. Why? If they wanted to find the magic number it would’ve happened before the strike…

Now?

It’s still a test of wills.

As a non-guild writer (and one with no reasonable expectation of joining the WGA in the foreseeable future), I’ve been on the picket line everyday since day one.

Why?

Simple, really. I didn’t like the tactics of the AMPTP via their mouthpiece, Nick Counter. Their arrogance and greed is simply astonishing given the enormous revenue the AMPTP takes in any calendar year. To be un-willing to share that revenue with the people who create the scripts for TV and movies offends me. To deny that the AMPTP can’t make money from internet downloads and other unknown future media sources is insulting to the intelligence of any rational person.

I’m not willing to say that these talks will lead to a relatively quick end to the strike. In light of the AMPTP’s arrogance it’s not likely they’ll be willing to admit that they’ve lost the argument. Moreover, while the tide is against the AMPTP now, it still hasn’t washed up far enough on the shore to take away their house. In other words it hasn’t hurt enough yet. But it will soon enough, maybe as soon as the “new” TV episodes run out, say late December, early January. By then the pain will deepen and then the AMPTP will come to its collective senses and offer a reasonable settlement to the WGA…

Maybe I’m wrong though. Maybe the AMPTP will realize their stupidity and say to themselves, “Economically giving up a tiny percentage of income won’t really hurt our bottom line, we’ll make it up somewhere else. Let’s settle this and get back to the business of making TV and movies.” And the WGA wins - as they should.

But until that day happens, this non-WGA writer will be out there on the picket line everyday with all the other hero writers reminding the AMPTP just how penny wise and pound foolish they’re being and showing how WGA solidarity actually means something.

Craig,

“So if you do three four hour shifts…you don’t need to be on the line five days a week.”

Zoinks!

If I were Ted, I’d ask you not to defend me. Of all the ways you could have answered the dude’s question (including ignoring it, cos who gives a fuck, anyway?), you chose the one that sounds like a prevarication.

There ARE no picket lines on Fridays, as a rule, Craig. We march four days a week, Fridays are reserved for rallies. When someone says they’re out on the line every day, it means they’re putting in their four. You’d know that if… you know…

Hey, how WAS that first day?

“On Dan Z:

You seem a little preoccupied with the moral fitness of other people.”

I really wish you’d print a rule book. When you attack people, it’s fair criticism, but when someone points it back at you, they’re overly concerned with the moral fitness of other people?

How about if you just care about this strike succeeding, and think people who seem to be working against that are worthy of criticism?

I can only speak for myself here, but my attitude is thus: I do not care that you are morally unfit. I care only that that moral unfitness-itude is being applied against the interests of myself and my fellow writers. Is that acceptible?

Dan Z,

You go, girl.

Still shooting, Josh. One more day to go.

Craig,

“Still shooting, Josh.”

Blanks. No fertile mind is getting pregnant from Josh’s ejaculations.

Sorry, Joshie, but Craig is right.

I’m a strike captain, and I’ve been told that if members do three four hour shifts they needn’t worry about attending Friday rallies. Some members miss a whole week and then make it up the following week.

A rally, a picket…it’s all the same as far as guild service is concerned. And we all put in the hours we can. Craig will too as soon as he’s wrapped.

I wish Josh could stop being such a hater. It’s not helping the cause.

As for Ted, I’ve seen him walking the lines at Sony quite often.

Sore Feet said:

I wish Josh could stop being such a hater. It’s not helping the cause.

Wait, wait, hold on a second — are you saying that Josh’s inordinate attention to Craig’s pecadilloes is actually working against this strike succeeding? Even if it only seems to be, that might make Josh a target for criticism by… Josh… no wait, that can’t be right… Norman, please coordinate!

Also, I asked this earlier, and got no response: Is Ted on the line every day?

When I’ve been in town, yes.

If not, why not?

Gee, has the Guild appointed you Grand Inquisitor? Or are you freelancing?

• Ted

Sorry - to clarify: I should have written, “what he perceives as Craig’s peccadiloes”.

Sore Feet,

“Sorry, Joshie, but Craig is right.”

Sorry, Sorey. I didn’t say he was wrong. Read the post again.

And while I don’t share Dan’s fascination with who marches and who doesn’t (If you can and you don’t, you’re a dickhead, and that’s about it), I do share his disdain for a Guild member who posts rumors about the negotiations during a press blackout.

It’s one thing to harp on the strike leaders during a strike, it’s another altogether to decide for yourself that you can act against their strategy.

Josh,

The blackout is for people actually involved in the negotiations. It is also for discussing all things strike related, so apparently you just broke your own rule.

And your implication was that he was wrong and you flat out said he was creating a minor difference to evade the truth (do YOU know what prevarication means? I sure as hell didn’t). So I guess you saying that you didn’t say he was “wrong” was a prevarication on your part.

Rant, rant, rant…mad, mad, mad. How will you go back to normal when this is all resolved?

Stooge

Clifford,

I obviously agree with your reading of Handel’s article. I think the most important point of it was: 1) attaching some numbers so we get it, even if many of the assumptions are wrong; 2) since we all understand that the WGA wants more and wanting more isn’t evil, it’s good to understand that the AMPTP isn’t evil either and they do face real difficulties.

For my part, I think to assume that every studio can just caugh up $30m a year is just as poor of some of the other assumptions he made. More to the point, for a studio to find that money (and it’s finding since they don’t have new revenue streams coming in that are IN ADDITION to the current ones…the new streams all canibalize the old ones, etc.) they will have to make cuts. Cuts mean less development, which means less script deals which means less money UP FRONT for writers. This is damn complex.

So for me…the point isn’t whether his math is great or his assumptions are perfect, but about understanding that this is not as simple as people would like to portray it and that the AMPTP aren’t just greedy pigs.

Stooge

Josh,

I’m confused. You’re harping on Craig because he’s posting rumours during a press blackout, but you’ve already stated numerous times that Craig is not the insider he makes himself out to be and his site isn’t influential at all. My confusion is over why it seems to matter so much WHAT Craig posts if he’s so out of the loop and everyone knows he is? It’s not as if he’s printing any inside information. Craig could post rumours that Counter and Verrone are carrying on an illicit affair during the negotiations, which is why they want to drag it out so long. If it was a rumour that everyone was talking about, posting it on the internet as a rumour he heard isn’t exactly breaking news.

I’m going to eat you all and make you one, because I’m not just a greedy pig. I’m also a unifier.

Stooge:

Your argument is based on whether or not the system currently in place is the best model possible for the studios. Yes, make cuts. Cut out the redundancy of multiple execs to green light a picture. The studios spend a lot of money making sure they are insulated from bad films (not talking quality, talking box office), just to make sure their jobs are safe. It’s a vicious circle.

Coughing up $30 million a year might make them rethink those choices. Partner one creative with one financial, like Mayer/Thalberg. Maybe we’ll start getting better films (now I’m talking quality).

Tim:

Josh is just mad because they quoted Craig in the trades yesterday again.

Ken Levine also posted a rumour that the WGA is close to a settlement. Let’s all go over to his website and break his virtual legs!!

Brian / Stooge:

How much does the average lower / mid level studio exec make yearly? This isn’t a rhetorical question— I don’t really know. But, I would guess, 100 grand? So if studios have to cut $30 million in expenses, it’s not going to be via personnel.

Although I’d also be somewhat surprised if they made deep development cuts, though that might be because, again, I don’t know what development budgets are like. I’m a lower-level TV drama guy— if I had a pilot deal right now, which I don’t, it’d probably be for, say, 70K. Which seems fairly cost-effective to me in terms of risk-reward for the studio. Since it seems like there are precious few of those insanely wasteful multi-year multi-million development deals out there like there were in the mid-nineties, except for people who are actually running shows, I don’t know where the fat is in development budgets.

Honestly, if I were a studio head and suddenly had to cut $30 (or $60) million from my budget, I would just pick the movie on my slate which seems least likely to be a hit, and not make it. Easier said than done, I realize….

Anyone considered all these published rumors could be an agenda setting designed to undermine WGA resolve. The writers really have all the power. There are no studios without writers. Producers are simply middlemen. Talent brokers. This stuff about negotiating as if both sides are equals is propaganda. Think about which side has more control over what’s in the media. Don’t believe the hype. They are attempting to manufacture consent.

Ken Levine is posting WGA rumors? I thought he quit the business and moved?

Hey all,

I worked the 5:30am to 8am shift at Fox truck gate this morning, and I’m happy to report that we turned 3 big trucks around. One of ‘em was like a garbage or refuse hauler. Another was a long-ass flatbed truck loaded down with rebar or maybe some sort of caging, probably to hold Chernin’s captive army of man-animal hybrids. The third truck we kept out was bearing a crane that was, evidently, intended to be used to help build the new Fox parking garage going in on Pico, just south of the truck gate.

It took some extended work to keep that third truck/crane out. The thing just sat there in the Pico median for over two hours. At first, the construction foreman was yelling at the driver/operator from across the street: “You wouldn’t be crossing the picket line! You’d just be going over there!” (note: going “over there” would, indeed, have entailed crossing the picket line, by about 5 feet). When that strategy failed to lure the crane operator (and his huge crane) across, they tried Plan B: the construction foreman peeled away a long temporary fence separating Pico from the construction site (a few feet south of the Fox truck gate). Then they tried to tell the crane operator that if he took his crane around our picket line (at the truck gate) and into that wide gap they’d just created (near the truck gate), that he wouldn’t be crossing the picket line, and everything would be fine. The crane operator sized it up and sent word to Erich Hoeber (our lot captain) via Bobby Bowman (the “My Name Is Earl” showrunner) that if we left that wide gap unpicketed, he might indeed be forced to drive his crane through. So Erich called an audible and we began to picket that wide gap, in addition to maintaining the truck gate picket. The bad news: manning this new, ad-hoc picket line required us to un-man Fox’s main gate (remember, this was the early, early picket shift, and so we weren’t fully staffed-up with picketers). But I suppose the trade-off was worth it, ‘cause we did manage to keep that crane sitting in the Pico median for an additional hour and a half. The driver stood there in the median the whole time, sometimes calling in to someone (his boss? his union rep?), and periodically photographing our picket lines (I suppose as evidence to show his boss or his union rep). And he was still there as the early, early morning picketers (including myself) were signing out around 8:15 and the next shift was taking our place.

By the way, 2 of those 3 drivers who refused to cross our line (including the crane guy) were not, in fact, Teamsters. They were members of the IUOE: the operating engineers union. We were told that the local, LA-based IUOE members are particularly sensitive to our cause, and to the importance of labor solidarity, and so very hesitant to cross our lines. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, evidently, the San Diego IUOE folks don’t care so much, so the studios (or their contractors) have started shipping those guys up here to do studio work. And there was, indeed, another crane working on the other side of that Fox construction site that, we were told, was being operated by workers from the San Diego local of the IUOE.

In any event, it was gratifying to throw yet another wrench or three (however small and temporary) into Fox’s gears this morning. And I’ll be out there bright and early tomorrow morning to do it all over again. And again and again until we get a fair contract.

See you out on the lines, guys.

Patrick Meighan Culver City, CA

Jon Raymond said (some interesting stuff).

Unfortunately, while I hear what you’re saying Jon, and I appreciate the rallying cry, I just don’t see it bearing much relationship to reality. There are 5,000-odd members of the WGA, and hundreds of thousands more trying to make it. The producers are pretty sure they’ll be ok without these particular writers, if it comes to it. (They’re probably wrong - the number of professional-grade screenwriters is small not just because of the limited number of paying projects out there - it really is demanding work, and requires a rare set of skills and experience).

On the flipsie, there are precious few major studios. Really, it’s only - what? - five media conglomerates with the assets to back major multi-million dollar productions? The studios are the gatekeepers. They have the power, because they control the money. Period.

Good writers are an extremely important part of the process, no question. But so are good directors, actors, cinmatographers, production designers, composers, technicians of every description… and a good producer is just as important.

Film (and TV) are a collaboartive medium. The people who bring those various and disparate talent groups together are the producers, and their job isn’t nearly as some would suggest.

I’m not an apologist for the AMPTP - far from it! - but they’ve got all the big guns in this fight. The keys for the writers are, to my mind, the following:

1. Solidarity among writers, both within the Guild and (even more important) among those who aspire to membership. TO this end, it’s disturbing to see the squabbles going on in this forum, but at least the consensus against scabbing is strong.
2. Solidarity with the DGA and SAG (by mutual agreement, as appears to be happening with SAG, or just circumstance). Similar issues are on teh table with the other guilds; the studios will have to come up with workable solutions at some point, and I would hope that would come by next summer, but it wouldn’t necessarily have to come much earlier.
3. The TV Production schedule. The production cycle for films means the studios can hold out longer than Guild members can, so it’s up to TV to put the screws to them. As we’ve seen in the past, they can replace a lot of content with non-Guild-covered material, but at the end of the day the demand for narrative TV should eventually force a settlement.

Those are good levers, but they’re not great, and as Pseudonymouse explains so well above, by not retaining copyright over our material we give up a huge amount of the power and influence we should have in this process.

Jon:

Trying to manufacture consent, huh? You might wanna rethink that word.

It’s safe to say that the only thing we know for sure right now is that talks are continuing and the blackout is continuing. That’s not a bad thing. Hopefully, progress will be made.

While I’d like to think the world works the way that Jon Raymond just suggested, that would be wishful thinking. Producers and studios aren’t middlemen - that title is a bit more appropriate to agents. And Raymond is correct to note that both sides are not equal here - but he’s got the shoe on the wrong foot, unfortunately. If he or anyone in the WGA believes he’s right, then we’ll be looking at a strike that goes through to July. The leverage for this season only lasts until early February. After that, it’s gone. And that’s nothing that either side doesn’t already know by now.

And I agree with the other posts that the moral judgments against other people who agree with you, but don’t take the exact same steps you do, are both unhelpful and unhealthy. I’m truly sorry that some writers, including Mark Evanier, are so angry that they want to blame everything on the other side. And I hope when this is over that they can find the ability to move on.

DA Emerson said:

The producers are pretty sure they’ll be ok without these particular writers, if it comes to it. (They’re probably wrong - the number of professional-grade screenwriters is small not just because of the limited number of paying projects out there - it really is demanding work, and requires a rare set of skills and experience).

On the flipsie, there are precious few major studios. Really, it’s only - what? - five media conglomerates with the assets to back major multi-million dollar productions? The studios are the gatekeepers. They have the power, because they control the money. Period.</blockquote><p>

Engaging in this argument makes more sense to me than discussing what’s on the table. In the latter case, we envision two sides seeking a middle ground or compromise. So right there you discount all your great arguments about how writers along with the other talent have the real leverage. The only reason they have the money is because you make it for them. Without you they are screwed royally and they know it. But they’ll do everything in their power to repress that logic and keep the argument about which side is going to give in first and what concessions will be made. In that argument, writers are concerned about ending the strike. In the other argument writers are pissed at being exploited and motivated to fight for what’s right, regardless of when the things is expected to end. Writers can’t expect an end. To do so undermines the cause.

Kay Reindl just posted some interesting opinions on her blog. While I continue to admire her commitment and the level of her anger, not all those opinions line up with reality.

I was around for the 1988 WGA strike, which did not end because the showrunners decided to cause a “cracking in the ranks”. The Writers Coalition at that time tried to force the issue so they could go back to work. But the WGA would not agree to a deal at that time. If anything, the actions of the Writers Coalition actually EXTENDED the 1988 strike because they convinced management to hold out longer. (For more info on this, read Anne Thompson’s excellent analysis of this at the time in the August 5, 1988 LA WEEKLY)

Further, the supposedly “forced” settlement of the 1988 strike is not the cause of the current action - unless you believe that all the writers have been nursing their rage for almost 20 years without doing anything about it.

Like Mark Evanier’s postings, which she links, she shows a lot of stridency and anger, particularly at those people she disagrees with, even when they sympathize with her cause. Recitations of factually incorrect versions of the history here, coupled with angry defenses of them don’t help matters. The invectives against IA (and other crew) members who have lost their jobs are truly unfortunate and hopefully, she’ll realize that when this is done.

She’s clearly a talented writer, but the stridency is a bit much. It’s the same thing as I encountered with a SAG member last week, who told me she hoped the WGA would begin the new talks with “Well, we’ve got all this support and everyone’s behind us. So you HAVE to give in now.” Thankfully, that kind of rhetoric hasn’t been used at the table - otherwise, the talks would already be over and we’d be back to the public exchanges of vitriol. On the other hand, that could always happen by the end of the day.

Back in 1988, there were multiple times where there was sudden optimism that the strike would be over - and then everything would collapse again. So it’s a good idea to ride out the rumors and wait for something real to happen. When I see a listing on the WGA website that a membership vote has been called to approve a new contract, then I’ll think that progress has been made. Not until then.

Patrick,

Thanks for the riveting account, but you do realize that this picketing has far more similarity to Nike picketing Wal-Mart over the price of their shoes than it does with the other labor movements you cite. Nike makes awesome shoes, you guys make awesome TV and Film. Nike doesn’t cap or tax their massive earnings, you guys don’t cap or tax your massive earnings. Nike covers probably 70% of their employees health care, you guys cover like 30%. Oh wait.

Please stop using these tactics to keep hard working members of other unions (that do not suffer from the income disparity of your collective) from going to work. It is quite clear from history that your organization will never reciprocate the favor to these people (although I believe you would as an individual) and I would be highly suspect of opportunistic promises to the contrary. It would be like Nike all of a sudden refusing to sell Wal-Mart shoes because they don’t like how Wal-Mart treats their janitors after 70 years of not giving a shit. It just doesn’t happen, which is why there will once again be a “no strike” clause in your agreement when this is all over.

Working AD,

You’ve referred, twice, to Mark Evanier showing a great deal of “anger” in his writing about the current labor impasse.

Myself, I think Evanier’s gotta be the most clear-headed observer of this thing I’ve seen online. Of course he’s solidly on the WGA’s side on this (he is a WGA veteran), but having a firm opinion (even if that opinion is that your side is in the right) isn’t the same thing as being “angry.”

Could you please point me to some objectively angry cites of Mark Evanier’s?

Thanks,

Patrick Meighan Culver City, CA

DA Emerson said:

….The producers are pretty sure they’ll be ok without these particular writers, if it comes to it. (They’re probably wrong - the number of professional-grade screenwriters is small not just because of the limited number of paying projects out there - it really is demanding work, and requires a rare set of skills and experience).

On the flipside, there are precious few major studios. Really, it’s only - what? - five media conglomerates with the assets to back major multi-million dollar productions? The studios are the gatekeepers. They have the power, because they control the money. Period….

Sorry for the double post. It didn’t show the first time.

Patrick, it’s possible that you don’t see the level of vitriol in Evanier’s posts because you agree with them. Which is fine - you’re entitled to that opinion, just as he is entitled to his.

To answer your question, here are some quotes:

“And by the way, maybe we oughta stop calling it that and start calling it the Producers’ Forced Strike or something of the sort. Of all the lunkheaded things that have been written and said about this ugly negotiation, none is more lunkheadier than the notion that anyone in power at the Writers Guild wanted to be on strike. In all the WGA picket lines I’ve walked, I’ve never encountered anyone who was “strike-happy” unless you define that in some aberrant, awkward way. (“He preferred going on strike to taking a rotten deal? Why, he must be strike-happy!”)” -That was from this morning

“This is turning out to be a great trip but I do regret not being in Los Angeles during two weeks of what’s turning out to be The Great Writers Strike of ‘07 and Maybe Part of ‘08…From all reports, the big mass picket/demonstration on Hollywood Boulevard the other day was a smashing success, proving that “the town” is behind the WGA strike and — of great importance — that it is widely understood that the disruption of the industry is due to the Producers’ behavior and not to the Writers being unreasonable.” -From Thanksgiving Day (and the reference to the Great Writers Strike is more than a little worrisome)

“In 1988, when the rolled-back WGA contract came up for renewal, the Producers did what one does when someone stupid is on the hook: They tried the same strategy again. They came at us with a series of demands that were not quite as noxious, but still pretty bad. Again, it was “Take this or there’s no contract.” This time, though, we’d learned, and we had better leadership. The strike of that year lasted 22 weeks—one day longer than the strike of ‘60—and while we ended up agreeing to some of the cuts, we cost the Producers a lot more than they cost us.” -From the opinion piece “Strikeout!” at the New Republic on November 19 - while the history is correct, the final note about the end of the strike is telling

“It struck me the other day that that’s one thing that’s different this time. My last four strikes, the Producers had presented us with a unilateral and rotten contract proposal — a few increases in minimums, generally below the cost-of-living rates…a few rollbacks, some of them quite large…and there’s always one little item that we can celebrate as a “gain.” Usually, these offers aren’t even a product of two-way negotiations. Usually, the Producers just refuse to listen to anything we want to say and instead hand us a bad “take it or leave it” offer and to leave it means to go on strike. This time, there have been some talks — apparently fruitless — that have led to no offer. There is no piece of paper that the “Don’t Strike” mob can wave about at the moment and insist is good enough.

As I understand it, the Producers’ position at this moment is as follows: Take the two most important issues — DVDs and Internet delivery — off the table. Drop all your demands in those areas and then (and only then) we’ll sit down with you and make a decent offer that covers the other stuff.

So if someone asks you why the WGA is striking…well, there it is. We haven’t accepted the deal because there is no deal. All there is is a demand that we surrender before they’ll discuss surrender terms. Matter of fact, given the Producers’ long history of “negotiating” by dictating their terms and then walking out of the room, it’s unlikely that they will discuss anything in a give-and-take manner even then.” -From November 10

“I don’t know why the Guild isn’t calling the strike today. Perhaps they feel that given the timing of certain TV shows, it’s less awkward for us not to try and pull the writers off them. Letterman and Leno have tonight’s shows all written. Both are loyal WGA members who apparently will not do their shows, with or without their writing staffs, until the strike is resolved. Why put those guys in the position of having to decide whether or not to perform their “host” duties tonight? Tomorrow night’s Saturday Night Live is probably far enough along that it could go forward without the writers…so its producers and actors who are also WGA members would be placed in an uncomfortable position. These are all shows we can shut down quickly enough. We don’t have to make it difficult for our members there.” -From November 2

This is by no means a complete list, but it certainly gives you a flavor. Evanier is a very smart man, and a talented writer (GROO is one of the all time classic comics). And he has a pretty solid understanding of the history around these issues and the nature of long-term strikes. But there is also a component here of anger at the producers, which is understandable, but not helpful to actually getting to a solution.

To Jon Raymond, I would advise against hoping for a strike through next summer. You assume that SAG will walk out in alliance at that time. You’re not alone in that thought - the SAG member I spoke with last week felt the same thing. I tried to explain to her that people’s perspectives will be very different after a strike that goes that long. Further, you are assuming that WGA will have any leverage after early February - and both sides know that this is not the case. But if you don’t believe me, we’ll just have to see what really happens should the strike proceed that long.

Jon Raymond said:

Writers should want it to go till July and hope it does go till July.

Hmmm… I wonder how many writers (never mind the other people out of work during the strike) had liquid assets amounting to 8 months of expenses on hand on Oct. 31 of this year…?

Working AD,

“This is by no means a complete list, but it certainly gives you a flavor.”

Indeed. And the flavor is anything but vitriol.

I’d suggest that perhaps the reason you see it is because you DON’T agree with what he’s saying.

Which would explain your antipathy towards Kay’s site, and your attraction to this one.

MLBPA (my supposedly-labor-loving friend who refuses to tell me, a brother laborer, who you are, who you work for, or what you do for a living),

The WGA’s income disparity, clearly, is a major issue for you (or so you purport). I don’t know what to tell you, except that, for better or for worse, the Guild is not currently set up to be an income-reapportionment organization, nor has it ever been in its decades-long history.

I don’t know why you choose now, in 2007, to find major fault with this gap in the Guild’s historical mission (and I have to assume that it’s only now that you’re finding the fault, based on the present-tense gerund in your Deadline Hollywood Daily posting handle: “You’re losing me…”). But the suspicious timing of your purportedly recent realization of the long-extant income disparity within the Guild’s membership (in juxtaposition to the Guild’s long-extant strike tactics [i.e. marching and picketing]), in addition to your well-clung-to anonymity, makes me fear you may be a decently-written concern troll.

Be that as it may, I’ll take your argument at face value just this one last time and say that, as receptive as I may personally be to the Guild-wide income-sharing model idea that you favor (or at least purport to favor), I also recognize that now is not the right time to lobby for it in earnest and to sow that sort of division within the membership of the Guild (a Guild membership that, I’m sure you are aware, is amazingly unified—perhaps to an almost-unprecedented level—against the unfair treatment it’s receiving from its ridiculously-profitable employers). ‘Cause, as I’m sure you’re also aware, it’s not as if the studios are currently fighting to channel every spare penny into the pockets of the WGA’s ranks of underemployed and underinsured. They’re fighting to channel every spare penny into the their own (already swollen) coffers.

Perhaps that’s why the vast majority of Guild members—even those underemployed, underinsured members for whom your tears purport to fall—support this strike. And why, every single day, thousands of those very same underemployed, underinsured writers join me (a lucky, well-employed, well-insured writer) on the very picket lines you maintain that the WGA is unworthy of (by virtue of the financial disparity bemoaned of by you but, evidently, not by the underemployed picketers for whom your tears purport to fall).

If income-reapportionment within the WGA is your true, genuine, honest passion, I have two suggestions (actually, three): 1) Become a writer and join the WGA, so as to have an actual voice in this issue. But if you don’t want to do that, may I at least suggest that you: 2) Wait ‘til this strike is settled, at which time the Guild (and its membership) will have relinquished its wartime posture and be better prepared to consider revolutionary internal reforms. And: 3) Focus your lobbying toward those in the Guild (such as our blog host) who are as-yet unpersuaded by your idea, rather than continuing to wail away on those in the Guild (such as myself) who’re already won over to the idea (at least in theory).

Again, though, that’s for tomorrow.

Today, we strike. Today, I join my brother and sister WGA members (of each and every economic class) to protest the unfair treatment we are all—each of us—receiving from the AMPTP. And we will protest that treatment in the manner utilized historically by this union’s membership, and by millions of other union members (of every economic class) throughout history: by picking up signs, forming lines, and voicing our grievances directly to the public.

Patrick Meighan Culver City, CA

stuiec said:

Hmmm… I wonder how many writers (never mind the other people out of work during the strike) had liquid assets amounting to 8 months of expenses on hand on Oct. 31 of this year…?

Part of holding a bluff is not letting the other guy know when you have to fold. Why not do a quick survey of all the writers assets and then you can accurately predict the date producers can expect you to fold? Do you know what a strike is for?

Wow, Working AD, I really don’t see anger or vitriol in those postings at all.

In Josh Olson’s comments, I often see anger and vitriol (sorry, Josh, I usually agree with the point you’re making, but the way you choose to make the point… I gotta call a spade a spade, here).

In some of the responses to Josh’s comments, I see anger.

In Evanier’s posts (at least the ones you point to above) I don’t see anger or vitriol, I just see a firmly-held opinion being expressed.

It appears as though, for you, any opinion voiced on this strike that isn’t, essentially, “Both sides are at fault” counts as anger or vitriol. Maybe we just define those words differently. For example, I strongly disagree with every single word that AMPTP Stooge says when he comments here, and he clearly thinks that only one side (the writers) is at fault in this strike, but I’ve never once read a comment of his and thought, “Wow, he’s full of anger and vitriol.” I think he’s a dink, sure, but I dont think he’s angry.

Maybe we’re just arguing over semantics, here.

Patrick Meighan Culver City, CA

I stopped taking Kay Reindl’s site seriously when, upon bemoaning her failure to set up a pilot this year, announced that almost no writers who weren’t on staff or under development deals sold pilots this year, when in fact I have about five lower- to mid-level friends who did exactly that. Maybe I just have lucky friends; or then again, maybe she’s projecting her own situation more broadly than she should be.

I do kind of sympathize with what she wrote on October 16th though:

So by beating the war drums before it was necessary and for having a tin ear when it comes to negotiating tactics, the WGA fucked me out of making a living this year. Way to go, asshats.

“Hmmm… I wonder how many writers (never mind the other people out of work during the strike) had liquid assets amounting to 8 months of expenses on hand on Oct. 31 of this year…?”

Well, um, me, for one. My wife and I saw this contract deadline coming a couple years back and started squirrelling money away, holding off big purchases, etc. There was nothing secret about that October 31st date.

So, yeah, I can go at least 8 months off savings, can go another 6 months on a loan from the Guild Strike Fund, I can put a few more months on credit cards, I can get another job, my wife can get a job…

I swear to God, my family is, in every way, prepared to strike ‘til the sun burns out if the AMPTP does not give the WGA a decent contract.

Patrick Meighan Culver City, CA

Ooops, didn’t mean to hit ‘Submit’ yet. My point is that someone who writes stuff like that on her own blog, calling the WGA administration ‘asshats’ two weeks before we struck (as was widely anticipated), shouldn’t complain about the much more measured and substantiated criticism on this site or others.

Working AD, I’m not sure I see much vitriol in Mark Evanier’s postings, but I think both he and Kay, among many other writers, are happy to apply generous spin to their opinions, and equally happy to be enraged by spin put out by the AMPTP.

Which is natural, but