Signal And Noise

Dear Craig,

Good one.

I definitely disagree with you about the signal-to-noise ratio on the showrunner’s move, but otherwise good one.

—Robert King

Craig Mazin said:

Furthermore, whenever we can mitigate collateral damage to other working people (particularly unionized ones like crew), we ought to.

Enabling the companies to continue to make product and sell it will unfortunately make it easier for them to weather the strike without making concessions. I think that the best way to mitigate collateral damage is one in which the struck companies lose the services of those other folks while making sure those other folks don’t lose their houses and businesses.

If the showrunners could stay out and if they and other members of the WGA who can afford it (and, for that matter, the millions of fans of the shows) could give direct financial aid to the victims of collateral damage, the strike would be that much more effective and the WGA would have that much more leverage to wrest concessions from the AMPTP. And if the AMPTP can be persuaded to make meaningful concessions, perhaps the WGA can be persuaded to meet them somewhere between point A and point B as they existed on Nov. 4.

Hence, following the lead of DLW, I just sent in a contribution to the Actors Fund. I would recommend that step to any and all who support the WGA’s cause in this strike.

Can’t agree, Stuiec. Regardless of how many local productions are shut down, the companies will find product. And if they are pushed to make more of that product non-union and out of town, not only will they, but a certain percentage of that won’t come back after the strike. This is exactly what has happened after every recent strike or near strike.

Craig is correct. A slash-and-burn policy of destroying as much as possible in the short run is a trivial tactical move that could have devastating strategic consequences down the road.

Personally, I’d like to think it was my lone comment buried somewhere in Craig’s last post - since there wasn’t any numbers let’s say it was between one of “Ted the Rock’s”(as I call him, which he doesn’t know..but does now)hugely informational comments and one of Josh’s..um..comments - where I asked if it would be effective to get people to not buy DVD’s on black Friday. It had to have sent a chill down some muckty muck’s spine. Yep, to take a page out of Nikki’s book, it was all me.

On a serious note, Stu you mentioned game theory and the prisoner’s dilemma (which makes me think of Mamet’s “The Spanish Prisoner” and also “The Prisoner” (you are…number 6) which I would highly recommend both!) in regards to the DGA and WGA working together for safety, but in my reading on here it seems like I’ve heard time and again that the aims of the two unions are not the same per say. Ted?

Kevin: please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you are saying that an effective, strongly-prosecuted strike is only going to backfire — so the alternative is a weak and ineffectual strike that gives the WGA no real leverage to move the AMPTP toward compromise.

My belief is that once you commit to unleashing the strike weapon, you have to use it as effectively as possible to gain leverage over the struck companies. A strike is a strategic weapon that “takes out” entire cities. Trying to use a strike as a tactical, surgically-precise weapon will only render it ineffective, and there isn’t any other, more powerful weapon in the arsenal to fall back on.

I understand the risk of company flight you are describing, but if the strike bites hard and quickly, it’s more likely to throw the companies off balance. The less inventory they have on hand and the fewer inputs to production they can continue to draw on, the more uncomfortable they will be.

If you wish to argue that a better posture in the long run for unions and guilds is to foster partnership with the compsnies so that both sides reap rewards from continuous labor peace, that’s a good debate to have — after the strike is settled.

Shaun: there’s the rub. If the DGA’s interests and priorities are very different from the WGA’s, their motivation to help the WGA win its preferred concessions from the AMPTP may be weaker than their motivation to use the WGA-AMPTP confrontation to help them win their own preferred concessions from the AMPTP. What are the differences and similarities in the DGA’s and WGA’s objectives and interests?

Kevin and Craig,

The showrunners mucking about may have been a minor bloody nose, but some interpretations would say that bloody nose made the bully sit up and listen.

And slash-and-burn (or as I like to say down-and-dirty) war tactics may hurt our long-term strategic plans, but that assumes we should have long-term strategic plans. The way I see it, if we don’t settle this by Christmas the negotiating-goose is cooked and we’ll be bending over to be stuffed (yum!).

I fully agree with Craig’s pre-strike assessment, the WGA should have shown more willingness to negotiate prior to contract expiration. They didn’t, so they suck.

But I have to agree with Verrone and Young’s, the rockstars that they are, strike strategy. We lose a 9 month battle, so let’s attempt to make it as short, quick, and seemingly bloody as possible.

If I was playing poker with the AMPTP I would break them down into two parts. 1. They like money. And 2. They don’t like risk. So, I would bet heavy early, make them fold their blinds, thin their stack, shake their confidence, and maybe just maybe, force them to gamble on a shitty hand. We’re playing the short stack and we have to be aggressive or they’ll play it tight and whittle us down over time.

Stu, I’m hoping you may be able to answer my questions from the last thread. (Currently on the last entry on that thread)

The notion that showrunners or the various fans of TV shows are going to send in financial aid to those of us who have been fired and laid off because of the strike is wonderfully optimistic, but unlikely to ever happen. It is terrific that David Letterman and Craig Ferguson have seen fit to help out the staffs of their shows, but they are the exception, and not the rule. And their staffs are much smaller than, say, the 100+ people who just got pink slips for the holidays on my show. Most people think movie and TV people are overpaid as it is. They’re not likely to give up their own paychecks for us, particularly when the country is entering a deeper recession and the housing bubble is losing more air. (By the way, the idea that the crew is overpaid doesn’t take into account the fact that we tend to work twice the hours that the normal person works on a single day. A 14 hour day is quite common on TV, and at least two 16 plus hour days per week is not rare.)

It is not realistic to expect the AMPTP to be making “concessions” when they are not in any financial trouble and will not be for some time. They may negotiate a bit more with the WGA and there may be a slightly better offer before this is done, but I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the WGA to come home with all of their conditions met.

Kevin is correct that a “slash and burn” strategy is more likely to result in more shows moving to Canada, Mexico, Australia or Eastern Europe, where they can be made without the interference of American unions. And we’ll see more reality TV shows, as well as more of the awful game shows we’ve been seeing listings for on the networks’ revised midseason rosters.

Shaun, you are correct to note that the DGA and the WGA have different agendas and interests. I still vividly remember an annual DGA meeting from a few years back when a WGA member who was also in the DGA spoke at the open mike part of our meeting, making comments about how the WGA already had their T-shirts and signs ready and were all set to go on strike again. Jeremy Kagan put on his most condescending tone of voice and pretty much batted her away. Comments along the lines of “If the WGA really wants to do something that irresponsible and that short-sighted, then that’s their issue, and not ours.” Just because the DGA and the WGA are both concerned with residuals for their creative members (for the DGA, this doesn’t really affect the ADs nearly so much), that doesn’t mean that both guilds agree on how to pursue this or anything else.

And Shaun is correct to note here and on other threads that Nikki Finke has been acting abominably throughout this crisis. For every bit of real information she’s been able to get leaked, she’s also thrown out rumors, gossip and innuendo, and then couched that in the veil of being an “impartial journalist.” I continue to long for a return of the Anne Thompson who once wrote very effective columns for the LA Weekly back in the 80s and stood as one of the only voices of reason during the 1988 strike. Judging from Thompson’s recent output at Variety, I think that person I remember no longer exists.

Shaun, your comment regarding using the totality of the strike weapon seems like someone advocating a rather extreme approach. The AMPTP is not “off balance” by any means. I could point you to several major labor battles during the 1980s where entire cities really were “taken out”. A company in those cases would present horrible working conditions to the union, the union would strike, the company would replace the workers, the union would be broken, the town would split in two, and then the company would leave the wreckage and move somewhere cheaper. The point of a strike is that it sends a message both to the struck companies and to the public at large. Right now, that message has been received by the public, and the PR may have helped nudge both sides back to the table 9 weeks faster than happened in 1988. But I assure you that the companies do not care whether me or my entire crew have lost our jobs. It doesn’t matter to the studios and networks who actually makes their shows so long as they have something to put on the air.

SML, you actually have a little more time than you think. By my calculations, the strike could go all the way to the beginning of February and we could still air an abbreviated season. (We’d miss February sweeps with most shows, but the midseasons could go there along with the other stuff) Given that we need 6-7 weeks to air a new episode after this stoppage, and given that we should be airing several new episodes in a row, the final cutoff point is roughly Valentine’s Day. Once you pass that mark, we’ll be unable to air new episodes until April. And once that happens, the season is effectively over. The networks and the WGA already know this. So the WGA’s leverage likely will continue to the end of January, and then it drops off. Once the networks decide that the season is over, all the leverage goes away, and you’re talking about the end of June before anything gets settled. And I guarantee you if a strike goes that long, NOBODY else will go out.

But let’s not be fooled into thinking that the AMPTP and the networks are going to have their confidence shaken or that they’ll gamble on a bad hand during this strike. I’m hoping they’ll come up with a better offer, to be sure. But not because they’re doing it out of weakness. More likely because it makes better business sense to give a little bit more now to maintain the status quo. The second it doesn’t balance out for them to do so, the offer goes away.

Oops, sorry about that Shaun. You didn’t comment about taking out cities - that was Stu. And this is what happens when I post too late at night. Sorry guys.

No worries Working Ad. You had said: Jeremy Kagan put on his most condescending tone of voice and pretty much batted her away. Comments along the lines of “If the WGA really wants to do something that irresponsible and that short-sighted, then that’s their issue, and not ours.” I myself have a sour taste in my mouth concerning Mr. Kagen. Two summers ago I was a volunteer driver for the Sundance directors lab, and Mr. Kagen gave a truly rousing speach about the DGA. It really got me how he spoke so passionately about his union that I thought I could approach him with a few questions. I waited for my chance and then asked him about the 2nd A.D. training program the DGA has, which I had applied for years earlier and had gone to Chicago to take the written test for. I got one letter saying I made the cut off and could proceed to the next level. I was so elated and then the very next week got another letter saying I got 95% on the test and they were only going with people that got a 100%. I wanted to ask Mr. Kagen more about the program but he dismissed me with nary a slap and a tickle. I thought, “Forget it Shaun. It’s Chinatown”. I acknowledged then and now that he’s a busy man, much more important than me, but it did stick in my craw and unfortunetely colored the way I think of the DGA.

Goddammit!

The new formatting hurts my head.

I can’t read more than an entry or too.

And without the color coding, I can never be sure if it’s Ted or Tron posting.

Will this ever be fixed?

I’m glad you post here, Working AD.

Stu wrote: it seems like you are saying that an effective, strongly-prosecuted strike is only going to backfire — so the alternative is a weak and ineffectual strike that gives the WGA no real leverage…

No, actually that’s not remotely what I’m saying. Your reframing my comment in this way is the kind of all-or-nothing rhetoric that is extremely unhelpful (and naive) in labor negotiations.

You’re the one saying “If the WGA’s not willing to completely destroy the film/TV business right now, no matter what the long-term consequences, then the WGA is completely toothless.” Those are classic false choices. What you’re saying is a lot like what the Bush administration said about Iraq. But, in both cases, one day the “hot war” ends, and everyone has to get back to living and doing business.

The WGA made a deal with the Teamsters so the Teamsters could support the WGA and not destroy themselves. Turns out the Teamster support wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be, but if the WGA had gone out of their way to force every Teamster to make a hard choice about crossing lines, 24/7, from day one of the strike, then I think we all know they would have lost that Teamster support almost immediately. So the WGA took a middle course, getting some Teamster support without antagonizing another work force.

The WGA was much more short sighted with other unions. They already had poor relations with the DGA and the IA, and the current leadership intensified the bad blood with the IA prior to the strike — a horrible strategic move. Driving production out of town now will be long remembered by everyone in the IA. Those bitter seeds will be harvested one day.

The AMPTP will also remember all this. Deep as their pockets are, given the two damaging strikes and one pseudostrike in the last 20 years by the WGA, it will obviously be in their best interest going forward to continue to marginalize the WGA and decrease the WGA’s ability to cause future interruptions in film/TV production. They’d be utter fools not to.

Right now there’s a glimmer of hope that the two sides can get something worked out before more damage is done. I hope to hell that both sides realize how much is at stake, in the long run, during this next round of talking.

Craig, love the site, but you said:

“Furthermore, whenever we can mitigate collateral damage to other working people (particularly unionized ones like crew), we ought to.”

This to me misses the point. We, the writer’s, are not the ones putting people out of work — the studios are.

You sound like a studio mogul, “We tried to force the writer’s to chock down a horrible deal and they went on strike. So we had to fire all our assistants — see what those writer’s made us do?!!!”

shaun,

Kagan may just not care much about the assistant director side of the DGA. There’s a divide in the DGA between directors, and the various ranks of AD’s. Some AD’s feel the DGA treats them like second class citizens

Directors have careers more like those of writers and actors. (In fact, many of the directors started as either writers or actors.) Anyone who can get a sig to hire her can work as a director, which is basically the same approach taken by SAG and the WGA.

AD’s have careers that are more like those of IATSE crew members. AD jobs are generally closed shop in a way that directing jobs aren’t. You simply can’t work for a signatory as a 1st AD until the DGA certifies that you’ve put in the required number of days as 2nd AD.

The DGA training program is funded by the AMPTP, and it’s of much less concern to directors than it is to members on the AD career ladder. It’s commonplace for people to apply 3 to 5 times before they finally get in. I knew a 2nd on the Scott Bakula Star Trek who applied 8 times before he finally got in.

Cole, your enthusiasm is admirable, but it does no good to simply point at the AMPTP. You are correct that the studios are the ones laying people off. But they’re not doing that because they felt like it. They’re doing that in response to the WGA strike.

It gets very tiring to hear both sides try to put ALL the responsibility on the other side. Let’s be clear: BOTH the WGA and the AMPTP bear responsibility for the strike. Period.

odocoileus,

I actually found Jeremy Kagan fairly approachable when I talked to him after the open mike session at that meeting. I think it depends on when and how you approach him. When the WGA/DGA member tried to put up a red flag about striking, it really didn’t go over very well with him or anyone else on the board at that time.

But you are correct that not some, but many ADs feel that they are effectively members of what should be an IA local that exists within the DGA. This isn’t an unusual thing in the arts, by the way. In movies and TV, the ADs and stage managers fall in with the directors to get the best deal from the studios. In legitimate theater work, the stage managers are part of Actors Equity rather than the crafts unions, thus getting their deal.

The AD career isn’t as closed of a shop as you might think. Around 15 to 20 new trainees are taken in every year, in addition to some 60-80 other people who become DGA ADs with non-union days. You are correct that you have to work a certain number of days to move up. I documented 520 days over 7 years ago to allow myself to be reclassified. However, this doesn’t mean you’ll actually be hired as a 1st AD. Most times you have to keep working as a 2nd AD and hope you get the chance to move up.

The second you knew on Star Trek Enterprise was part of my trainee class. He was proud to have beaten the record set by another former trainee.

Cole, if you’re right and Craig is wrong, then why has the picketing been in shifts that start well after productions actually begin in the morning, and end well before productions wrap for the day? Wasn’t that to mitigate collateral damage to another union?

Just askin’ …

Craig,

Great to see you up and posting content again.

Even when I disagree with you (which I do, I’d say, oh, about 90% of the time), I consider this site way more interesting when its tone is set by your posts (as compared to when you’re off and busy—and I do realize that you’re busy—and the blog comments degenerate into an all-skate battle-royal anonymous shills).

See you (soon?) on the lines,

Patrick Meighan Culver City, CA

BOTH the WGA and the AMPTP bear responsibility for the strike. Period. Shill!

(Just kidding.)

Craig Mazin said: The Teamsters have been crossing, and I haven’t heard about any shows, lots or production companies negatively impacted in any serious way by Teamster support. I can’t blame the Teamsters here. They’re working men and women under contract.

When picketing at Paramount, there was a Teamster who said he refused to cross the picket line at Universal and got “reassigned”, whatever that means. He was crossing the Paramount line as he said it, for what it’s worth.

One other Teamster said, “Why shouldn’t we cross, when WGA members are crossing to direct their films?”

I don’t know if any of this is significant, but I though I’d share what I’ve seen and heard.

I work in post-production and a lot of my co-workers are against the WGA’s decision to strike, claiming that writers need to grow up. Perhaps it’s just fear of work drying up.

Coolkuts said:

““Furthermore, whenever we can mitigate collateral damage to other working people (particularly unionized ones like crew), we ought to.”

This to me misses the point. We, the writer’s, are not the ones putting people out of work — the studios are.”

Me say: The strike was a choice. When you strike, you do so to SHUT DOWN PRODUCTION (“look at all the havoc I’ve wrought”). You succeeded. Did you think shutting down production meant everyone still got paid? The studios are more than happy to have everyone come back and do work. On top of that, I appreciate the magnanimous gesture of my studio not to fire me even though everything I do is tied to production and I have NO work to do (I actually feel slightly guilty taking their money…but, well, they are evil anyway). I personally have no expectation that I HAVE to paid if I am doing no work. Kudos to them for eating the cost.

Stooge

You cannot alone bring the AMPTP to its knees. Anyone who thinks that is possible is living in fantasy land.

What you can do is cause a lot of collateral damage and make things uncomfortable for the actual people who run these companies. The irony is that you make them uncomfortable not because you are causing them to lose money (which you really aren’t), but because they get forced to make cuts and fire people. Many studio/network heads are good and decent people. They don’t like firing people. Especially since it’s not because the budgets can’t hold it, just that they deal with the corporate mother ship that wont allow them to maintain a staff that sits around and does nothing.

Basically, the tactic must be guerrilla warfare and not a head on fight. In as much as the WGA has a stomach for that kind of fight (the nastiness of guerrilla warfare). And no insult meant…that’s actually a compliment. Causing innocents harm to achieve your goal is not something that decent people do with ease.

Stooge

Kevin, re-read what you wrote as if I’d written it.

Kevin said:

You’re the one saying “If the WGA’s not willing to completely destroy the film/TV business right now, no matter what the long-term consequences, then the WGA is completely toothless.” Those are classic false choices. What you’re saying is a lot like what the Bush administration said about Iraq. But, in both cases, one day the “hot war” ends, and everyone has to get back to living and doing business.

The WGA made a deal with the Teamsters so the Teamsters could support the WGA and not destroy themselves. Turns out the Teamster support wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be, but if the WGA had gone out of their way to force every Teamster to make a hard choice about crossing lines, 24/7, from day one of the strike, then I think we all know they would have lost that Teamster support almost immediately. So the WGA took a middle course, getting some Teamster support without antagonizing another work force.

The WGA was much more short sighted with other unions. They already had poor relations with the DGA and the IA, and the current leadership intensified the bad blood with the IA prior to the strike — a horrible strategic move. Driving production out of town now will be long remembered by everyone in the IA. Those bitter seeds will be harvested one day.

The AMPTP will also remember all this. Deep as their pockets are, given the two damaging strikes and one pseudostrike in the last 20 years by the WGA, it will obviously be in their best interest going forward to continue to marginalize the WGA and decrease the WGA’s ability to cause future interruptions in film/TV production. They’d be utter fools not to.

That reads like an out-and-out condemnation of the strike. I’m not sure that’s how you intended it, but it sure seems like you are saying that all the strike accomplished was to make it clearer to the AMPTP that their best long-term strategy is to get clear of the unions altogether.

You also seem unclear on what constitutes Teamster support. The picket lines in the first week didn’t force the Teamsters to make the hard choices about line crossing — and, surprisingly to some, Teamster verbal support turned out not to be all it was cracked up to be. As it happens, real trade union people (like Teamsters) actually respect a union that treats a strike like a strike and asks them to show fraternal solidarity by not crossing picket lines.

If it’s true that a well-prosecuted strike will “completey destroy” the film and television industry, then a strike is a suicide pact. I don’t believe that. But whether you’re right or I am, the fact is, the WGA is on strike right now and has to make that strike work to gain leverage in its upcoming negotiations. If the strike doesn’t provide any leverage to move the AMPTP from its Nov. 4 positions, it’s worse than useless.

A strike is a strategic weapon. It does not specifically target the jobs of executives and directors and the bank accounts of those folks and the stockholders. It targets those people and their money indirectly, by causing a production shutdown. That means it will hurt many more workers than executives, and hurt them proportionately far worse than the executives. It is a bloody business, and as will all bloody businesses, “if it were done when ‘tis done, ‘twere well it were done quickly.”

Patrick of Culver:

Thanks. I’ve been pretty disgusted with the failure of so many commenters to follow the honor system, so once I’m done shooting, I’m gonna get quite a bit more strict about deleting comments that violate our simple rule of “be civil.”

Working AD said:

Stu, I’m hoping you may be able to answer my questions from the last thread. (Currently on the last entry on that thread)

The notion that showrunners or the various fans of TV shows are going to send in financial aid to those of us who have been fired and laid off because of the strike is wonderfully optimistic, but unlikely to ever happen.

What you said that I was grateful you’d said was to point out the collateral damage — Josh Olson had five bucks on the proposition that I’d repost yet another plea to him to remember those folks.

With the right marketing, you could set up a benefit appeal for the public to help out the people who make their favorite TV shows and movies. But it would have to be an Internet viral appeal, for what TV network would carry the telethon?

Working AD said:

It is not realistic to expect the AMPTP to be making “concessions” when they are not in any financial trouble and will not be for some time. They may negotiate a bit more with the WGA and there may be a slightly better offer before this is done, but I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the WGA to come home with all of their conditions met.

“Concession” is not “capitulation.” If the AMPTP is willing to give a slightly better offer, then they’ve conceded some ground in the negotiation. The WGA will have to concede some ground too, certainly, in order for the two sides to meet somewhere between their respective Nov. 4 positions. That is the necessary and sufficient condition for reaching a contract that both sides will ratify.

Craig, why do you think the show runners “can’t all end up in breach?” I agree that their walking out hasn’t given the strike nearly as much extra teeth as people seem to believe (or are pretending to believe), but I would be pretty surprised if anyone actually got sued, since these are all people whom the companies want to maintain good relations with. So their unified walking out seems low-risk and low-reward to me, not high-risk and low-reward.

Although, at the risk of sounding snarky, I do wonder if it would have been better for the WGA to encourage the show-runners whose shows are running huge deficits to keep working for as long as possible.

Stu, you don’t need to repost my comments for me to reread them. There is waaaaay to much reposting and line-by-line commenting on some of these threads and, besides, I know what I wrote.

What I was saying is that, if you’re going to strike, there has to be some cost/benefit analysis in how you prosecute that strike. (Unless, of course, the purpose of the strike is just to inflict pain and lash out over accumulated grivances from the past, in a misguided attempt at group catharsis and revenge.) The goal of a strike should not be to do the maximum damage to the other side — it should be to get the best possible long-term arrangement.

As many have pointed out, the AMPTP and the WGA are in a kind of marriage. And WGA is also part of a larger family, and has to co-exist with the DGA, SAG, IA, and Teamsters. You have to know how to fight in a marriage and in a family if you’re going to live with each other long term. Some naive folks have the idea that the marital spat needs to become a War of the Roses. I don’t. And I don’t think a “salt the earth” approach is healthy or smart.

Kevin: I agree that the goal of a strike should never be to do the maximum damage to the struck company for the sake of hurting them or getting back at them for past wrongs or slights. The goal of a strike should always be to achieve the maximum leverage over the struck company to cause it to move off its original negotiating position and concede ground to the union as far and as fast as is possible.

Perhaps you can explain to me either:

(a) how a writers’ strike can be conducted that doesn’t cause other workers (union and non-union) to suffer financially, thus retaining goodwill on the part of everyone except the AMPTP executives, directors and shareholders; or

(b) in the case of a writers’ strike that does put other workers out of a payheck or a job, how it can be done in such a way that those other workers really don’t mind all that much how long the strike drags on. (As a corollary, you might also explain how a strike that doesn’t shut down production to the maximal extent possible is going to be a shorter strike — and achieve more at the bargaining table — than one that does.)

Perhaps you can alternatively explain to me what is intrinsically wrong with striking in such a way that the pain to the other workers is intense but short. The sawbones doctors in the Civil War knew that they could not prevent the agony of an amputation, so they learned how to do it as brutally quickly and efficiently as possible.

Again, the debate over whether a strike was the right tool for the job at this moment in history and whether the WGA lined up adequate support and solidarity from the other guilds and unions is a debate worth having — AFTER the strike.

I look at the page background and am reminded of one of my favorite lines from a TV commercial, where the little boy wrinkles up his nose at something and says, “It’s… pink.”

Stu, thanks. Now I get it. (Re the plea)

I’m not sure that the AMPTP guys are going to “concede” anything, much less capitulate. They may try to make a different offer, but I don’t see them conceding any ground until after the WGA does. Hopefully this happens as quickly as the DVD proposal came off the table during the last meeting, and things will start moving again.

And I’m not convinced that even an internet campaign will bring in funds to pay for movie & TV crews. You’ll certainly get sympathy, but not money. Times are too tight, and people everywhere are losing money, particularly on their homes. And as I said, most people think of movie crews as overpaid, even though the paychecks actually reflect average wages paid for twice the hours in the same workweek.

If the strike is settled quickly, that will obviously take care of the problem. If the strike goes on up to next summer, as could easily happen, then you’ll see a lot of people leaving the business. It’s simply a reflection of what happened back in 1988 and before that in 1980 and 1973. Long strikes mean hard times for most people in the business. Ironically, the only ones who continue to thrive are the moguls, the big name talent and the people who receive residuals as that is the only income that can be had during a long strike.

Clifford, you are right to point out that the showrunners are mostly not in danger of being sued or fired. It would make no sense for Fox or CBS or anyone to outright fire and sue the people who supervise the writing for their top shows. (On the other hand, Carlton Cuse crossing the picket line is truly an unfortunate choice.) The fact is that after the strike is settled, the networks will need to do business with the showrunners.

Stu, on the idea of the pain of a strike being “intense but short”, I must point out that nobody knows that this will be a short strike. All indications are for a long one, based on everything we’ve been seeing from both sides. The fact that they’ve agreed to talk to each other is a positive sign but does not mean that they will suddenly come to an agreement where both sides have steadfastly refused to do so for months. It is more likely that both sides are feeling the PR attention and wish to do something to show that they aren’t being completely intransigent. I agree with you that a strike by its definition will wind up affecting all the workers in a business.

And I agree that it’s all about leverage and who can actually influence what’s happening. But I wouldn’t overestimate the leverage held by the guild. As both sides are aware, the only leverage being held right now is that the WGA can effectively end this television season as far as scripted shows go. If the AMPTP wishes to preserve the season, they’ll make a deal. But right now, they’ve been talking real tough about that. If they really mean what they say and aren’t just posturing about it, then you’re talking about a strike that will go to next summer. But that’s thing about negotiations and strikes - you never really know what the other guy is thinking until it’s over.

Working AD said:

Stu, on the idea of the pain of a strike being “intense but short”, I must point out that nobody knows that this will be a short strike. All indications are for a long one, based on everything we’ve been seeing from both sides. The fact that they’ve agreed to talk to each other is a positive sign but does not mean that they will suddenly come to an agreement where both sides have steadfastly refused to do so for months. It is more likely that both sides are feeling the PR attention and wish to do something to show that they aren’t being completely intransigent. I agree with you that a strike by its definition will wind up affecting all the workers in a business.

I completely agree that no one knows for sure whether this will be a short strike. My point is that the best chance of a strike being short is if it’s conducted with intensity so that the struck company feels its effects as quickly and as deeply as possible. If those effects aren’t deep enough to cause the struck company to reconsider its offer at the bargaining table… well, then, the strike isn’t going to win its objectives. If the effects are deep but the pain to the strikers is so intense that they can’t outlast the company… well. then, the strike isn’t going to win its objectives.

The only way for the strike to succeed is for the struck company to reach a point where giving the strikers something at the bargaining table — agreeing to live with part of their demands for the duration of the new contract — seems preferably to the company than holding the line on their positions.

As for knowing what the other guy is thinking, that’s why an impartial mediator can be very helpful. If both sides trust the mediator enough to be honest about the limits of what they can accept (the minimum offer they can accept from the other side and the maximum they can offer to the other side), then the mediator can see whether the two sides have some overlap in their positions that can result in a deal — or can identify areas where overlap doesn’t exist and see if overlap can be created by convincing the two sides of the need for compromise or by showing the two sides where horse-trading on other issues can bridge the gap.

The one true fact in this situation is that there will be no new contract until both sides agree that they can live with (not necessarily like, but simply live with) whatever terms they reach. Disengagement is not an option, and therefore sooner or later the two sides will have to mutually agree on one set of terms. Let’s hope it’s sooner than later.

With respect to burning bridges (or scorching the earth, or salting the earth, pick your metaphor), it’s not a one-sided process. Seth MacFarlane may watch as Fox gives him a single-finger salute tonight. From the Fox perspective, no doubt it’s viewed as strictly business and nothing personal, though MacFarlane sees it as very personal.

Fox to air new ‘Guy’ Sunday

MacFarlane hopes network changes plans

It looks like Fox is planning to air an original episode of “Family Guy” this Sunday — but creator Seth MacFarlane is still hoping the net will change its mind. “It would just be a colossal dick move if they did that,” MacFarlane said Tuesday. He said the next three episodes of the show “are relatively close to completion, but they have not had a final pass.”

MacFarlane conceded that the Fox network and 20th Century Fox TV, which produces the show, are “legally within their rights” to complete episodes without his sign-off.

“But they’ve never done anything like this before, in which they’ve said, ‘We’re going to finish a show without you,’ ” MacFarlane said. “It’s really going to be unfortunate and damaging to our relationship if they do it.”

MacFarlane was careful not to slam his day-to-day exec contacts, i.e., 20th prexies Gary Newman and Dana Walden, and Fox entertainment chairman Peter Liguori.

“I don’t think they’re making the call,” he said. “Those are all people who I have had close, respectful relationships with. It’s hard to believe it would be coming from them.”

Hey, thanks odocoileus and Working AD for the info about the job and the 2nd AD training program. Knowing that people have re-attempted to get into the program up to 8 times helps. Since coming out here I’ve heard both good and bad about the training program; at the time getting into the program was to be my impetus in coming out here…but now here I am. I still contemplate it; I’m just figuring out if my end goal is to be an AD. So much responsability…I think about the first AD on Gilliams “Man from La Mancha”.

Stu, I’d like to take a crack at this, if I may - “(a) how a writers’ strike can be conducted that doesn’t cause other workers (union and non-union) to suffer financially, thus retaining goodwill on the part of everyone except the AMPTP executives, directors and shareholders”

Instead of setting out unilaterally to create a sea change in the industry, you spend the 3 years leading up to the negotiations forging strong alliances with the other industry guilds and unions. That way, the threat of a strike will have substantially more teeth, and should a strike have to be called, no one will be wondering who will, and who won’t support it.

The AMPTP has spent considerable recourses dividing the unions/guilds into smaller more isolated entities just for this situation. They’ve insisted in ‘no strike’ clauses to protect them from industry wide solidarity.

Dan

Love the new design.

Where are the #s on the posts for easy reference.

More important, where’s the link to the ArtfulWriter Forum?

Greg:

This isn’t the new design. :) This is just a default template. The old design will be back soon.

Followed by a better redesign.

Craig writes:

“Meanwhile, Patric Verrone tells a crowd that we’re “kicking corporate ass” while David Young muses openly to the press about “all the havoc” he’s wreaked.

Noise.

Signal? The Big Five congloms’ asses are still quite unkicked, and David Young needs to start talking publicly like the responsible, pragmatic guy into whom a lot of insiders are telling me he’s blossomed.”

Sorry, Craig, but you’re wrong.

Really wrong.

To keep this out of a matter of opinion, and move into the realm of fact, look up media stock performance since the strike began. If you’re savvy - in a WSJ sorta way - you can even look up various indexes (e.g. S&P, DOW, etc.). Finally, if you’re savvy in a Financial theory sorta way, you can still see that with the exception of Sony (geez, try to value that sucker…) Corporate Media Ass (CMA) has fallen below any beta adjusted index floor.

Or, in more vernacular terms: since the strike, media stock has fallen.

Measurably.

It’s not noise, Craig.

It’s signal; the strongest signal the WGA can send to change it’s situation.

lt

Greg,

You can get to the forum at:

http://artfulwriter.com/forum/

in case you didn’t know.

Lee,

Why don’t you move into the realm of fact by using some numbers to support your position? Try not to cherry pick and try and put the numbers in context (as in how they relate to the rest of the market because in case you haven’t noticed the whole economy is in the tank). You should also try at least to appreciate that say ABC is one division of Disney or that Sony might just do a few other things. But I probably don’t need to tell someone as financially savvy as you this.

I just took a quick glance and Disney has been trending down for months.

If you are going to take people to task for not being factual (and be condescending on top of it), at least a) don’t be lazy and back your statements up with fact (see you just saying something is a fact doesn’t make it so and even worse telling us to go research your unsupported statement is pretty laughable…do your own work) and b) be right.

Stooge

Lee,

Another quick glance shows Disney is up over the course of the last week. Wow.

Stooge

Lee:

There are a number of ways we can measure the impact of a strike on the companies, but a two week snapshot of their stock during a larger financial crisis isn’t one of them.

We won’t know what the real effect on stock will be for at least another month. Maybe two. That’s from an analyst friend of mine, but given that we’re talking about stocks, I have no doubt someone can find an analyst who disagrees.

Generally speaking, I wouldn’t hope for much optimism out of Wall Street. Shareholders are among the most anti-labor folks out there.

Craig states:

“There are a number of ways we can measure the impact of a strike on the companies, but a two week snapshot of their stock during a larger financial crisis isn’t one of them.”

No, not really. There’s been a change in the environment during that period. To think that is not reflected in pricing is to argue against an efficient market. And while such arguments are made all the time, for now, in this context, you’d have to understand what a beta adjusted floor means to have cred :-)

“That’s from an analyst friend of mine, but given that we’re talking about stocks, I have no doubt someone can find an analyst who disagrees.”

That’s crap. Invite him to post. I’d like to discuss with him. Honestly.

“Generally speaking, I wouldn’t hope for much optimism out of Wall Street. Shareholders are among the most anti-labor folks out there.”

Yikes.

Think about what you just said.

IF WALLSTREET IS ANIT-LABOR, THEN, STOCK SHOULD RISE.

And what have stocks done?

lt

Has no one here read DUNE?

He who can destroy the spice, controls the spice.

There are stockpiles, sure, but they won’t last forever … if the writers strike continues until next summer, what movies will be opening a year from then, summer 2009?

While it’s true that studios can withstand a couple of weeks … how much was lost during the five and a half month strike in 88?

Bring that number up to 2008 prices and we’re talking about real money.

You cannot look at the stock out of context. Regardless, you aren’t right. Just lame on both counts.

IF WALLSTREET IS ANIT-LABOR, THEN, STOCK SHOULD RISE.

Hysterical. So the behavior of wall street and the stock market can be explained by a simple sliding scale? Stock price is tied solely to wall streets labor proclivities. You must be a comedy writer.

Guess what…it’s f’ing complicated.

Stooge

Joshua:

Really…bring it up to 2008 prices?!?! What does that mean? Seriously…are you comparing 88 and potential 07/08 strike losses dollar for dollar? I would argue that it’s the opposite. Now studios and networks are backed by huge corporations with diverse interests (hello Sony…I love their TVs, don’t you?).

As for the wonderful spice analogy. I don’t really remember the Dune dynamic, but I can say that the writers have way less resources and every day of the strike depletes their resources just as much…dollar for dollar. Dollar means a lot less to Sony than it does to any WGA member. Try not to forget that. How much was lost for them? How much for each WGA member? Who needs it more? A living breathing person? Or 1/10th of a company’s business? Let me put it this way, in that Washington Monthly article about the 88 strike, they quoted some show creator as saying he lost $600k (I know…pennies today! hahaha…man, I mean that as a joke about not adjusting for inflation but its even a shit load NOW) and wondered whether it was worth “basically writing a $600k check.” That’s one dude.

Stooge

Silvertree said:

Instead of setting out unilaterally to create a sea change in the industry, you spend the 3 years leading up to the negotiations forging strong alliances with the other industry guilds and unions. That way, the threat of a strike will have substantially more teeth, and should a strike have to be called, no one will be wondering who will, and who won’t support it.

The AMPTP has spent considerable recourses dividing the unions/guilds into smaller more isolated entities just for this situation. They’ve insisted in ‘no strike’ clauses to protect them from industry wide solidarity.

Dan, I agree on all counts. Given that the three years leading up to the current strike are past and gone, the prep work cannot be done retroactively. So the WGA is left with the current situation and a strike that has to be prosecuted as effectively as possible under the conditions that currently obtain.

I still don’t see how a “dainty” strike that doesn’t aim to shut down production to the maximal extent from day one isn’t just a version of the death from a thousand cuts, slow torture to the people it’s intended to protect and win solidarity from. What am I missing?

Stooge,

Wow, you don’t read well, do ya?

No, I said imagine the total money lost in 88 (the number) and pro-rate that to the dollar value today … look at the number and ask, is that a number the studios want to or can afford to lose?

It ain’t that hard …

Dune’s obviously beyond ya, so don’t even bother.

Joshua,

But then you also need to pro-rate that by the exponential growth of the companies you’re talking about, which (I’m pretty sure) vastly outpaces inflation. And even then, I just don’t think it’s a useful comparison. Very difference business environment, changed corporate structures, etc.

Joshua James said:

Has no one here read DUNE?

He who can destroy the spice, controls the spice.

There are stockpiles, sure, but they won’t last forever … if the writers strike continues until next summer, what movies will be opening a year from then, summer 2009?

Flaws in the analogy.

First, there are no such things as scab sandworms, alternative interstellar navigation formats, or non-Arakkeen spice factories in the Dune universe. In the WGA-AMPTP universe, there are scab writers, alternative programming formats (reality, games, etc.), and foreign and independent sources of scripts and finished productions. So there’s no practical means to “destroy the spice” in this conflict — but you can force the AMPTP to tap into these other supplies and swear off the WGA spice forever.

Second, as AMPTP Stooge points out, a diversified multinational corporation is in a much better position to wait out a long strike than an individual screenwriter, unless that screenwriter is already independently wealthy. That doesn’t take into account the many, many other workers who are on forced hiatus from their paychecks due to the strike.

It’s important to remember that the objective of the strike is not to put the U.S. film and television industry out of business, but to disrupt it enough to prove to the industry companies that giving the WGA what it wants is cheaper in the long run than suffering an extended strike.

Stu, I agree that a strike threat is about gaining leverage. But if gaining that leverage in the short run leads the other side to take steps so that, in the near future, you will have significantly less leverage, then you’re winning a battle but losing a war. These CBAs are negotiated every 3 years — they aren’t lifetime deals.

And I never suggested that the WGA can conduct a strike that won’t cause other workers to suffer, or strain relations with other unions. It will. But it’s not a binary choice between cause suffering and not cause suffering. There are degrees of suffering and damage. What I’m saying is that, when the WGA starts doing things that are flea bites to the AMPTP but are likely to cause long-term damage to other parts of the entertainment workforce, then the writers are being foolish for a variety of reasons. I don’t think there is ANYTHING the WGA can do to the AMPTP to cause sufficient short term damage to make the AMPTP knuckle under. But the WGA can do things that will maximize the damage to other labor groups.

You bring up a Civil War analogy, so let’s consider that. Did Sherman’s March really end the war sooner? Maybe. Was the catastrophic civilian suffering and the long-term bitterness worth it? Probably not.

But back to your amputation analogy. Those Civil War docs knew they could cut that limb off if they tried, so it was in everyone’s interest for them to do it quickly. Are you so sure that the WGA has it in their power to make it a short strike? If you do, you’re one of the few.

My impression of the AMPTP is that they’ve been expecting a strike, and a very long one, for some time. I don’t think it’s possible, due to the nature of writer’s work, to do a quick and efficient strike. “how can the WGA effectively get negotiations restarted?” The wrong question is, “How can the WGA cause maximum pain and damage to the entertainment industry?”

Here’s my two cents — with a Wall Street perspective.

The Wall Street Journal is close to terminating the annual $99 subscription fee for its online edition. Yep. Free content. Like network TV.

The Journal is putting its money on pulling in millions more readers while pulling in millions more dollars from advertisers. On the Internet. That’s the future, which has already arrived.

The New York Times had been circulating its online version free, with the exception of the rantings of a few of its select madmen and madwomen. However, a pitifully small number of readers were willing to pay real dollars for the deranged expostulations of Paul Krugman, Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd. So what did the Time do? Cut the price to ZERO.

What followed? The Times claims readership of those screwball writers went from a couple of hundred thousand to 15 million.

Advertisers will notice.

There’s another indicator about to appear. A company by the name of NameMedia is about to go public. It is in the business of buying and selling Internet domain names. The value of domain names has soared in recent years, mostly because revenue spent on Internet advertising is beginning to soar.

If the company’s stock offering is successful, it will have a Billion-Dollar market capitalization. Again, the expected value reflects big increases in advertising revenue.

Bottom line: Internet rights are worth big bucks. Don’t let them slip away.

Joshua:

I don’t think you want to use ‘88 as a bellweather. First off, we lost that one. Secondly, we had total network jurisdiction back then…we don’t now, so companies will lose less money during a WGA strike (for instance, American Idol didn’t exist in ‘88). Thirdly, the companies were far more stand-alone in the 80’s.

They’re divisions now.

Lee:

I do believe in an efficient market. The problem for anyone trying to determine causality in stock prices is simply this: we’re in the middle of the subprime mortgage meltdown, which has a far greater impact on stock prices than a young labor action by writers.

We’re a wave. Subprime is a tsunami.

pimp-slapped agin!

Kevin said:

Stu, I agree that a strike threat is about gaining leverage. But if gaining that leverage in the short run leads the other side to take steps so that, in the near future, you will have significantly less leverage, then you’re winning a battle but losing a war. These CBAs are negotiated every 3 years — they aren’t lifetime deals.

My impression of the AMPTP is that they’ve been expecting a strike, and a very long one, for some time. I don’t think it’s possible, due to the nature of writer’s work, to do a quick and efficient strike. “how can the WGA effectively get negotiations restarted?” The wrong question is, “How can the WGA cause maximum pain and damage to the entertainment industry?”

Kevin, the realm of the strike threat is past. Now that the WGA is on strike, the most urgent concern is how to conduct the strike so that it creates the maximum leverage for the WGA at the bargaining table. Getting negotiations restarted is a necessary but insufficient condition for reaching a final agreement. The sufficient condition is for the positions of the two sides to meet at some point. If we truly believe that on Nov. 4, there was a gap between the maximum the AMPTP could offer and the minimum the WGA could accept, then the only way a contract can be settled — the ONLY way — is for one or both sides to stretch the outer limit of what it can offer or will accept.

The weapon of leverage-making that the WGA has deployed at this moment in time is the strike. It can be used efficiently and effectively for maximum leverage on the AMPTP, or it can be used inefficiently and ineffectively so that it merely causes pain and collateral damage but does not shorten the conflict.

If the strike cannot be used to create bargaining leverage, it shouldn’t be used; if the strike guarantees that the AMPTP will “pull out” of Hollywood before the next contract comes up so as to avoid dealing with the WGA ever again, then the strike is the wrong weapon to use. I don’t subscribe to either of those beliefs. I believe that the strike creates leverage — not necessarily enough to get the AMPTP to capitulate to all of the WGA’s demands, but enough to motivate the AMPTP to return to negotiations and improve its offers (we’ll see in a week or so if that belief is borne out). I also believe that the AMPTP doesn’t see labor unrest as so pernicious that it will abandon Hollywood and Manhattan for Vancouver, Toronto, Charlotte, and Bucharest — it’s already in all those places, but still finds reasons to continue doing business in Southern California and New York City.

If the WGA maintains jurisdiction over scripted entertainment on all delivery platforms and keeps a position as the monopolistic supplier of professionally-written scripts by US writers, the AMPTP will continue to do business with it in order to gain access to that product. (It probably makes more sense for the WGA to keep its focus on that sector of writing rather than to compete with other unions to organize reality and game show writers.) But I do agree that there is a limit to how much disruption any business can tolerate before it has to seek alternative supplies with lower costs and higher reliability.

Craig, you wrote:

“We’re a wave. Subprime is a tsunami.”

Subprime is far more a media monster than a real financial crisis. Much worse was an earlier episode. The nation went down a similar road before, in The Savings & Loan Crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was the real deal.

The Subprime tumult can largely solve itself. Government intervention is an unlikely necessity, which makes the brouhaha a great one for politicians to jabber about.

Anyway, a near calamity in the financial sector of the US economy is unrelated to labor trouble in the entertainment industry. It would be hard to find two situations with less correlation.

All irrelevant, however. The Internet rights are worth billions.

I like the spice analogy - sometimes I think of us as Alchemists, trying to create pure Plutonium out of nothing more than thin air, or common dirt from our backyards.

No_slappz:

You may be right. It’s possible that subprime is much ado about nothing. Nonetheless, it seems to have impacted the stock market pretty seriously.

no_slappz said:

The Wall Street Journal is close to terminating the annual $99 subscription fee for its online edition. Yep. Free content. Like network TV.

The Journal is putting its money on pulling in millions more readers while pulling in millions more dollars from advertisers. On the Internet. That’s the future, which has already arrived.

Fun fact quiz question: Who’s the new owner of The Wall Street Journal?

Yes, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which also owns Fox. Pretty clear what he thinks of the future of the Internet.

Yeah, WSJ and New York Times are loving every minute of the internet. LA Times especially. Do your homework. These companies have been devastated. You think these papers like dealing with 1000’s of new competitors like Drudge, to name one? Btw, a little thing like Craigs List has laid waste to the classified sections where print media made more money than you can imagine. Revenues crashed. News rooms have been slashed. Reporting sucks for a very good reason. That’s the future of the internet. Less jobs and less money. Woo hoo! Rob Long. Go check him out.

Billions, maybe. Divided not by 10-15 or whatever AMPTP is made of, but 1000s.

You must be kidding.

Stooge

Stu, this is my last response in our exchange, because I don’t think our thoughts are that far apart, and also because I’m annoyed that you continue to reframe whatever I say into some silly extreme, like

if the strike guarantees that the AMPTP will “pull out” of Hollywood before the next contract comes up so as to avoid dealing with the WGA ever again…

Ain’t what I said nor implied, by friend. To make it really, really clear, the AMPTP doesn’t have to “pull out of Hollywood” to make the potential impact of future WGA strikes even less than it is now.

Put yourself in the position of one of those money sucking moguls (or, if you prefer, a thoughtful entertainment exec trying to do his job). You look at your business model and you see that one crucial union has repeatedly disrupted the industry, three times in 20 years. Each time it’s caused major damage to your business, and made your life miserable. And now, in this latest iteration of labor disruption, the union has upped the ante by first waging a bitter “corporate campaign” and then disrupting local productions where that union’s work was already finished.

Do you just laugh and accept it as part of the business? Or do you decide that, in advance of that union’s next CBA negotiation, you’re going to make sure your local productions aren’t local anymore. Hey, if you’re filming in Vancouver or the Czech Republic, then your actors aren’t going to have to worry about those embarassing picket lines, and it doesn’t matter what the Teamsters think.

And maybe you decide you don’t want your movies being directed by members of that union, since hyphenates are potential liabilities.

And maybe you greenlight even more shows outside that union’s jurisdiction, so you have lots of game shows and reality shows and animation.

And maybe you take a new approach with showrunners, and throw tons and tons of money at them, but only in the form of producer’s fees, and pay them scale for their writing work, so they’re that much more management than writers. Or you stop letting showrunners have quite so much power, and start shifting more to a feature film model in television, with someone other than the head writer being responsible for every last thing in the show.

Maybe you even start cultivating writers outside Hollywood.

And maybe I’m smoking crack, and no one at the AMPTP will think of any of these things, and after the strike all the work that is going out of town will return, and the viewing public will demand that they get more scripted TV, and sugar-plum fairies will paint my toe nails while I sleep…

stuiec,

Murdoch obviously sees great value in the Internet. He sells the NY Post for 25 cents on the news-stand and gives it away free on the Internet. Advertisers pay the freight.

The Internet rights are worth a big fight.

I was in 8th grade when our school got the apple 2. I still can remember life without computer. Weird, and to think Mr. Murdoch was only a 100 back then.
On the subject of productions moving out of LA. I have a friend in Halifax, Canada who is a location scout.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/5170a2b91b (a great video short of Halifax on funnyordie)

He was telling me that with the weakened dollar it’s cheaper to shoot in the US now. I just can’t see it saving them a whole lot of money in getting writers up in Canada if it is now more expensive to shoot there. Plus it’s cold.

AMPTP Stooge, you wrote:

“Yeah, WSJ and New York Times are loving every minute of the internet.”

They are adjusting because they have no choice.

You wrote:

“LA Times especially. Do your homework. These companies have been devastated.”

Devastated? No. Hit? Yes. If they were devastated they’d be gone. Meanwhile, there has been an increase in the number of free advertiser-supported papers. We’re seeing a revolution in all aspects of media, and the Internet is driving it. But it’s not destroying the connection between consumers and creaters.

You wrote:

“You think these papers like dealing with 1000’s of new competitors like Drudge, to name one?”

Advertisers are stepping up. The Internet makes it possible to segment markets while reaching larger numbers of consumers. Though there is pain in the adjustment process the adjustments are underway.

You wrote:

“Btw, a little thing like Craigs List has laid waste to the classified sections where print media made more money than you can imagine.”

Soon Craigs List will go public. It will change, get much bigger and attract huge ad revenue. Craig does not have incontestable ownership rights to the hearts and minds of the world’s eyeballs. Competition for Craig is increasing and soon enough some smart young guy will hit on the strategy that cuts way into Craig’s business. Always happens, eventually.

Craig,

“We won’t know what the real effect on stock will be for at least another month. Maybe two. That’s from an analyst friend of mine, but given that we’re talking about stocks, I have no doubt someone can find an analyst who disagrees.”

So you openly acknowledge that this is a matter of interpretation, and can be read many ways… but you’re choosing to read it in a way that makes Verrone look foolish and the strike look ineffectual.

At least this time you admit that your “source” is unreliable. I’d have to call that progress.

Kevin said:

And maybe I’m smoking crack, and no one at the AMPTP will think of any of these things, and after the strike all the work that is going out of town will return, and the viewing public will demand that they get more scripted TV, and sugar-plum fairies will paint my toe nails while I sleep…

I WOULD be interested in an A.M. report on the color of your toenails…

Look, if the AMPTP is tired of dealing with the WGA, the problem (a) runs deeper than the specific fact of this strike, and (b) won’t be ameliorated by conducting the strike “nicely” or “gently” (unless you feel the strike should be reduced to merely informational picketing). The strike should be conducted for maximum bargaining leverage and should focus on the economic goals and not the dubious emotional gratification of “sticking it to the moguls” or “forcing them to give us the respect we deserve.”

The counter-steps you describe are all real possibilities. However, the AMPTP might go ahead and do any or all of those things regardless of WGA activism simply because they find them expedient. (Besides the WGA, there are other unions whose influence and expense the AMPTP might wish to escape.)

But as long as the WGA can get studios and production companies to sign up to the WGA contract, and enforce closed-shop rules that essentially require new talent hired by the studios to become WGA members, it can control a valuable resource — admittedly not a perfectly indispensible resource, but certainly one that the AMPTP can’t swear off all that easily. I agree that the WGA should not assume that the AMPTP can’t survive without WGA writers, but I don’t think the situation is as brittle as you describe.

Certainly there remains a demand for scripted entertainment. People still want to hear stories told to them from time to time, in addition to observing “reality” unfold before them, seeing people win contests of skill or luck, and watching music or sports performances. Good storytellers have a skill that deserves compensation, because it’s a vital motor in the machine that turns those stories into filmed entertainment, and it’s pretty apparent that people skilled at telling stories in the specific form of a screenplay or teleplay are relatively rare.

The relationship between the WGA and the AMPTP is definitely symbiotic — recall that a symbiotic can be mutualistic, commensal or parasitic. It would be wonderful if both sides decided to recognize it as a mutualistic relationship that benefits both sides, so that labor and management could focus on expanding the business and creating more and better entertainment for the paying public. If the two sides can have that epiphany at the bargaining table on Nov. 26, maybe they can decide that the strike has served its purpose and is no longer needed as a tool of leverage. If they don’t have that epiphany, if they continue to view the relationship as parasitic (where the AMPTP thinks the WGA is trying to bleed it dry and the WGA thinks that the AMPTP has excess cash of which it is depriving the WGA of a well-deserved share), then the strike may drag on a while longer.

Well according to the internets, the strike has put a halt to Justice League, Edwin A. Salt, Angels and Demons, and Oliver Stone’s Pinkville, among others. Doesn’t sound ineffectual to me.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/34829

I’m sure that most of us who voted to authorize the strike still hoped it would be avoided and feel compassion for those with no vote who were put out of work in its wake. I’ll repeat that I followed Clooney’s lead and made a donation to the Actor’s Fund, not to tout my own generosity, but in the hopes it will encourage others to follow suit. Surely, enough won’t be raised to cover every crew member or assistant’s late mortgage or rent payment but it would add up if everyone who cast a S.A.V. could contribute something.

I haven’t heard from many in the WGA who think in terms of “bringing the studios to their knees” so much as attempting to cause some discomfort and disruption in order to force a genuine negotiation rather than dictated terms. I think this is occurring to some degree and also, like in any confrontation, in some unexpected ways. The AMPTP likely didn’t anticipate the strike happening so quickly, the showrunners’ unity that provided the networks fewer episodes to stave off any noticeable break in continuity or the creative community’s ability to launch so swiftly into cyberspace with funny and persuasive arguments for their position. I personally think it’s the latter that likely made the AMPTP the most queasy. Such a fast and furious romance between the talent and the audience without them playing chaperone must have raised the odd hair.

Are any of these events going to destroy The Companies, force them to cave, capitulate, roll over, etc.? Of course not. The tireless monologues about the AMPTP’s deep pockets and ability to withstand extended work stoppages are tediously correct, at least in an economic sense. But do they want to? I just don’t think so. A long strike by those that provide the basic blueprint for what they sell is something that’s difficult to account or predict for and causes, at the very least, an uncomfortable degree of economic uncertainty. Corporations don’t like uncertainty. Sure, there are some immediate benefits, dumping deals, reducing labor costs that could buoy stock prices in the short term but further down the road things get a bit murkier. Over time that kind of murkiness doesn’t help anyone sell shares and could embolden opportunistic upstarts from the Silicon Valleys of the world to poach their audience.

Some in the AMPTP camp make it sound like there are so many talented scabs and cheap, fantastic shows and scripts to be had from overseas it would be crazy for the Companies to remain in business with the WGA at all. But the studios like the status quo, not only because they feel the WGA still represents the greatest concentration of motion picture and television literary talent and experience in the world but also simply because it is the status quo. A long work stoppage forces everyone in the business to reevaluate positions, relationships and structures, bridges are burned and there’s just no guaranteeing that it all falls back together again just the way everyone would like it too.

Sure, Jeffery Immelt’s life would be fairly unaffected if NBC never produced another TV program but Ben Silverman’s would. Sony might be happy enough just churning out TVs but what about Amy Pascal? Even someone like AMPTP Stooge, prone to the occasional Dog Chapman-like slip of nasty contempt for writers, is probably being honest when he says he loves his job. Probably beats working in an insurance company or law firm. There are hundreds of executives in the industry who are in it because they want to make movies and TV shows, not sit at home and cheer a battle of slow, gruesome attrition from their hillside fortresses. I believe the things that are actually going to make the difference will not necessarily be measurable in stock price, add make-goods or gates picketed and productions disrupted. It’s going to be an emotional desire to get back to doing what we all came here to do with as fair an arrangement as can be tolerated.

Whether the AMPTP’s intransigent position was a result of the strategy employed by Verrone and Young or vice versa can be endlessly debated but likely never proven. The one thing that is certain is that on November 4th both sides preferred their current positions to a deal and that’s why we are where we are. I can only hope that the negotiations have been restarted because t